"Shared cultural values"

At Christianity Today online, David Neff writes about "The Culture of Me" and how the Terri Schiavo case "created a cultural moment." The case brought together such unlikely allies as Randall Terry & Jessie Jackson, the latter of whom cried out against an injustice that transcended both politics and family. And, Mr. Neff explains, these alliances were atypical in U.S. public life in an important respect:

Instead of splitting along party lines, the fault line ran between the culture of personal autonomy and the more communal consciousness that understands that moral values. . . are fostered by shared cultural values.

The conflict over the life of Terri Schiavo reflects issues not only in the broader U.S. culture, but in the church. At the center of the Terri Schiavo case is the notion that matters of life and death are strictly personal, family issues. The "cultural of personal autonomy," while a quintessentially modern concept, is a huge challenge to the church in the developed West, particularly since that culture is still dominant in the church.

Born and reared in the U.S., I've fallen into the trap of viewing the Christian life as a personal enterprise: God saves me, I walk with God and try to obey him the best I can. Of course that's a profoundly impoverished view of life in Christ. In fact, Christ died to save the whole church, not just me. Salvation, redemption, sanctification, worship--all of these are communal events of which individual Christians partake.

Christians shouldn't expect to share a long list of values with the wider culture--not even the concept of a worldview that looks beyond personal autonomy. But in the church itself, we must somehow recover the notion that we are not our own. Rather than focusing on our rights, we need to see our lives through the lens of duty to God and one another.