DANCE STEP

“The Church is out of step with modern society.”  Can anyone deny this?  How many times might this have been said since the day after the Resurrection?  It is said like a reprimand.  “If you want the Church to have any sway in modern culture, it has to become more like modern culture.”  Which, when you think about it, is a little like saying that the only way Church can speak to moderns is to have nothing new or interesting to say to it.  It would be just another “Aye” to whatever is going on even if what is going on is radically different in Maine than it is in California.

 

The problem really is that modern culture is out of step with the Church.  There has been any number of modern cultures these past two thousand years and there are any number of modern cultures alive today.  Modern culture in Japan is different than modern culture in Iraq or any other two countries or parts of two countries that you might want to pair together.  The one common thread is the Church.  It remains constant for 2,000 years and across borders.  It would be less of a logical thing to make Church psychotically run around approving of every apparition of “modern culture” that may exist on any particular square mile of civilization than to unite all of humanity under one banner of Christianity that can speak to them all.

 

That the Church is out of step is no wonder.  It never changes it step.  It is hard to keep in step with someone who keeps changing the dance without notice and fumes because not everybody is falling into step.