Christianity And Culture Quotes & Sayings
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To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it. — Daniel Quinn

The most critical of these new religious developments for twentieth-century religious liberalism were a renewed and transformed emphasis on mystical practice and experience, the healing ministry known as mind cure, and the rise of modern psychology. These three interrelated spiritual innovations spread as significant components of popular religion in large part through the mass print media. Rather than religious movements dependent on revivalism or church life, these were first and foremost discourses, creatures of the printed word. Initially explored only by an avant-garde of liberal intellectuals late in the nineteenth century, the new books and ideas emerging at the margins of liberal Protestantism eventually reached a nation-wide middle-class audience. The mass media unleashed by nineteenth-century evangelicalism enabled the alternative spiritualities of the twentieth century to flourish, especially with the rise of religious middlebrow culture in the decades after World War I. — Matthew Hedstrom

In this way, the Church was a true reflection of the whole of Russian society. The KGB and the Russian people had penetrated each other to such an extent that they could not be separated. The culture of betrayal and suspicion and distrust that the KGB relied on had become part of the national culture, poisoning politics in the 1990s and beyond: decades of corruption, murder and sordid sex scandals. If it cannot purge itself, however, the Russian nation will never rid itself of the illness that has driven people to alcohol. Russians need to trust each other again. — Oliver Bullough

Christians risk becoming utterly irrelevant in their own culture if they continue to seperate people into "We the Saved" and "They the Damned". Again, I ask, do we need Jesus to protect us from God? Is that what Christianity as we've known is about? Are we saved from God by God? — Carlton D. Pearson

We were to have enough Christianity to fight the Communists and save the Republic, as long as we didn't take it all too seriously. We weren't there to carry a cross; we were there to earn a badge. We weren't to be about Christ and kingdom, just God and country. This notion of Christian America stood in the backdrop of the culture wars of the last generation. — Russell D. Moore

The establishment of Protestant Christianity was one not only of law, but also, and far more importantly, of culture. Christianity supplied the nation with it's system of values. — Gary DeMar

The future is already won, and the more hostile the culture, the easier it is to communicate the difference of Christianity. — Timothy Keller

Yes, the kingdom of Christianity and the Church has been one of the most destructive forces in history, and there are levels of bastardization of religious beliefs. But the unique thing about Christianity is that it is so amorphous and not reductive to culture or place or anything. It's extremely malleable. — Sufjan Stevens

There can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school-room is either moral or it is a degrading force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence my argument is as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the American Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot be teacher. — Robert Dabney

Henceforth we find woman no longer a slave of man and tool of lust, but the pride and joy of her husband, the fond mother training her children to virtue and godliness, the ornament and treasure of the family, the faithful sister, the zealous servant of the congregation in every work of Christian charity, the sister of mercy, the martyr with superhuman courage, the guardian angel of peace, the example of purity, humility, gentleness, patience, love, and fidelity unto death. Such women were unknown before. The heathen Libanius, the enthusiastic eulogist of old Grecian culture, pronounced an involuntary eulogy on Christianity when he exclaimed, as he looked at the mother of Chrysostom: "What women the Christians have! — Philip Schaff

Those evangelicals who have been raised and shaped by forms of Christianity that are roughly "fundamentalist" will either: a. become taken with the modern moral order and thus sort of replay the excarnational development of modernity, just now a few centuries later, sort of catching up with the wider culture; so under the guise of the "emerging church" or "progressive" evangelicalism, we'll be set on a path to something like Protestant liberalism, a new deism; or b. recognize the disenchantment and excarnation of evangelical Protestantism, and also reject the Christianized subtraction stories of liberal Christianity, and feel the pull of more incarnational spiritualities, and thus move toward more "Catholic" expressions of faith - and these expressions of faith will actually exert more pull on those who have doubts about their "closed" take on the immanent frame. — James K.A. Smith

