Human culture is a form of the imitatio dei. - Raymond van Leeuwen
As you know, I like to delve into our culture and pull out that which God has retained in it that reveals Him. As I was reading for my class on Wisdom Literature, I came across this quote.
Wisdom literature, in much modern scholarship, is seen as extra-pious or beyond piety. It speaks of morals and other such ways of living. It rarely mentions the divine name, LORD. It is the most pagan, they say, part of the Bible. It takes most of its stuff from outside of the Hebrew culture.
van Leeuwen's point is that human culture, in general, reveals God. By its being human it reveals God. It can never not reveal God no matter how distorted and perverted it becomes. We can look at the Western Culture, the American culture in particular, and think we're doomed. We are going to down the road of Rome. We will sputter out into a void of disintegration.
I have mentioned before Belloc's Europe and the Faith. One of his main arguments was that Roman civilization didn't die. It rose to new life within the Church. As our civilization declines, the same opportunity can occur. In part, this happened in Russia after 1989. Much was turned back to Orthodox Church. The faith there flourished. Our steadfastness in faith will the witness to secular man. Where civilization seems to fall the Church rises from the rubble to show that we stand on the rock of Christ. Persevere dear Christian. Do not loose faith in God. Do not loose faith in humanity. The weeds have grown up with the wheat, and as history reveals, at certain times a purging fire passes through. Clearing that which cannot live on its own.
Look for and amplify that which is of God in our culture. Set aside that which is false and magnify the truth.
"I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" Luke 12:49
No comments:
Post a Comment