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| Main Street America - circa 1918 |
Old time
religion was about a cohesive social unit. It was not particularly political.
The rural past of America and going back to the middle ages centered around the
local church building. Families were neighbors and also members of the
community church.
The local
town square, if the town was big enough for such a thing, was on the secular
end of the same avenue facing the local church. Sacred or secular decisions for
the community got discussed, a consensus found and decided on Main Street USA.
It is the
main street in the Disney theme parks that harkens back to the idealized late
nineteenth century era and up until WWI American world. Here, the separation of
church and state, more or less worked as a blueprint for the stabilization of
the community and the nation. We all have a fixed idea in memory of an ideal
setting from youth. Walt obviously had his too.
What does
the global town square (G.T.S.) look and feel like? It is as varied and diverse
as the Internet is right now. What it stabilizes into, is recognized as, gels
into universal perception as, will slowly happen in the next decade or two or
three. It will depend on the flow of culture and history in that as yet
unpainted future.
The global
culture idea is at this moment, and in my opinion, about bogus “global village”
concepts, decades old, that put ideas out on the airwaves and onto the
Internet. That old time touch me, look me in the eyes, and trade me your horse,
town square sense of cohesion is missing or has gaps in it.
Before we in
America get to the future, we should more fully understand who we are, consider
where we have been and where we are going. We need consensus. We also in many
ways need compromise. If we do not know or try to understand our neighbors
locally or globally, then we fail as Christians and we fail our community as
well.
“We” is the
important part of the preceding statement. Nationality may disappear in the
next decades in some corners of the globe but geography and local-ness will
not.
We either as
a group become more local and or more universal. Whatever factor dominates our
future thinking needs a balanced approach to dealing with reality. If the local
culture is important, then the universal global culture has to be recognized
and respected but not necessarily served blindly.
The
globalists have to recognize and respect local customs – period! Culture in the
global age has to be a two way street.
I may sound
more secular than cultural with my Christianity here but look at the world of
Jesus. You had the Romans and Herod and the Temple Priests and their politico
crony parties. You had the dispossessed in the new Romanization of the Holy
Land. It was a global situation and after the time of Jesus, it failed. It
failed miserably.
Jesus coped
with and inspired a local flock that included all levels of that local and
global community. The words, teachings and message of Jesus are now as
important as ever. I believe that he among the many facets of his unique
character and mission – I believe that he truly was one of the first to act
locally and think globally. Turn your cheek, go the extra distance, love you
neighbor (even if he is a Roman).
Communication
and consensus in local matters and looking over your shoulder at that global
thing coming at us is something I as a cultural Christian give consideration to
everyday. I hope we all, of many belief systems, are doing the same.
- mm 17/06/08
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