From the electronic pages of the Regent Business Review, there is a most interesting piece from Edward Stewart and Milton Bennett adopted from a 1991 book entitled American Cultural Patterns. The article itself is not faith-specific, but the abstract notes:
This article explores fundamental beliefs upon which Americans (even American Christians) base their business dealings—cultural assumptions so ingrained they are almost never questioned. Perhaps they should be. This article, adapted from a secular source about cross-cultural communications, challenges us to examine the “givens” of why we act as we do. It is often impossible to see our own patterns of thinking, until those patterns are contrasted with differing views.
The authors advise us to adopt a “third culture” when straddling two cultures. Concerning the ideas presented, we encourage readers to ask “are my cultural assumptions biblical?” As Christians we live on earth as foreigners, and the “third culture” we espouse should be the culture of the Kingdom.
You can view the article here.
Christianity Today also has run the article on its page www.faithintheworkplace.com which you can find here:
which you can find here.
There is a certain aspect to all of this that brings to mind Joshua on the eve of the disastrous first batle of Ai. We find him imlatient, pacing "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come." Joshua 5:13-14. (KJV) That third culture understanding is necessary for those having to deal with the world,yet retaining an understanding of their ultimate culture.
At a basic level, though, there is currency to this as Christian and secular cultures seem to be increasingly incapable of finding a way of "cross-cultural" communication. Christians seem to work on this in some fairly extreme ways in an effort to evangelize or, worse, to be "relevant".
On the other hand, to the extent the secular world wishes to communicate with Christians, the effort seems cynical and contrived. I think the efforts of Hollywood to come up with "God films" on the heels of The Passion of the Christ is emblematic of this inability of the wholly,and cynically secular part of society to "bridge" into the faith, and, of course, tap market potential.
In Christ,
Fr. C.