Klaas Schilder stellt in seinem beachtenswerten Büchlein “Christ and Culture” (1948; Übersetzung von 1977) gute Fragen zum Kulturbegriff:
Are we talking about culture as such (the culture) or only about a certain kind of culture?
Is there indeed a permanent culture, which may be known by the peculiar style to which it is faithful, or do we, if we keenly discern things, find only a chaos of cultural tendencies?
If it is not culture as such but only a particular form of culture, which is it then? The national culture or just a national one? The or an international culture? The or a temporary one? The or a future one?
Is it a (or the) culture which we have created or have to create. Let alone are able to establish — that is to say, we as Christians? Or is it a sort of ideal culture that we are required to acknowledge or to hope for?
Do we as Christians have to act in this world and its culture in the way of reform and revolt? Are we capable of doing this?
Or have we perhaps been given only the limited task that we might somehow or other force our way through the rapid currents of this world’s multifarious life, and thank God afterwards because the ship of our life just missed being wrecked in the tremendous energy of the breakers?
Is there really a positive task for us as Christians? Does “following after Jesus” then really include the tireless actualizing of a God given creative ability unto a peculiar (or distinct) Christian culture with world-conquering tendencies?
Can the “following of God” be recognized in certain concrete acts in conformance to the material contents of divine commandments, and also in an accordingly concrete and steady attitude? Or is the following of God a formal concept only: God did indeed create the world, but He also permanently changes it, and once will do so in a catastrophic manner, wherefore only those can follow Him who replace any “yes” spoken to the existing world by “no” and thus consider any attitude as being of the devil, the revolutionary as much as the conservative attitude, and vice versa?
Is a Christian’s action performed in earnest or just as a game — by virtue of a fixed ordination that does not permit us anything but the game, and thus makes the game into the only possible “earnest”?