We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by, and excessive. Our culture says anything goes; fear of God is almost unheard of. We are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry. — Francis Chan

In all poor countries, where general culture is not very advanced, monasteries give to the masses the silence, poetry and music, for which their souls unconsciously yearn. As soon, however, as a people grows prosperous, educates itself and finds its own distractions, the need for convents or monasteries disappears. Simple-minded folk imagine that the suppression of the religious orders means the decay of Christianity - but they forget that monasteries existed in India and in China, long before the birth of Christ. Christianity did not invent them, but the monasteries of the time gradually adopted the new faith. Actually, all such institutions are quite contrary to Christian ideals, for Christ's teaching, above all else, enjoins activity. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. — Neil Postman

Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As American culture changes, the scandal of Christianity is increasingly right up front, exactly where it was in the first century. The shaking of American culture will get us back to the question Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi: "Who do you say that I am?" As the Bible Belt recedes, those left standing up for Jesus will be those who, like Simon Peter of old, know how to answer that question. Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than "What would Jesus do?" moralism and the "I vote values" populism to which we've grown accustomed. Good. — Russell D. Moore

There are certain roles in our society deemed necessary to advocate social, economic, political and, or ecological preservation. However, never feel the calling to exponent spiritual salvation through Jesus Christ is unworthy in itself, or less then. The Gospel doesn't necessitate a revolution, or rebellion; precept, or edict generated through culture popularity, or insecurities to validate it's power. God's word is strong enough to standard alone! Though it is honorable to link the power of Christ to a particular cause, Jesus is seeking vessel's who are unashamed to share His "unadulterated" Gospel, allowing the purity of His message to heal, restore and provide! — Angela Monique Crudupt

One of the gifts of the Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has taught Christians to think like Jews, and any modern man who has not learned to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think at all. — William E. Rees

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God. — Richard Rohr

When those who feel a need to distance themselves from Christianity are asked why, Mumford and other millennials cite several reasons. At the top of the list is weariness over the association of right-wing politics with mainstream Christianity. The "culture of Christianity" that Mumford and others want no part of tends to trace directly back to this association. In the realm of politics, millennials have culture-war fatigue. — Scott Sauls

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture. But it is not biblical Christianity. — David Platt

Modernity has abandoned the household gods, not because we have rejected the idolatry as all Christians must, but because we have rejected the very idea of the household. We no longer worship Vesta, but have only turned away from her because our homes no longer have any hearths. Now we worship Motor Oil. If our rejection of the old idols were Christian repentance, God would bless it, but what is actually happening is that we are sinking below the level of the ancient pagans. But when we turn to Christ in truth, we find that He has ordained every day of marriage as a proclamation of his covenant with the church. A man who embraces what is expected of him will find a good wife and a welcoming hearth. He who loves his wife loves himself. — Douglas Wilson

Society has become well versed in the methods necessary to weaken the radicalism of the Gospel by reducing Christianity to what is viewed as reasonable by the logic of the market and by a culture committed to a largely post-Christian, consumerist vision of human life. Thus the disruptive character of Christianity is silenced and Christian spirituality is repackaged as a soothing therapeutic exercise that serves the needs of a culture committed above all else to the enjoyment of consumer activities. — Matthew T Eggemeier

On the rare occasion that someone does invite a Muslim to his or her home, differences in culture and hospitality may make the Muslim feel uncomfortable, and the host must be willing to ask, learn, and adapt to overcome this. There are simply too many barriers for Muslim immigrants to understand Christians and the West by sheer circumstance. Only the exceptional blend of love, humility, hospitality, and persistence can overcome these barriers, and not enough people make the effort. — Nabeel Qureshi

Because cultures and languages are constantly changing and because the apostolic testimony must be attested in ever-new circumstances, it is a necessary feature of the apostolic tradition that it both guard the original testimony and make it understandable in new culture settings. Failing either is to default on the apostolic tradition. Far from implying unbending immobility, apostolicity requires constant adaptation of the primitive apostolic testimony to new historical challenges and languages, yet without altering or diluting the primitive witness. — Thomas C. Oden

