The Cultural Iceberg
Warning: Concept only to be used when convenient.
Some years ago my wife and I participated in a provincial government agency foster parent training program. Among other things, we learned about the “cultural iceberg.” Culture, you see, is like an iceberg. That icy point you see floating above the water is only the tip - there’s a lot more to it that you can’t see.
So when it comes to culture, there’s a part that’s exposed to the air, as it were. The food, the music, the clothing… the colourful stuff that is said to make a multicultural society so vibrant and enjoyable. If it weren’t for multiculturalism, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy samosas, chow mein, and wiener schnitzel, all without leaving our home town. And look at all the pretty outfits! Aren’t they neat? Isn’t it just a feast for the eyes, part of the glorious mosaic that makes up the cultures of the world? Wouldn’t life be bland in a monocultural society?
Those are the selling points for multiculturalism - the tip of the iceberg. This is how the image of the cultural iceberg is marketed to the masses. The sticky point is this, and when promoting multiculturalism, this is an aspect of culture that is not acknowledged or openly broadcast: 90% of the iceberg cannot be seen. The thing is, that’s where the really important stuff is. That’s where the worldview lies, where the deep things lie hidden to the outsider. This is the religious basis of every culture - the thing that makes a culture either good, or bad. Because yes, we can and must judge cultures. All cultures are not created equal.
There’s an expression that says that “culture is always downstream from religion.” The word “culture” is at least etymologically related to the word “cult,” which also has its roots in the Latin word cultus. Cultus means “care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence,” and the relationship of these words says a lot - culture is the fruit of cultus, in its sense of “worship” or “reverence.” The object of our worship will shape our culture, for good or for ill. The worship of the One True God will lead (and has led) to a flowering of culture, while the worship of idols (i.e. demons) will necessarily lead to bad fruit, culturally speaking.
This is why multiculturalism is not in itself a good thing, no matter how much that message is shoved down our throats by the powers that be. Because we’re not just dealing with the tip of the iceberg, the borscht and the jangling bracelets; that chunk that lies hidden beneath the surface is what really matters.
So churches can be multi-ethnic, but they can never truly be multicultural. As church, we engage in building a counter-culture, one that is distinctly Christian. The trimmings (the ice that’s exposed to the air) may differ, but the foundation must always be the same. Multiculturalism is necessarily built on the foundation of relativism, and in an ideologically multicultural society, it is considered poor form (at best) to criticize another culture.
The West was built on a Christian foundation, and it would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Christianity to the form that our culture has taken, even though it is not acknowledged today in polite society. Our Western nations have been casting off our Christian moorings for some time already, but the remnants remain, and we are living on the fumes of our Christian past. How long that will continue before disintegration happens is something only God knows. But we must not allow our understanding of culture to be relativized by the multiculturalist ideologues and their propagandists.
Christian culture is praiseworthy, and is the fruit of the Christian faith, lived out in societies that are seeking to build the City of God. Where societies are engaged in building the City of Man, in service to false gods of whatever stripe, only cultural deterioration and collapse will result.