Family as the basic unit of culture
Posted by tom | Oct 9, 2008Below's another the daily asterisk underscoring the importance of the family, a topic which I recently discussed w/Pastor Steve from Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ in relationship to the transition from high school to young adulthood. Looking forward to upgrading Next Steps material to re-contextualize and address these concerns in the spring.
Back to the quote, which comes from Andy Crouch's Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. You may remember I posted some material on the new book at the Emerging Scholars Network Blog. And I have even bigger news, Andy will be preaching at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ on Sunday, April 19. If you're in the area, mark your calendar as he'll give a sermon at the first and second service followed by a launch of InterVarsity's Christian Scholars in Central PA. Praise God for the partnership with Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ! Feel free to drop me an email if you would like to receive more information when it's available.
A basic unit of culture is the family, where we first begin making something of the world. Food and language, two of culture's most far-reaching forms, begin in the home, which may encompass a "public" as small as two people. It can take us decades to appreciate all the ways in which the culture of our families set our horizons of the possible and the impossible. Until we leave our families and venture into the homes of our neighbors and friends, or perhaps the family home of our future spouse, we are likely not even to realize all the ways that our family sets our horizons.... Family is culture at its smallest -- and its most powerful.