Christianity brings to fulfilment and completion imperfect and partial insights about reality, scattered abroad in human culture. Tolkien gave Lewis a lens, a way of seeing things, which — Alister E. McGrath

... Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. — John Lennon

Ask me if Christianity (my version of it, yours, the Pope's, whoever's) is orthodox, meaning true, and here's my honest answer: a little, but not yet. Assuming by Christianity you mean the Christian understanding of the world and God, Christian opinions on soul, text, and culture I'd have to say that we probably have a couple of things right, but a lot of things wrong, and even more spreads before us unseen and unimagined. But at least our eyes are open! To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall. — Brian D. McLaren

In addition to this there is the pluralization of the world in which we live through the division between public and private spheres, and also the plurality of institutions within the public sphere. Each of them forms a world in itself, so that individuals have to move to and fro between different worlds. The integration of this plurality of aspects of the world, which used to be achieved by religion, no longer takes place in the public world of secular culture but has to be achieved by the individual. The basis of this is meant to be the private sphere of life, the world of the family. But in many cases this cannot stand up to the burdens imposed by modern life. The growth of urban living has contributed to an increase of pluralization in the private sphere also, making the task of integration increasingly difficult. — Wolfhart Pannenberg

If Christians continue to rely on emotion and ignore evidence, they will continue to lose their children to secularism. As Ravi Zacharias points out, a tepid Christianity cannot withstand a rabid secularism. And make no mistake-secularism is rabid. The world isn't neutral out there. Today's culture is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. — Frank Turek

Another way to describe the dilemma for religious faith is that pluralism creates social conditions in which God is no longer an inevitability. While it is possible to believe in God, one has to work much harder at it because the framework of belief is no longer present to sustain it. The presumption of God and of his active presence in the world cannot be easily sustained because the most important symbols of social, economic, political, and aesthetic life no longer point to him. God is simply less obvious than he once was, and for most no longer obvious at all - quite the opposite. — James Davison Hunter

In this essay I reflect upon this topic of Christian culture in its relation to the church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ and to the heritage and future of the Reformed Christianity so energetically championed by Calvin and Kuyper. Contrary to much contemporary Reformed wisdom
though consistent, I believe, with the spirit of what I learned from Bob Godfrey
I suggest that we have good biblical reason to speak of "Christian culture" with respect to the church and to reassert boldly the preeminence of the church for our understanding of Christian piety. A consideration of Calvin and Kuyper compels us to ponder whether we are seeking a Christianity that is primarily of our own extrapolation (in our cultural endeavors of commerce, art, science, etc.) or that is primarily of Christ's own giving (in the life, ministry, and worship of the church). The better answer, I argue, is the latter. — David VanDrunen

We live in a culture that embraces pluralism and relativism, and we are told every (lay that proselytizing people or trying to convert people to Christianity is taboo. But the Lord Himself was sent by the Father to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), and He passed the baton to His disciples. — R.C. Sproul

Moreover, behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life, there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture. — Christopher Dawson

We've seen how beautiful it can be to follow Jesus into this new way of being human. But one of the things I love most about Jesus is how much He loves humanity in its brokenness. If He was surrounded by fractured people then, why would we expect it to be any different now? I actually think it is a larger mistake when we Christians attempt to pretend that our lives are more together than they really are in order to "manage our image" before the broader culture. Come look at our perfect church and our perfect family. And if you join us, maybe one day you, too, can have a perfect life! That kind of spin is a breeding ground for disappointment. — Jonathan Martin

We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly. — T. S. Eliot

One cannot worship the false god of nationalism and the God of Christianity at the same time. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. ... In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society. — Antonio Gramsci

Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country] ... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years. — Adolf Hitler

The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way - the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money. — Timothy Keller

