Information Related to "How Can You Counter a Degenerating Culture?"

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Culture: It’s a word we hear a lot about these days. But what does it mean? One dictionary defines culture as "the particular system of art, thought and customs of a society." Author Robert Dugan offers a broader definition. He defines culture as "the ways of thinking, living and behaving that define a people and underlie its achievements. It is a nation’s collective mind, its sense of right and wrong, the way it perceives reality, and its definition of self. Culture is the morals and habits a mother strives to instill in her children. It is the obligations we acknowledge toward our neighbors, our community, and our government . . . It is the standards we set and enforce for ourselves and for others: our definitions of duty, honor and character. It is our collective conscience" (Winning the New Civil War, 1991, p. 169).

Does popular culture—and our attitude toward it—matter?

The Bible contains a disturbing prophetic glimpse of culture in the last days of human civilization. The apostle Paul was inspired to write of the last days as "perilous times" (2Timothy 3:1). He describes that age as a time when "men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God . . ." (verses 2-4).

Could Paul have been writing of our culture, that of the Western world in 2002 ? He certainly seems to describe a culture bent on pleasure, entertainment, vanity, greed and utter selfishness at the expense of stable marriages, families and other relationships.

Read the full article at www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn40/degeneratingculture.htm