Sunday, October 30, 2011

America and American Culture

I recently read these words, written by Eugene Peterson in his book The Pastor, which express very well my own feelings:

"I love being an American. I love this place in which I have been placed--its language, its history, its energy. But I don't love 'the American way,' its culture and values. I don't love the rampant consumerism that treats God as a product to be marketed. I don't love the dehumanizing ways that turn men, women and children into impersonal roles and causes and statistics. I don't love the competitive spirit that treats others as rivals and even as enemies.  The cultural conditions in which I am immersed require, at least for me, a kind of fierce vigilance to guard my vocation from these cultural pollutants so dangerously toxic to persons who want to follow Jesus in the way the he is Jesus."

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