Albania's future is towards Christianity, since it is connected with it culturally, old memories, and its pre-Turkish nostalgia. With the passing of time, the late Islamic religion that came with the Ottomans should evaporate (at first in Albania and then in Kosova), until it will be replaced by Christianity or, to be more exact, Christian culture. Thus from one evil (the prohibition of religion in 1967) goodness will come. The Albanian nation will make a great historical correction that will accelerate its unity with its mother continent: Europe — Ismail Kadare

Christianity in our country is a lot like what the Ducksters profess. No longer doctrinaire or demanding, the mishmash of pop-religion practiced in churches across America is an extension of the therapeutic culture: festooned with feelings, mostly misdirected. Untempered by intelligent interpretation of scripture ... American pop-theology: light on doctrine, heavy on hellfire and damnation. — Ilana Mercer

At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay. — N. T. Wright

I'm learning to practice gratitude for a healthy body, even if it's rounder than I'd like it to be. I'm learning to take up all the space I need, literally and figuratively, even though we live in a world that wants women to be tiny and quiet. To feed one's body, to admit one's hunger, to look one's appetite straight in the eye without fear or shame - this is controversial work in our culture. Part of being a Christian means practicing grace in all sorts of big and small and daily ways, and my body gives me the opportunity to demonstrate grace, to make peace with imperfection every time I see myself in the mirror. On my best days, I practice grace and patience with myself, knowing that I can't extend grace and patience if I haven't tasted it. — Shauna Niequist

Southern culture has fostered a type of imagination that has been influenced by Christianity of a not too unorthodox kind and by a strong devotion to the Bible, which has kept our minds attached to the concrete and the living symbol. — Flannery O'Connor

There is no problem with the wider culture that you cannot see in the spades in the Christian Church. The rot is in us, and not simple out there. And Christians are making a great mistake by turning everything into culture wars. It's a much deeper crisis. — Os Guinness

It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe
until recently
have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all of our thought has significance. An individual European may not believe that the Christian faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does will all spring out of his heritage of Christian culture and depend upon that culture for its meaning ... I do not believe that culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian faith. And I am convinced of that, not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as a student of social biology. If Christianity goes, the whole culture goes. — T. S. Eliot

Such rich features of Calvin's ecclesiology highlight how his work of reform was in large respect a reform of ecclesiastical culture. One can only imagine how differently the citizen of Geneva must have experienced the church before and after its reformation. Under Calvin's vision, as implemented in Geneva, Christianity now entailed a very different kind of worship, a very different place of word and sacraments, a very different idea of ecclesiastical discipline, and a very different conception of ecclesiastical government. This was a reformed Christianity, and a reformed Christianity meant a reformed church. — David VanDrunen

True Christianity cuts across all other religions and creates its own culture. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

The dynamism and freedom that characterizes the West is the product of Christianity's reforming itself and moving forward culturally. The ascendancy of the West is the story of the difference that Christianity makes, and it's a story we can't let our culture forget. — Charles Colson

The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place. — Pope John Paul II

The legacy of our culture's image-smashing (a powerful part of the Puritan world) is secularization - though now replete with its own images. If we fail to give a proper account of the role that images play in Christianity, the result will not be a Christianity with no images, but simply the dominance of cultural images and a subtle conformity to the world. The only image that needs to be discarded is the one we have of ourselves as God. We are not He. Worship God. Give honor to whom honor is due. It — Stephen Freeman

To challenge humanism in any field, you must possess a uniquely biblical view of God, man, law, and time. — Gary North

Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray. — Pope John Paul II

Christianity began in Palestine as an experience, it moved to Greece and became a philosophy, it moved to Italy and became an institution, it moved to Europe and became a culture, and it moved to America and became a business! We've left the experience long behind. — Paul Smith

