Out in Public

“Culture, as we understand it, is not simply a matter of personal preferences, or likes and dislikes, but it is a matter of public preferences. The shared space is where we find culture, not in the private and personal space (although it extends there). How things are viewed that occur in the private space is a matter of culture. If you know what somebody does at home and you disapprove of it, that’s an expression of cultural disapproval, but your opinion is not an expression of culture itself. In fact, in such a case, culture influenced you and informed your disapproval. Culture, then, is the publicly explicit expression of a people’s shared religion” (Steve Schlissel, Christian Culture in a Multicultural Age, pp. 95-96).