- POST PHENOMENAL ARCADES – 228 | Vincent Kundukulam
Early days, the word used in Latin for culture was cultura meaning the behaviour of educated individuals who had refined knowledge in art and literature. Consequently, people who could master the Latin language and follow systematic education were considered as cultured and others cultureless. This paved the way for the development of social distinction between the educated class with high culture and the illiterate class with low culture. The then existed social discriminations were one of the by-products of such a dualistic understanding of culture.
In course of time this perspective of culture as high and low got changed. Culture of every group was accepted as self-contained in itself, and hence dignified. Subsequently, culture became an all-embracing phenomenon of life. It stood for the totality of beliefs, behaviours, knowledge, sanctions, values and goals that mark the entire way of life. It equips humans with refined feelings, agreeable manners, a sound sense of justice, open-mindedness and readiness to sacrifice one’s life for others. Like the soul it became the animating principle of social life. To borrow the expression of Alasdair McIntyre, culture has proved itself to be a living tradition. Living tradition is one that has a laudable record of success in reconstructing itself by integrating diverse schools of thought. It can empathetically deal with challenges arising from all corners without losing the basics.
Culture, which has an efficient operative pedagogy to safeguard unity among diversity, stability in the midst of evolution, and rootedness while being transcendent, can help Christian faith in resolving issues arising from the cultural interaction. With the dawn of postmodern thought, the institutional religions are under serious threat of extinction. People believe less in discourses and universal claims made by the institutionalized religions. Popular class has the impression that Christian faith is an ascent to a certain number of encapsulated doctrines regarding God and man, which are for them very difficult to grasp. They want something simple and down to earth. They seek in religions, the living examples.
Besides, due to the influence of pragmatism, another off-shoot of postmodern culture, the youngsters are not concerned about the logical coherence or conceptual integrity of truths to believe in them. To them, faith must be something useful in life. Truth is seen more as something to be experienced than to be proved logically. Christian faith, in order to be effective, has to be verifiable in the concrete life of faithful. Anything that gives success, profit and satisfaction is true for them. All the above facts lead to the fact that religious values may have pertinence today only if they are seen as something concrete and worth-living. Culture is the effective instrument of living religious principles concretely. That is why theologians opine that culture-faith bonding is beneficial for the survival and growth of Christians.
The world expects from Christians the same gestures of Christ. Christ could influence the people of his time because He got inserted in to the life-style of ordinary people and gave them deliverance from different sorts of slaveries they were subjected to. It is in this sense late Pope Benedict XVI stated in Porta Fidei that witness is the most effective way of evangelization today (6-7). Culture shall help Church to remain as a living tradition and to negotiate with the non-essentials without compromising the essentials and thus to become a meaningful life-style.
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