How shortsighted and how uncultured, then, are the efforts of believers in Christ when they seek for snatches of worldly culture for themselves by placing themselves, as they think, on common ground with those who are not believers in Christ. How dishonoring to their Christ if they allow that any culture endures unless it be because of the power of his resurrection in the world. If you have been taken out of the miry clay, do you jump back into it because of some glistening objects that you see in it? Do you run back into the house now almost burned to the ground in order to save your silverware? It is only those who are believers in Christ that will inherit the earth and all the fulness thereof. — Cornelius Van Til

This notion of the centrality of the church ... could hardly be more pertinent to the perennial question of "Christian culture" and our evaluation of the great figures such as Calvin and Kuyper. Hearing the words "Christian culture" may evoke visions of godly emperors, medieval Madonnas, or Bach cantatas. None of which are really about the church. Or perhaps the phrase "Christian culture" resonates with contemporary Reformed buzzwords like "world and life view," "transformation," and "kingdom vision"
all of which, I fear, are often enlisted in the service of convincing Reformed youth that it is a mistake to think of the church as central to the Christian life. — David VanDrunen

There is a difference between a church that prays and a praying church. One has prayer programs. The other develops a prayer culture. — Daniel Henderson

It is the ideology of cultural and religious indifference, which denies the transcendent origin of the moral values that form the basis of our civilisation, and therefore implies the irrelevance of religion. Multiculturalism is the choice not to have a culture, because choosing a culture implicitly means to choose a religion. It is the assertion that Christianity, or any religious faith, is irrelevant and can be easily and harmlessly disposed of, because a supposedly "secular set of values" is ready to take its place. — Giorgio Roversi

One thing is certain: Nothing will set you apart from culture more than the exclusive claims of Christianity. And it is here that we must intentionally set ourselves apart-because if we do not, we will have no message for the world! — R. Kent Hughes

But there shouldn't be a clash between "God's Truth" and "more loving." In the Bible, Truth and Love are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. God's Truth is all about God's Love for us and the Love we ought to have for one another. We are being untrue to that Truth if we treat people unlovingly. And we are missing out on the full extent of that Love if we try to divorce it from Ultimate Truth. We Christians must work to repair this schism in the church. If the church is to survive much longer in our culture, it must teach and model the Christianity of Jesus - a faith that combines Truth and Love in the person of Jesus Christ, revealed to us in the Bible and lived out in the everyday lives of his followers. That is what we say we believe. It's time we start acting like it. — Justin Lee

I think these younger Christians are the vanguard of some major new religious, social, and political arrangements that could make the older form of culture wars obsolete. After they wrestle with doubts and objections to Christianity many come out on the other side with an orthodox faith that doesn't fit the current categories of liberal Democrat or conservative Republican. — Timothy Keller

The problem is that our world and our education remain focused exclusively on external, materialistic values. We are not concerned enough with inner values. Those who grow up with this kind of education live in a materialistic life and eventually the whole society becomes materialistic. But this culture is not sufficient to tackle our human problems. The real problem is here," the Dalai Lama said, pointed to his head.
The Archbishop tapped his chest with his fingers to emphasize the heart as well.
"And here," the Dalai Lama echoed. "Mind and heart.. — Dalai Lama XIV

The fourth paradigm forces us at every point to discern between the creationally valid and the sinfully perverse and thus confronts us with a never-ending task which requires not only competence but also spiritual discernment. Yet this is precisely the task which we must assume, even at the risk of being vague on specifics. The alternative is to compromise basic themes of authentic Christianity. — Albert M. Wolters

Christianity, sharing the Christian faith, in common, gives you instant friendship, and that is the remarkable thing, because it transcends culture. — John Lennox

How one views Scripture will determine the rest of one's theology. There is no more basic issue: Every system of thought that takes seriously the claims of the Bible to be the inspired, authoritative Word of God will share a commitment to particular central truths, and that without compromise. Those systems that do not begin with this belief in Scripture will exhibit a wide range of beliefs that will shift over time in light of the ever-changing whims and views of culture. Almost every single collapse involving denominations and churches in regard to historic Christian beliefs can be traced back to a degradation in that group's view of the Bible as the inspired and inerrant revelation of God's truth. Once this foundation is lost, the house that was built upon it cannot long stand — James R. White

