Culture

We shall take a look at each of the wagons - each section of the society represented in the big cone - until we reach the locomotive. The European society consists of Christians and a majority of non-Christians/nominal Christians (‘Christians’ is defined here as ‘born-again’/c.q. real/true Christians.) Society is completely determined by culture. In Europe culture is quite often anti-Christian, or in any case post-Christian. Sometimes it is even completely amorphous. This non- or anti-feeling is dominant in many layers of society, because the majority is non-Christian. Nowadays the message of culture so often is diametrically opposed to the message of the Kingdom of God. The result is that people do not accept the latter. This problem in only enlarged by the ‘language’-problem of Christians and non-Christians: the Christian jargon causes failures in communication. Moreover, Christians have avoided culture over the recent periods and locked themselves away in their ghettos. They have left cultural leadership to the ‘enemy’(the forces of secularization). This process has been going on for approximately 200 years now, and the results are obvious: rejection of Christian alternatives is a common thing. Furthermore, active Christians look upon the people around them as merely objects for evangelizing instead of people whom they have to live with. Society as a whole is opposed to this kind of arrogance. Finally, Christians have neglected the command to ‘govern’ over this world with compassion (so there has been regrettable exploitation). We can clearly distinguish a line of development in our culture. Culture is not static but dynamic; it is moving. In which direction is this culture going and who determines where it goes?