When there are disagreements about the common good, and clear differences between Christian values and the dominant values within a culture, it’s often suggested that the Church should be more ‘countercultural’, a creative minority that establishes itself as an alternative to the prevailing ethos.
I’m reading Cardinal George’s book The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion, and Culture, and in the conclusion to one essay he explains why he is wary of this kind of approach. I’ll just quote the paragraph in question.
I mentioned earlier, I am not easy with the term ‘countercultural’, because it sometimes connotes self-hatred. There is truth to the claim that the Catholic believer must sometimes stand boldly apart from his or her culture and speak a word of prophetic critique; but, at its limit, the claim to be countercultural strikes me as incoherent.
Whether we like it or not, we are shaped – linguistically, intellectually, relationally, bodily – by the culture in which we live. To stand completely outside of our culture is, impossibly, to stand outside of ourselves. More to the point, the language of counterculturalism can give rise to an attitude both mean-spirited and condescending. A culture is transformed only by those who love it, just as individuals are converted only by evangelizers who love them. [p58]
If you are moved to take a more strident approach to criticising the culture (and how much we need to sometimes!) it’s worth bearing these words in mind. Remember, he’s not saying that we should never offer a ‘prophetic critique’, he’s just pointing out some of the possibly unhealthy assumptions built into the language of counterculturalism. This huge, sprawling, indefinable ‘Britishness [Englishness?!] in the early 21st century’, for example, is my culture, with all its strengths and weaknesses; and I need to recognise it as mine, and love it, even if I am also wishing to evangelise and transform it. The one thing I can’t do, if I stay here, is opt out. There is no bubble.
Bridges and Tangents 
Do I have to love the culture? Surely, I must love the people who form or who are immersed in the culture, but I may legitimately be in outright opposition to many of the values and much else of the culture? I am minded of the quote from Archbishop Fulton Sheen that “Tolerance applies only to persons and never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles and never to persons.”
Dear Stephen, Thanks very much for this one. They are all good but This one really strikes a chord! X Jo
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I fully agree with Hal. We are,after all, obliged to love our fellow citizens as God loves us. Jesus came to us to bring about a revolution of our hearts and souls with its consequential revolution in society through love; not the other way round.
Catholicism –
‘is my culture, with all its strengths and weaknesses; and I need to recognise it as mine, and love it, even if I am also wishing to evangelise and transform it.’
I recognise and love it. Which is why I chose to become a part of it. But still Truth for me has to be intrinsically bound to me as a human being tuning into God through my intimate relationship with Him, made, beyond the culture that I inherit, or choose, or happen to live in.
Other wise we (humanity) fight culturally against each-others cultural truths. Each believing the others truth to be less true. What happens when people switch between different social or religious ideals, their perspective of truth can change. We have to go beyond.
Yes its vitally important that we speak and share and live out our intrinsic Truth and that will ultimately shape the culture that we live in, and not just to go with the flow which is what so many do just because it has always been that way.
I Love my children dearly, I don’t always like their behaviour, but when we are being Loving & kind from the core of our beings and not denying ourselves or each other the dignity to be authentic/True, the culture around us is transformed. One can not be fully Love without being fully True.
BBC News have been covering the announcement that the Holy Father intends to resign at the end of this month. We should all pray that his successor will have the strength and courage to continue the work of his predecessors to change peoples hearts and minds and the culture they live in and that Our Lord will bless him in this ministry.
I think it’s different if you’re on an island. I live at the end of the line (western USA) and here, some fot he assumptions of counterculturalism are the culture we inherited, because our institutions were established in almost living memory in some cases, by people who came here escaping other places.
One must remeber the history of Catholics in England and in the Uk. There are few cathlics with English heritage, Those that are have converted, eithe themselves or in recent generations. This in iteslf is a brave and ourageous choice, one not made lightley and often with pain, Fr Newman for example. The act of conversion and its journey often leads to clarity of thought and clear insight, I seem to rember in my childhood Malcolm Mugerage was suchan example. There are also there are also those very very few English families who escaped the savage plight of the reformation, ( there are plenty of Catholic examples of savage cruility, 13C Spain) For the rest of us we are migrants and immigrants. For us being as well as most Catholics being Catholic is being “other” our culture is that of managing this otherness. It is not so much counterculturism but the awarness that one has not been allowed to fully intergrate.