We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Our hearts resonate with the idea of enjoying God's grace. We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God. — David Platt

Orthodoxy often requires us to be hard precisely where the world is soft, and soft where the world is hard. It means condemning the homosexual lifestyle and being labeled bigots. It means caring for AIDS patients though many think us fools. It means respecting the rule of law though our culture is increasingly lawless. It means visiting the prisoners who offend that law though our culture would prefer to forget them. In every way that matters, Christianity is an affront to the world; it is countercultural.43 — D. A. Carson

Protestant Christianity, whether in its liberal or conservative garb, finds itself waking up each morning in bed with a deteriorating modern culture, between sheets with a raunchy sexual reductionism, despairing scientism, morally normless cultural relativism, and self-assertive individualism. We remain resident aliens, OF the world but not profoundly in it, dining at the banquet table of waning modernity without a whisper of table grace. We all wear biblical name tags (Joseph, David, and Sarah), but have forgotten what our Christian names mean. — Thomas C. Oden

I now want to examine a second major feature of Western civilization that derives from Christianity. This is what philosopher Charles Taylor calls the 'affirmation of ordinary life.' It is the simple idea that ordinary people are fallible, and yet these fallible people matter. In this view, society should organize itself in order to meet their everyday concerns, which are elevated into a kind of spiritual framework. The nuclear family, the idea of limited government, the Western concept of the rule of law, and our culture's high emphasis on the relief of suffering all derive from this basic Christian understanding of the dignity of fallible human beings. — Dinesh D'Souza

I was so tired of this ceaseless, day-to-day tug-of-war between my hormones and my head, my vanity and my virtue. I felt very much as though I were caught in the middle of some dreadful battle in which taking a side of my own would mean certain misery in either case. — Emily Tomko

Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians. — Adolf Hitler

The magnitude of these shattering changes can perhaps be grasped by imagining that the invasion had been in the reverse direction and that the Aztecs or Incas had arrived suddenly in Europe, imposed their culture and calendar, outlawed Christianity, set up sacrificial altars for thousands of victims in Madrid and Amsterdam, unwittingly spread disease on a scale that virtually matched the Black Death, melted down the golden images of Christ and the saints, threw stones at the stained-glass windows and converted the cathedral aisles into arms or food warehouses, toppled unfamiliar Greek statues and Roman columns, and carried home to the Mexican and Peruvian highlands their loot in precious metals along with slaves, indentured servants and other human trophies. — Geoffrey Blainey

Why would god allow the Holocaust to happen? If god made everything, why did he invent sin to trick us and then hold our sins against us? Why are there so many religions in the world if god created the world and wants us to be Christian? Why does god allow people to fight wars over him? What if you were born in a different culture and never even heard of Jesus Christ - would god send you to hell for not being Christian? And if so, do you believe that's fair? Why are men always the leaders in your church? Aren't women capable of leading too? Isn't such a patriarchal system sexist in this day and age? Why do so many babies die? Why are there so many poor people in the world? Did Jesus visit any other planets in distant unknown universes? — Matthew Quick

One thing I learned on my sporadic spiritual journey was that mainstream culture's disdain and disrespect for the intellectual integrity of Christianity is unwarranted, and its conceited assumption that Christian beliefs are a product of blind faith, bereft of reason and intellect, is completely false. — David Limbaugh

From every point of view, therefore, the problem in question is the most serious concern of the Church. What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? — J. Gresham Machen

