Culture: Everyone experiences it, but few can define it

February 28th is officially the Kalevala Day in Finland. It is also called ‘Finnish culture day’, a day when the Finnish flags are flying all over the country. The message is obviously clear: The famous Finnish epic Kalevala is considered to be the heart of Finnish culture. There are no such ‘culture days’ celebrated in all the other Nordic nations. Nonetheless, all nations have their own culture. Danes talk about Danish culture, just as Swedes talk about Swedish culture or Norwegians about Norwegian culture. 

But first of all, what do we mean by culture? Every major newspaper has a section dedicated to ‘culture’, and usually this section is dedicated to all sorts of arts, such as music, literature or cinema. Everyone has an idea of what the word culture means. Although the arts are an important part of it, culture is a much broader concept. What does it mean when we hear about Finnish culture, Swedish culture, or Russian culture? Are we talking only about the arts? And why do we find the suffix –culture in words like agriculture or horticulture? If culture was only about the arts, what does agriculture have to do with that? What’s more, expressions like ‘LGBT culture’ or ‘cultural Marxism’ are more and more used these days. So what does this broad concept of culture mean? 

Culture is also at the heart of the biblical worldview. In the Bible, the account of the creation of man as found in Genesis 1:26-28 is known as the cultural mandate. But religion has nothing to do with culture, does it? 

In fact, the word culture comes from the Latin cultus, a word that also gave rise to the word cult. This should already tip us off, because the word cult is inextricably linked to religion. Indeed, cultus simply means worship. Contrary to popular belief, not only is culture associated with religion, but in reality, all culture is rooted in religion. But what link can there be between religion and culture? And how does agriculture have its roots in religion?  

The Cambridge dictionary defines culture as follows:   

1. the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time;  

2. the attitudes, behaviour, opinions, etc. of a particular group of people within society. 

These definitions hint at the fact that the roots of a culture are always religious. In his masterful book The Mission of God, Joe Boot explains that the word culture also comes from the Latin verb colere, which can mean ‘to till the soil in order to make things grow.’ [2] If we therefore link the two Latin words at the root of the word culture, cultus and colere, culture ploughs seeds, that is to say basic ideas about what is good, just or beautiful, and makes them grow to become a concrete reality in all areas of society. It is therefore on the basis of these ideas that a nation organises itself at all levels. However, ideas concerning good and evil, right and wrong, etc. are always religious in nature. It is that which man worships as God that will generate these ideas. All human activity is therefore religious. This is why Henri Van Til was right to define culture as nothing other than ‘religion externalised’.[3] In other words, culture is a belief system applied in all spheres of society.  

The religious roots of culture are not clearly apparent in modern Europe. These beliefs, which seem self-evident to most people, can be expressed as follows: human reason and senses can understand all of reality, without external help. Man can therefore interpret the world completely autonomously. These beliefs were at the heart of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. They can be summarised by the ancient Greek expression, ‘Man is the measure of all things’, which was revived by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.[4] Although the philosophers of the Enlightenment described themselves as non-religious, their belief was just as religious as belief in Jesus Christ. Modern European culture rests firmly on this religious foundation, which is called ‘humanism’.  

Biblical Christianity denounces humanist belief. It therefore attacks the root of the culture that dominates European nations. The Bible effectively describes any doctrine opposed to the Bible as being ‘doctrines of demons’ (1 Timothy 4:1).  

The Christian culture is rooted in and shaped by the Spirit of God. And so, given that demons and the Spirit of God are radically opposed, the Christian culture is radically opposed to humanist culture. Unlike the humanist creed, the Christian culture is not built on the belief that man is the measure of all things. Rather, it is based on the fact that God is the measure of all things, and that man must be totally subject to God and His Word. The Bible must define all categories, such as good and evil, just and unjust, what has value and what does not, etc. The Christian culture recognises that sin leads man to define these categories independently of God. It recognises that man seeks to unjustly hold the truth captive (Romans 1:21). Man is therefore incapable of interpreting the whole of reality independently. All his theories about ethics, politics, economics, etc. are corrupt at their root. Man needs a rebirth, which is only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Christian culture recognises that everything has been subjected to Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18). It recognises that Jesus Christ is the source of wisdom on which our society can be built.  

If culture is therefore religious, all its derivatives are also religious. Agriculture, for example, is not a ‘neutral’ activity. It is practised on the basis of a series of beliefs concerning what is right or what has value. These beliefs are ultimately either humanist (man is the measure of all things) or Christian (Jesus Christ is the measure of all things). And the boundary between the two options is hermetic. There is simply no neutral ground. 

[1]“Culture,” Cambridge Dictionary, accessed February 28, 2025,   

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/culture.  

[2] Joseph Boot, The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society(Toronto: Ezra Press, 2016), 368.  

[3] Henri R. Van Til, The Calvinistic Concept of Culture (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1959), 200.  

[4] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1914), 4.