Lecture 5 - Sociocultural Context for Mission in Aust/NZ

Question 1

Meaning of Culture

Answer 1

• from “to cultivate”
• very complicated
• dynamic of relationships
• constructed - impacted and impacting
• thin or thick description

Question 2

Culture in Areté

Answer 2

1. Dynamics of Aust/NZ Society
2. Operating Dynamic of an organisation

Question 3

Theses about culture
“Clashing Symbols” Michael Paul Gallagher

Answer 3

1. Uniquely Human
2. Inherited from past - changes and adapts
3. Passed on implicitly
4. involves solidarity and identiy - way of life
5. Convergence of visible and hidden
6. Carries and expresses meanings and beliefs, customs
7. Expressed in institutions, systems and symbolice forms
8. Every day activities to higher levels
9. Harder to self-communicate in times of cultural instability
10. Fallible constructs
11. Grounded in religious consciousness until present times.

Question 4

3 Principles to Guide Theological Reflection about Culture

Answer 4

1. Oriented towards the transcendent (it’s about meaning)
2. Human construct - ambiguous
3. Mediates Faith

Question 5

Possible Christian Responses to Culture
(H. Richard Niebuhr)

Answer 5

1. Opposition
2. Innocent acceptance
3. Discernment of both food and evil within culture leading to transformation and affirmation

Question 6

Decline of belief and practice

Answer 6

1.Sunday is not sacred
2.Technology
3.Materialism

Question 7

Evangelii Nuntiandi 55
Pope Paul VI
Secularism

Answer 7

“a concept of the world according to which the latter is self explanatory, without any necessary recourse to Go, who thus becomes superfluous and an encumbrance”

Question 8

Evangelium Vitae 23
Pope St John Paul II

Answer 8

“The eclipse of the sense of God and of man inevitably leads to a practical materialism, which breed individfualism, utilitarianism and hedonism.”

Question 9

Pope Francis
To Italian Bishops

Answer 9

“We are not living in an era of change but a change of era”

Question 10

Charles Taylor
on Secularisation, Secularism, and Secularity

Answer 10

• Secularisation - the process of change by which a society’s institutions are given autonomy from religious meaning, understandings or authority.
• Secularism: The decline of belief and practice
• Secularity: the Conditions of belief

Question 11

The current Age

Answer 11

• William Auden : The Age of Anxiety
• Charles Taylor: The Age of Authenticity
• William Friedman: The age of Accelerations

Question 12

Charles Taylor
Historical Ages

Answer 12

• The Ancien Regieme
• The Age of Mobilisation
• The Age of Authenticity

Question 13

The Age of Authenticity

Answer 13

• Expressive Individualism
• 1950s and 60s “mass phenomenon” all need to express our “true selves”
• true selves - our own way of being human
• “one’s own originality is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it I am also defining myself.”
• Identity is everything - unique to me

In reality identity is achieved in relationship

Question 14

Seekers and Dwellers

Answer 14

• Seekers: People who have embarkes upon the quest
• Dwellers: People who believe that a religious authority (church, bible, God) external to them guides thier lives.
  *“Believing still” vs “ Believing again”

Question 14

Spirituality in the Age of Authenticity

Answer 14

• religious life … must speak to me
• spiritual “quest”
• “nova effect” people identify to a particular point on a “spectrum” of spirituality
• Can move people from religious to secular but also can lead people to religion if it “speaks” to them.