Also, the Christian worldview has made foundational contributions to our own culture that may not be readily apparent. The deep background for our work, especially in the West - the rise of modern technology, the democratic ethos that makes modern capitalism thrive, the idea of inherent human freedom as the basis for economic freedom and the development of markets - is due largely to the cultural changes that Christianity has brought. Historian John Sommerville argues that Western society's most pervasive ideas, such as the idea that forgiveness and service are more important than saving face and revenge, have deeply biblical roots.166 Many have argued, and I would agree, that the very rise of modern science could have occurred only in a society in which the biblical view of a sole, all-powerful, and personal Creator was prevalent. — Timothy Keller

God has always been about the business of shattering expectations, and in our culture, the standards of leadership are extroverted. It perfectly follows the biblical trend that God would choose the unexpected and the culturally "unfit" - like introverts - to lead his church for the sake of greater glory. — Adam S. McHugh

What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? It is this problem which modern liberalism attempts to solve. — John Gresham Machen

The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as "good" as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to "become flesh and dwell among us." Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open. — Mark A. Noll

The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. [ ... ] If something is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us. I could see it so clearly, and I could see it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did. — Donald Miller

In the modern period, the alliance between Christianity and the political order continues to some extent. But even more so, the dream of God has been submerged by the individualism that characterizes much of modern Western culture. The dream of God is quite different from contemporary American dreams. The dream of God - a politics of compassion and justice, the kingdom of God, a domination-free order - is social, communal, and egalitarian. But our dreams - the dreams we get from our culture - are individualistic: living well, looking good, standing out. — Marcus J. Borg

Probably the greatest tragedy of the church throughout its long and chequered history has been its constant tendency to conform to the prevailing culture instead of developing a Christian counter-culture. — John R.W. Stott

I had the good luck a few years ago to visit the archeological site of Zippori in Israel ... I could see here displayed the Greek culture that Jesus decisively rejected, the same Greek culture that infiltrated the Christian religion soon after his death and has dominated Christianity ever since. — Freeman Dyson

Via the mediation of the Enlightenment, this movement had changed from a hobby among a tiny literate elite and their secretaries, an ostentatious amusement among princely and mercantile art patrons and their masterly suppliers (who established a first 'art system'), into a national, a European, indeed a planetary matter. In order to spread from the few to the many, the renaissance had to discard its humanistic exterior and reveal itself as the return of ancient mass culture. The true renaissance question, reformulated in the terminology of practical philosophy - namely, whether other forms of life are possible and permissible for us alongside and after Christianity, especially ones whose patterns are derived from Greek and Roman (perhaps even Egyptian or Indian) antiquity - was no longer a secret discourse or an academic exercise in the nineteenth century, but rather an epochal passion, an inescapable pro nobis. — Peter Sloterdijk

Modern Western culture has become a mixture of paganism and Christianity. We are a blend of both. We talk of God, but we often act as though we are atheists. — Billy Graham

For better of for worse the church in the West bought modernity's claims. We were baptized in its story (even though it said it did not have one) and accepted its categories and definitions. But somewhere along the way we also began to believe that the ways in which we accessed knowledge about God or Jesus or the Spirit or Christianity were those things themselves. — Tim Keel

Missiologists have in recent years begun to think seriously about inculturation, and historians have begun to learn from them. When the Christian message is inserted into a cultural framework, if the messengers are insensitive to the local culture the result can be cultural imperialism. On the other hand, if they grant too much hegemony to the local culture, the result at best is 'syncretism' and at worst 'Christo-paganism.' Things are most wholesome when sensitive interchange takes place leading to 'a truly critical symbiosis.' But for this to happen, there must be a second stage - a time of 'pastoral follow-up work,' of catechizing and life formation enabling the new faith to express its genius in the institutions and reflexes of its new host culture. — Alan Kreider

Whether [new Protestant church movements] place their emphasis on new worship styles, expressions of the Holy Spirit's power, evangelism to seekers, or Bible teaching, these so-called new movements still operate out of the fallacious assumption that the church belongs firmly in the town square, that is, at the heart of Western culture. And if they begin with this mistaken belief about their position in Western society, all their church planting, all their reproduction will simply mirror this misapprehension. — Alan Hirsch

