Culture can be a difficult word to pin down.
In a negative way, it can convey the concept of systematic, culturally determined behavior that leads to a rigid and unconscious groupthink.
In a positive way, it can mean the development of each individual's moral and ethical outlook that has been informed and enriched by his or her cultural inheritances.
If there is such a thing as a "Christian culture," where does it fit between these two extremes?
In his book Sources of the Self Charles Taylor describes our lives as a "quest" that involves orienting ourselves to the good and determining our place relative to it.
It is a quest for identity that Taylor says occurs "in my intimate relations to the ones I love, and also crucially in the space of moral and spiritual orientation within which my most important defining relations are lived out."
Perhaps a Christian culture is ultimately one in which each person accepts responsibility for being in authentic dialogue with God in order to be in a loving dialogue with all those around us.
