What Does the Cult Have to Do with Culture? - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

What Does the Cult Have to Do with Culture?

Today we hear a lot of talk about the “culture wars” and “redeeming the culture.” Most people unanimously agree that a strong culture corresponds with a thriving nation. The way the word is bandied about now, however, confuses the traditional meaning of culture with an ambiguous set of any group’s narrow ideals. But to understand culture we must first ask the question: where does culture come from?

Culture comes from the cult: people joining together for worship. From this primary association, the body of worshipers can cultivate community.

According the the great historian of Western Civilization, Christopher Dawson, “A social culture is an organized way of life which is based on a common tradition and conditioned by a common environment. . . . It is clear that a common way of life involves a common view of life, common standards of behavior and common standards of value, and consequently a culture is a spiritual community…Therefore from the beginning the social way of life which is culture has been deliberately ordered and directed in accordance with the higher laws of life which are religion.”

Taking the cult out of culture leaves a residual set of customs and ideas that no longer tie people together because they lack the unifying center. A culture that has lost the cult becomes a culture with many cults.  Today the fragmentation of culture has lead to a narrow mass culture only united on the surface, but really fragmented.

Without this religious center, every aspect of culture has its own version of a cult, usually of personality. There is no longer unification between worship, art, sport, and beauty, but a great divide- celebrity vs. celebrity, cult vs. cult.

What used to be unifying cultural events: concerts, art shows, sporting events, political conferences, and even religious speakers have now devolved into pseudo religious experiences. There is now the cult of One Direction, the Cult of Rand Paul, and the cult of Laci Green. Unlike the worship of God in the liturgy, these cults do not unify truth, goodness, and beauty in submission to one Godhead. Instead we have fragmented body of worshippers, united in nothing but individual preference.

We can’t expect to enjoy the entertainment of modern mass “culture” without succumbing to the ideas modern culture offers. To be ideologically on the side of truth is not enough because ideology only addresses the intellect. Culture seeks to transform whole person primarily in worship but also in music, books, painting, poetry, philosophy, theology, architecture, economics, and politics. Culture transcends the political struggle of ideas and shapes the way we see, touch, and hear the world. We can renew our imaginations participating in the liturgy, reading the great books, surrounding ourselves with beautiful art/music, or even just taking a walk outside instead of watching TV.

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