The Cultural Responsibility of Christians

Extract

We must begin by recognising this fact: the Church is not concerned about culture. The Church can only be defined by her fidelity to a mission—that which was given by her founder. And this mission is not a command to be cultured, it is to save. “How is a man the better for it, if he gains the whole world at the cost of losing his own soul?” As for that “soul”, we must lose it if we would gain it. All the riches of the world, the triumphs of the flesh as well as the triumphs of the spirit, count for nothing in the kingdom of God, which is for the poor. We should be more than happy to sell everything in order to gain that single pearl. Go, teach, baptise. Not “baptise” Plato or Aristotle, literature or art, the community or the human personality, but baptise (without inverted commas) all mankind. It is not a matter of “assuming values”: it is rather the salvation of our brethren.

“So it was, brethren, that when I came to you and preached Christ’s message to you, I did so without any high pretensions to eloquence, or to philosophy. I had no thought of bringing you any other knowledge than that of Jesus Christ, and of him as crucified”. (I Cor. 3. i-v).