Culture cannot be a monolithically universal phenomenon without some kind of demonic imposition of one culture over the rest of cultures. Nor is it possible to dream of a universal "Christian culture" without denying the dialectic between history and eschatology which is so central, among other things, to the eucharist itself. Thus, if there is a transcendence of cultural divisions on a universal level - which indeed must be constantly aimed at by the Church - it can only take place via the local situations expressed in and through the particular local Churches and not through universalistic structures which imply a universal Church. — John D. Zizioulas

Christianity brought something new and revolutionary: freedom and unconditional dignity for each individual, regardless of his religion, culture or nationality. But the East and the West have parted ways since the Crusades. — Walter Kasper

We need encouragement, not sermonizing, and we need clear-eyed acknowledgement of the situation, not a sanctified gloss that pushes us toward saying, 'I see I must not admit my pain because, after all, I'm a Christian. I'll just have to cover it up. — David Jeremiah

The box of Amish life and culture might provide some protection, but it could never bring salvation. — Ira Wagler

I realized with a growing and startling sense of clarity that the seminary was educating and training me for a world that no longer existed. Moreover, the posture of this particular brand of Christianity toward the surrounding culture was one of enormous suspicion and at times hostility. It seemed that part of this evolving designation involved a posture of entrenchment and argument toward culture. But I loved culture. I loved the freedom to engage with people for the purpose of friendship and dialogue, not simply evangelism. — Tim Keel

I told them we're tired of the culture wars, tired of Christianity getting entangled with party politics and power. Millennials want to be known by what we're for, I said, not just what we're against. We don't want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith. Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it's uncomfortable. We want to talk about the tough stuff - biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice - but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers. We want to bring our whole selves through the church doors, without leaving our hearts and minds behind, without wearing a mask. — Rachel Held Evans

One of the truly bizarre things about our current cultural situation is that the leading figures of the scientific establishment seem genuinely amazed that the citizens do not accept finch-beak variation as proof of the claim that humans, like all animals and plants, are accidental products of a purposeless universe in which only material processes have operated from the beginning. — Phillip E. Johnson

The West is a civilization that has survived all the prophecies of its collapse with a singular stratagem. Just as the bourgeoisie had to deny itself as a class in order to permit the bourgeoisification of society as a whole, from the worker to the baron; just as capital had to sacrifice itself as a wage relation in order to impose itself as a social relation - becoming cultural capital and health capital in addition to finance capital; just as Christianity had to sacrifice itself as a religion in order to survive as an affective structure - as a vague injunction to humility, compassion, and weakness; so the West has sacrificed itself as a particular civilization in order to impose itself as a universal culture. The operation can be summarized like this: an entity in its death throes sacrifices itself as a content in order to survive as a form. — The Invisible Committee

The Christian right, which trumpets the theme of family values, damns contemporary culture for undermining older traditions. Yet many individuals from this camp are not concerned first and foremost about family values per se. Family is a codeword for constraint; families and family values place constraints on individuals more effectively than any other institution, including government. The Christian right seeks a society in which all are constrained; they reject big government for failing at constraint, and for undermining those institutions, like the family, that have a chance at succeeding. — Tyler Cowen

Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free. — Pat Buchanan

Finally there is the topic we talked about earlier, which is of great interest to me at the moment, the relationship between biology and culture. I've been reading the work of the late philosopher and theologian Claude Tresmontant. Tresmontant was a Christian, but his books interest me for what they have to say about genetic programming. He situates Christianity at the point of transition between genetic programming - dominant in archaic societies with regard to territorial defense, sexual and hoarding instincts, and so forth - and a new kind of evolutionary programming contained in culture rather than in genes. The argument is suggestive, but it needs to be developed further. Tresmontant doesn't take into account archaic religion, which he conflates with genetic programming in animals. Room has to be made for one more stage. MSB — Rene Girard