{"id":5878,"date":"2006-01-03T08:47:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-03T08:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html"},"modified":"2006-01-03T08:47:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-03T08:47:00","slug":"christian-culture-quandaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html","title":{"rendered":"Christian Culture Quandaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a reader, a religious order priest, who ran across an old column of mine reflecting on our trip to Quebec several years ago: Christian Culture: What’s It Good For?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

I am writing to you because I experienced last summer the same contrast between my visits to Montreal\u2019s magnificient churches and the spirit of modern Quebec society. In those pilgrim sites, I felt that uncanny sense of being at home that most Catholics experience in Catholic churches in foreign lands.  They were islands of the familiar.  <\/p>\n

But modern Quebec left me cold as does most of contemporary western Europe.  There are good reasons for this, though.  Like you, I have a real interest in questions of culture, and religion.  In seminary I loaded up on sociology courses. It was an intellectually rich time.  Among the best books I recall from that time addressed the issue of modern secularism in the most compelling way while accounting for the fairly intense religiosity of Americans.  Jose Casanova\u2019s Public Religions in the Modern World <\/span><\/em>observes that where religion was identified with the state (the formerly Catholic nations, the British Commonwealth, and Scandinavian countries),  it has died. Conversely, where religious participation has been an _expression of the individual\u2019s personal experience(most notably the US, and to some degree African and Asian Christianity), it continues to thrive.  The only cases where a quasi-statist church has thrived is when it is a force against a foreign oppression : Ireland, Poland, Chile, the Philipeans among others).  In these cases, the quasi-statist religion usually goes through a precipitous collapse when the oppression is ended.  This is clearly happening in all of the nations listed.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Quebec is one of the finest examples of the last category.  The Church was the bastion of French identity and the protector and prophet of the rights of the Quebequois until after WWII.  When such a protector and prophet was no longer needed in Canada, the Church in Quebec which had controlled all educational and medical institutions, suddenly became just another statist religion with far to much control over secular affairs.  The quiet revolution of the late 1960\u2019s saw the nationalization of every institution in Quebec which was not specifically a parish or a shrine.  The revolt against the former dominance of the Church in all public affairs in Quebec is still going on.<\/p>\n

So, your question Christian Culture, What is it good for? Is an excellent one.  It clearly is not good as a dominant force over society, but it can be a leaven which no other element in society can provide.  This is Jesus\u2019 metaphor.  Curiously, both Soviet communism and a number of instances of rightist dictatorship were defeated by movements of the human spirit which were both intensely cultural and intensely Christian.  The falls of some of the most oppressive and violent regimes including Marcos, Pinochet, Duvalier and the Soviet Union were all accomplished without bloodshed (or nearly so) in massive popular outpourings of courage and hope all happened in Catholic nations.  Ghandi would have been jealous of such large scale non-violent insurrections of justice over oppression.  He had never been so successful in achieving his preached vision.  <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Those are arguably isolated and modern cases which one could dismiss.  Perhaps the best way to see some value in a Christian culture is to see some of the negative effects of modern secular society.  But, as you have said, that is another article, or book.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This note reminded me of something else: a blog post from a while back from Barbara Nicolosi, reflecting on her trip to Spain:<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

For me, it was such a stunning blend of the sacred with the secular. I was actually a little scandalized by the way Our Blessed Mother was draped in a soccer banner in the basilica. But that is my sick American "separation of faith and state" problem. I don’t think she has a problem with it at all. In fact, I think the Divine was surely smiling down at all the people bringing their children to be photographed next to the Madonna of Pilar, up there wearing Zaragossa’s team colors. (I bought a nice sized Our Lady of Pilar statue and brought it home. Tonight I am going to have a ritual ceremony of draping her in a Boston Red Sox T-shirt…oh, some of you think I am kidding…)<\/p>\n

This leads me to what became the central paradox I chewed over as we moved from gorgeous churches in El Escoriel to to Madrid to Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Everywhere I go here in the States, I whine and complain that we need beauty in our churches. I see it as a necessary component to weathering life in a holy way "in this valley of tears." So, here’s the problem. Europe is chock-full of beauty in their churches, but they have mostly lost their faith.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

So, what does that say about my theories about the urgent relationship between aestethical\/liturgical beauty and faith? Maybe it is good that we Americans are surrounded by ugliness in our churches? Somebody help…<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a reader, a religious order priest, who ran across an old column of mine reflecting on our trip to Quebec several years ago: Christian Culture: What’s It Good For? I am writing to you because I experienced last summer the same contrast between my visits to Montreal\u2019s magnificient churches and the spirit of modern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChristian Culture Quandaries - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christian Culture Quandaries - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From a reader, a religious order priest, who ran across an old column of mine reflecting on our trip to Quebec several years ago: Christian Culture: What’s It Good For? I am writing to you because I experienced last summer the same contrast between my visits to Montreal\u2019s magnificient churches and the spirit of modern…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-01-03T08:47:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Christian Culture Quandaries - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Christian Culture Quandaries - Via Media","og_description":"From a reader, a religious order priest, who ran across an old column of mine reflecting on our trip to Quebec several years ago: Christian Culture: What’s It Good For? I am writing to you because I experienced last summer the same contrast between my visits to Montreal\u2019s magnificient churches and the spirit of modern…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-01-03T08:47:00+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html","name":"Christian Culture Quandaries - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-01-03T08:47:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-01-03T08:47:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/christian-culture-quandaries.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Christian Culture Quandaries"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}