Such a situation also has its funny side. As a child growing up in rural England one had an awarness of not being English. I the early 1970’s thare was lots of industrial unrest and union activities would frquenly be on the news. I would hear that The Union for Ford workers had held a mass meeting I thought that they had all met to go to Mass and then dicussed their important issues. This made sence to me at the time.
One one occassion I was the Sacre Ceur in Paris visiting as as tourist with my partner who is not Catholic. A Mass had started just as we had arrived and whilst I had not intended to go to Mass I felt I could not leave, This some how felt like it would wrong for me to do. My parnet noticed at all the congragation who received communion had the same pasture poise and expression as they made their way to the alter. We all held our hands in the same way and walked and held our heads in the same way. These were people from all over the world acting in a very similar syle.
On another occassion I was in Rural South Africa at Easter. where I was staying was a polular but small holiday destination. It had once church shared by varius dinominations on a Rota. This particular sunday was the turn of the Episcipalians. The order of the Mass sounded the same. Was this mass or not?
Did the minister see himself as a priestofficiating at a sacrement where transubstasiation takes place or a minister at a ritual? Interestingly this Priest/minister a south African made reference to ” the Eastern Church” by which he meant the Byzantian Church which certainly was very much not east of South Africa.This was a very interesting reference and suggests a cultural dominance which creeps into language. Would objecting to this culture of eurocentricity, were paricipating in ritual or sacremant is eased by unwitting eurorean references or by presenting onself as pseudo European be counterculteral?
On a lighter side in an Anglican Church the question of kneeling or not becomes a dilema. In an Anglican Church there are facilities to kneel but these seem never ever to be used? instead individuels tend to lean very far forward so that their head is almost on the little self attached to the seat in front, If I kneel i will draw attention to myself. Not to kneel would be not doing want one wishes and perhaps feeling afarid to be onesef. In the event I did kneel, hoping that this would not be misunderstood and that judgement would not be made. I diccovered that half the congregation also kneelt, visiting Catholics also negotiating cultural differences.
the notion of countercultureism has its difficlties not least because there is never just one culture but thousands which align seporate and realign. The other difficulty is that of ani movement or school of thought that defines itself by it not being something or by being apposed to something. To describe myself as ” non English” would be strange and in a strange way disempowering as it empowers” Englishness” as the norm from wich one differs. Simillarly as Mother Teresa would have it, It is more powerful to be “pro peace” farher than ” anti war” Therefore in my view I am cautious about the notion of counter culture. A cuture is made up of many aspects not to share a dominant view is not countercultural is just different. Not to find value in some of the dominent aspects of western capitalist culture and to have alternative values is not counter culteral but “pro” alternatives. This may seem like a slight difference but it is significant. As catholics we are not non Anglicans, non methodists non Jews non Hindus we are catholicis and this carries many many cultures together with the essential core culture of being Catholic.
There is no spell check on this so im sure ther are lots of typos
Lots of typos I think I may have obscured my meaning
“One must remember the history of Catholics in England and in the Uk. There are few catholics with English heritage”
I would have to strongly disagree with such a statement. What of all the descendants who remained faithful through reformation and persecution; the ordinary folk as well as recusant famlies, particularly those living in the midlands and the north east and north west England?
I have to cop to being both mean-spirited and condescending. I almost ordered from New Oxford Review a cooking apron which said “I’d rather be roasting heretics” (which is a take-off on an American bumper-sticker). My life was ruined by the “culture,” albeit with my enthusiastic cooperation, at least in the beginning. Torquemada redux…let’s put the fun back in Catholicism!
I think, to be fair on them, that the people who exhort Catholics to be “countercultural” are usually just trying to be evangelical and reach out to the youth. I don’t think they have considered what countercultural means, and that we can’t shape society and bring it closer to God if we are sitting on the sidelines and not involved in it. Counterculture also relates to defining our own identity – like the girl who was on the tube today, dressed in black, metal blaring from her headphones. She was not likely to be listening to Steps. But as Christians in society we are not “types” – our identity is not defined be the exterior things we choose but in our identity in Christ, who manifests in us a range of talents and paths of life that are truly within society.