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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Christian Influence, or Christian Culture?
From an interview with Hans Rookmaaker:

"Being a Christian is in the first place a matter of mentality and not a
question of accepting a doctrine. It is walking with God. Christ preached
this mentality in the Sermon on the Mount – the hungering and
thirsting after righteousness, the peace making, the showing mercy,
being meek, having a good attitude with respect to sexuality, in short,
taking a stand in life. What Christians strive for and should strive for is
to keep the world clean for God – that is how I translate serving the
kingdom of God – and endeavouring to be salt that salts. We are not
working to achieve a little Christian subculture, we are not working in
the first place for a world of Christian organizations, although I am
certainly not opposed to them, but our lives are always in the service of
the world at large, of the general culture. We strive for a better culture
and not for an elitist Christian community. I believe that the simple
fruits of faith such as honesty, uprightness and the like enter into the
general culture. "