 Christ and Culture, pp

 Culture is something that is difficult to define because it encompasses many aspects of our day to day living.   CULTURE is a set of meanings, beliefs, values and rules for living shared by groups and societies as the source of their identity.

1. Humans create culture:  Culture distinguishes us from the rest of nature.  Only humans have culture.

2. Culture consists of ways of doing things:  It is not about the actions, but about how we do those actions and the meanings and beliefs about how things should be done.  Culture is a set of values about things we do everyday, such as driving cars, opening doors or going to the movies.

3. Culture is public:  Culture is about how we as a community of people do things.  It is not private; it is public.  Ex: Media; parades; sporting events

4. Culture arises from tradition:  Many of the ways we do things, we got from our parents / ancestors.  Some of these traditions go back hundreds or thousands of years.  Ex: Family traditions; sports traditions; Catholic Mass

5. Culture is made up of rule-governed actions:  Because the way we do things comes from tradition, we feel that we have a duty to keep them that way.  The traditions function like rules.  Ex: Catholic Mass; family dinners; Super Bowl / Stanley Cup Playoffs

6. Culture becomes established in institutions:  Over time, our way of doing things becomes established in a set and familiar way.  Actions are linked together to form a “system” of doing things. We sometimes call these systems institutions (i.e. institution of family).  Ex: School, Parish, Youth Group, Soccer Team

7. Culture gives us our identity:  The way we do things gives us a sense of our cultural identity.  The way we do things in Canada is different from the way things are done in other countries.  Ex: Italian-Canadian, Catholic, hockey player