6/28/2025
It seems that we are being bombarded with two primary uses of culture. The first is the separate cultures of different people in America. The second is a way to categorize waves of connected, specific ideas.
In the first use, and in my context, it’s the ideas of Majority Culture and Hispanic/Latino Culture. And I know that this is real. At least, it’s certainly real to some degree. But generally, I see this used to claim that American culture is Majority Culture and more specifically, white American culture. And that is used as background to differentiate, say, Hispanic Culture.
And this is pretty normally expressed in Cru. And I know that it is born out of the desire to reach every… every person on campus, every student, and every professor. The Whole Campus, to the Whole World. I completely embrace that. We need to understand the basics, and allow for differences. Yes, and I also believe that we need to lean into our sameness, because we are more alike than we are different.
There are others, like Sports Culture, Cowboy Culture, Country Culture, and Urban Culture. These are real, with easily observable independent characteristics. But they don’t seem to get the attention of cultures arguably connected to ethnicity, which is an entirely different thing.
The second use comes at us as the Culture of ________ . What comes to mind is The Culture of Death, which includes abortion and medical assisted suicide. Which I think comes from the Culture of Autonomy.
Others that come to mind are the Culture of Creativity, the Culture of Poverty, the Culture of Prosperity, and the Culture of Repair.
So what’s the point? I’m not sure, but here are some reminders I want to keep close to hand…
People are complicated.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
I want to learn to know people. That takes time, and care, and real curiosity. It takes work. There are no shortcuts. But if we do this well, we will flourish, and we will help others flourish.
And this makes me think of personality tests used to categorize people. Like Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, and others. These may be fun, as are products of most billion dollar businesses, but I don’t think they are helpful. I think they get in the way of truly knowing a person, and opening up to be known by them.
It’s important to think about assimilation. I want American Culture to beautifully reflect the diversity of differences. Tex-Mex is a good example of what I am talking about. It’s a blending of older traditions into a newer tradition. Another example is the concept of hybrid vigor, as seen in cows and dogs. Purebreds decline over time, but combining breed genetics seems to improve vitality.
There is diversity. There is also universal commonalities, like the fact that we all descend from Noah and his wife. And that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. And that all true Christians from everywhere will one day worship together in unity the one true God.