Culture, Its Delights and Distractions: Becoming Cultured or Controlling Acculturation?

Anyone who identifies evangelization only with the proclamation of the Gospel has not escaped the web of culture.

Thus, anyone who identifies evangelization only with the proclamation of the Gospel has not escaped the web of culture. Especially since the goal of proclamation is conversion, the most effective speakers will be those who know how to connect with people, locate their interests, attract those interests, capture those interests, and be convincing.

WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic  Online) - Culture is an almost invisible teacher -- it's an unavoidable purveyor of values, like the air we breathe. We as parents wonder what happens to our children in their teenage years.  How could they have turned out that way, with so little respect for tradition -- never reading books -- spending hours in front of video games and the computer -- always looking down at their iPhones or Androids. 

The answer is easy, culture.

Unless we consciously choose to pay attention to its voices, culture will be our primary teacher. And though we may control its influence to a great extent, the culture will remain the same, unless we choose to add to its voices our own.

When Christians throughout history created libraries, schools, colleges, hospitals, cathedrals, churches, hymns, sacred music, drama, literature, pilgrimages, revivals, movies, TV and radio shows, and even monasteries, the Church was using the culture to evangelize while attempting to shape the dominant culture itself.

The simple act of speaking, its meaning, is shaped by the culture we share. Think of word choices such as "gay" or "homosexual" or whether or not to use the masculine gender when speaking of God. But word choice -- diction -- is only the beginning of how the meaning of speech is refracted through culture. Consider how the choice of time, place, similes, allusions, illustrations, inflection, gesturing, volume, greetings, and salutations are guided by cultural norms of manners and courtesy. For example, I remember the shock when I alluded to the parable of the prodigal son in a freshman philosophy class, and none of my 30 students registered any recognition!

Thus, anyone who identifies evangelization only with the proclamation of the Gospel has not escaped the web of culture. Especially since the goal of proclamation is conversion, the most effective speakers will be those who know how to connect with people, locate their interests, attract those interests, capture those interests, and be convincing. Our sense of having been convinced is susceptible to cultural influence, for example in the last few decades states of strong feelings were identified as being certain of what you know.

The notion that you can evangelize the culture without participating in the culture is the same as thinking you can spend an hour on the ocean floor without oxygen.

We still call some people "cultured" to praise them as possessing a better education or better manners than most.  But I am addressing culture in a completely different -- egalitarian -- way.  I'm talking about the necessity of acculturation, that is, the process of being deeply influenced by the cultures in which we live. (I will come back to why I use the plural cultures in a later column.)

The aim of this series is not to encourage people to become cultured but to be in charge, as far as that is possible, of their process of acculturation. As we shall see, the task is both critical and creative, analytic and imaginative. In short, we must know the culture inside out, understand its seductive ways, and put all this insight to our use.

SUMMARY

1.    Our goal is to control acculturation not to become cultured.
2.    No one can avoid the process of acculturation -- the task is to use it to seek genuine happiness.
3.    Control involves both analytical-critical skills along with creative-imaginative ones.

© Deal W. Hudson, Ph.D

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Deal W. Hudson is president of the Morley Institute of Church and Culture, Senior Editor at Catholic Online, and former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine.This column and subsequent contributions are an excerpt from a forthcoming book. Dr. Hudson's new radio show, Church and Culture, will begin broadcasting in February on the Ave Maria Radio Network.

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