Are We Human Beings or Human Doings? Shane Rosenthal and the Restless Life.

Shane Rosenthal of the White Horse Inn relates to the findings of Alexis De Toqueville who studied the American culture and democracy in the early half of the 19th Century.

'Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (French:  29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he analyzed the rising living standards and social conditions of individuals and their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.' (Wikipedia)

One of the most sure ways of evaluating a culture is to listen to what others from outside that culture have to say about it. One of the problems of attempts to understand culture from within is that culture by nature is all pervasive and so effects our thinking and ways of relating without being conscious of it. The outsider has a more objective view of the differences between that of his own and that which he is examining, and so is a useful sounding board from which to make more objective observations.

Here is an example of De Toqueville's evaluation of America that I have referred to before:

" I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets, and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul- elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave." – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian reporting to the French Senate, -

In this video clip Rosenthal speaks of the good "protestant work ethic" that in the past has made the U.S. strong, now may well be making her weak.

Many churches today are filled with programs, activities and events to build up and encourage, but very few are designed to develop the critical thinking skills needed to understand our world and to know the mind of Christ on the issues that face the church today. 

When Jesus speaks of the yeast of the pharisees we are still reasoning among ourselves- it is because we have taken no bread.