All great cultures are based on religion. Certainly that is a sweeping statement but a cursory examination illustrates the contention as plausible.
The Western world obviously has its roots in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Western Europe clearly owes a debt to Catholicism. Hilaire Belloc once wrote, “Europe is the church and the church is Europe.”
Eastern Europe finds deep expression in Orthodoxy. Even Lenin and Stalin could not suppress these rich rites. The Middle East is largely Islamic territory. Minarets extend from Morocco to Pakistan. The Asian subcontinent is largely Hindu and the Far East chiefly Buddhist. The Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru, the animists in Africa and the cosmic conscious North American natives extend the same argument. Until recent times church, state and culture were one in the world’s various geographical areas. Faith and culture were practically synonymous. Virtually every man, woman and child was a person of faith, a person who styled his daily life on considerations larger than himself. The content of that faith might have been ancestor worship in China or cleansing baths in India or infant sacrifice in Peru or reverence for the book in Arabia or adoration of the God/man in Europe. Everyone believed in something, or someone, beyond themselves and this ultimate reality impacted their daily lives. Their culture expressed their faith.
Much of the world continues to be guided by some kind of faith in a supernatural reality and this faith continues to shape daily life. Indians still bathe in the Ganges River and the Chinese still greatly respect their ancestors. The Islamic world is greatly guided by the Qu’ran. Orthodox Christianity is regaining ground in Russia. The Western world however slips daily from the pervasive Christian culture (Catholic or Protestant) that enlightened our ancestors for 2,000 years. A new secularist culture based on the absolute right of the individual to determine the truth of reality has seized the Western soul and even more importantly the Western imagination. Western mankind need no longer look beyond his own expectations to find meaning in life. The Western individual is the solitary arbiter of right and wrong, truth and error. Individual liberty with no regard for ultimate truth is the instruction that our secularizing neighbors would bequest to future generations. As a majority of the United States Supreme Court recently concluded: “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.”
Autonomy is the death of culture. A society in which everyone is free to invent his own rites, rituals, traditions, symbols, and, more important, his own doctrinal creed, moral code and worship cult will never develop into a true and valid culture. The world’s great geographical areas clearly illustrate that common values, common truth, common beliefs are the foundation stones of an enduring culture. The cultural collapse that Western society is experiencing today is the inevitable result of liberty without truth, choice without tradition, opinion without belief.
In the second reading this coming Sunday, the words of St. Paul to Timothy should indeed be appreciated by all who continue to honor the Christian tradition. The Apostle writes, “Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.” St. Paul understands the guide for human activity is a source of truth outside oneself (“… the sound words that you heard from me. …”). He urges Timothy never to abandon these basic teachings (“… guard this rich trust. …”). Rather Timothy should treasure and internalize them. Once mankind, and especially the believing Christian, has absorbed the basic truths of Christianity (also called divine revelation, also called Scripture and tradition) then this common bond, this common heritage, this common belief, will mature into a common culture. Belief, strengthened by faith, will begin to influence daily life both personally and collectively. This commonly held truth, this “rich trust,” these “sound words,” will draw a society together with a common vision leading to a common goal. Culture expresses mankind’s most deeply held beliefs. Culture articulates a society’s faith or, sadly, the lack thereof.
