“Of all the ‘external’ elements shaping the character of individuals as well as of groups religion is, perhaps, the strongest. This should not surprise us, because every higher religion offers us an almost complete picture of a meaningful universe; it points out a destination and a way. It is, therefore, self-evident that different religions involve different ways of life: they will influence our temperaments.We should never underestimate the effect of such other factors as geography, meteorology, biology, nourishment, history, sociology; yet the great changes resulting from the conversion of large groups cannot leave us unimpressed. Even after a short time, entirely new behavior patterns emerge. One has only to compare the inhabitants of Catholic and of Protestant islands in the Hebrides in order to appreciate the importance of the religious factor; or to compare villages belonging to these two different religious communities in central Germany, in Hungary, in the Netherlands, Latvia or Switzerland. An invisible line divides the cultural patterns of these communities, even thought they speak the same language and obey the same laws.”
Liberty or Equality — pg. 179
Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
1.) Don’t miss that we are talking here of “external” elements. Religion is external inasmuch as it is that which is from outside of us (from above) that forms the man and/or people. It is an outside element that adjusts our most inward dispositions. It is an outside element that shapes both the individual and the the institutions and social order that ends up contributing in shaping us.
There are internal elements as well that have need to be considered. For example, who God has made us to be in our generations — our very DNA — is a great factor to be considered in this matter of the factors that shape character. Religion, as an external element, never works to shape the character of individuals or people groups apart from whom God has made them to be in their very corporeality.
To insist that religion is that alone which forms a man or people group would be fall into the error of Gnosticism. To insist that heredity alone forms a man or people group would be to fall into the errors of materialism. To insist that man can be only understood in terms of his environment would be the error of Skinnerian Behaviorism.
2.) For those with eyes to see, all of life is a carefully choreographed religious dance. From our habits, to our social order, to our Institutions, to our inventions, to our calendars, to our shopping malls, to our entertainments, to our art, to our science, to our fashions, everything is screaming our religion and so our Theology. Our everyday life is ablaze with theological meaning and significance. This is so true that we can paraphrase Lenin by saying, “culture is but a mere continuation of religion.” For those with eyes to see looking at a culture and a social order is to look upon religion in action.
3.) The great lie of Modernity and Anabaptist and R2K theology is that religion can be cordoned off and isolated to some private realm. One can insist on this aberration all they like but the passion of the insistence does not make it so. The great error of all Enlightenment project thinking is that reality can be compartmentalized into air-tight compartments that have little or no relation to one another. This lack of systemic thinking has been the genesis for the elimination of Biblical Christianity and the rise of Humanism.
4.) Note that not even a shared language and shared laws can strip the impact of different religions upon the same people. We see this in spades today. Cultural Marxist Americans from the same families are radically different from Biblical Christians from the same families. Even family members who differ in their Christianities, let’s say Pentecostal vs. Roman Catholic vs. Reformed, are going to be very different in the way that people who hold to those different faiths lean into life, in the their disposition and attitudes, in the way they lean into life. The more exacting each is, in regard to their faith, the more sharp the contrasts.
