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In this post from First Things Matthew Milliner makes a helpful distinction between two ways of thinking about the relationship between culture and Christ as culture.

The first approach thinks of Christ and culture like the dispensable relationship of the hermit crab and its shell:

The true essence of the gospel might don cultural attire when necessary, but only to just as quickly cast it off, seeking new garb to attract a fresh set of converts.

The other approach can be thought of along the lines of the indispensable connection between a turtle and its shell:

A turtle is permanently fused to its habitation by its backbone and ribs; the shell is inextricable from the creature itself. Removing it would rip the animal apart. In its single shell lie a turtle’s protection, distinction, and beauty. This unique relationship to its hardened exterior is what places turtles among the earth’s oldest reptiles—contemporaries of both dinosaurs and us.

He goes on to look at T.S. Eliot’s essays in Christianity and Culture, which advocate a “turtle” approach to culture:

Eliot’s understanding of Christianity and culture was both large and subtle, so difficult that Eliot himself could not grasp it “except in flashes.” He could, however, name two errors: [1] the beliefs that “culture can be preserved, extended, and developed in the absence of religion,” and that [2] “the preservation and maintenance of religion need not reckon with the preservation and maintenance of culture: a belief which may even lead to the rejection of the products of culture as frivolous obstructions to the spiritual life.” . . .

Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that all parts of Christian culture need be retained, just as it would be foolish to discourage new forms of indigenous Christian culture.

Eliot suggests neither.

Instead, he points out that a Christian culture already formed is discarded unwisely, for it is not made overnight. “You cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made.”

True, there may be room in Christianity for relationships to culture that resemble both the hermit crab and the turtle. But should the Church wish to produce further generations of Christians with the luxury to protest Christendom, she needs to preserve and transmit Christian culture in addition to faith. Eliot, no stranger to nuance, on this matter expresses himself quite plainly: “I believe the choice before us is between the formation of a new Christian culture, and the acceptance of a pagan one.”

In an arresting passage, he warns that to neglect the transmission of Christian culture is to destroy “our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.” He would be unsurprised to see those edifices further eroded today. He might be surprised to see a crustaceous crowd of post-Christendom Christians celebrating the loss.

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