Church as Culture

Robert Louis Wilken has a brief article in the April issue of First Things on the church as culture. He illustrates the internal culture of the church by examining early Christian art, the development of the Christian calendar, and the formation of a distinctive Christian language. Nothing spectacularly new here, but it’s good to have someone of Wilken’s stature and erudition saying things like this: “If Christ is culture, let the sidewalks be lit with fire on Easter Eve, let traffic stop for a column of Christians waving palm branches on a spring morning, let streets be blocked as the faithful gather for a Corpus Christi procession. Then will others know that there is another city in their midst, another commonwealth, one that has its face, like the faces of the angels, turned to the face of God.”