We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking but they are not. They are proud of being richer, cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.
Shopping for God
Interesting article on an interesting book:
Perhaps most helpful is Twitchell’s explanation of the economic concepts of branding. He writes, “While thinking about believers as customers seems almost too vulgar, thinking about consumers as believers is precisely what modern marketing is all about.” Purchases determine identity. Church leaders can’t afford to ignore the effects of living in a consumer culture. Today, the way people choose a church is almost the same as how they shop for groceries.
HT: GR
Van Til on "Culture"
Henry Van Til defines culture as:
that activity of man, the image-bearer of God, by which he fulfills the creation mandate to cultivate the earth, to have dominion over it and to subdue it. The term is also applied to the result of such activity, namely the secondary environment which has been superimposed upon nature by man’s creative effort. Culture, then, is not a peripheral concern but of the very essence of life. It is expression of man’s essential being as created in the image of God, and since man is essentially a religious being, it is expressive of his relationship to God, that is, of his religion.
Henry Van Til. The Calvinist Conception of Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), xvii
What is culture and can it be transformed?
These questions and others are being tossed around over at Centurion blog. There’s been a pretty rich discussion developing. One of the better ones I’ve been in in a while.