distance and belonging
more great stuff from volf, whom i mentioned a few entries ago, this time specifically regarding a Christian approach to culture (how appropriate!):
"Our coziness with the surrounding culture has made us so blind to many of its evils that instead of calling them into question, we offer our own versions of them--in God's name and with a good conscience."
and this . . .
"The proper distance from a culture does not take Christians out of that culture. Christians are not the insiders who have taken flight to the new 'Christian culture' and become outsiders to their own culture; rather when they have responded to the call of the Gospel they have stepped, as it were, with one foot outside their own culture while with the other remaining firmly planted in it."
this book is really good.