Christianity as Culture

One of my surprises in life was the fact that I live in a Christian culture. I am a “cradle Catholic”, but I always expected the rest of the world to be different, very different, from the way I had been raised. 

I grew up knowing that I was different. The books made statements like “90% of the population of the United States is White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.” This was so NOT true in my section of Queens.  Our neighborhood had racial tension because half the block was Irish Catholic, and the other half was Italian Catholic.  We had one Protestant family and one Jewish family, and I read the statistics about population in the United States and doubted the text books. I never expected to share concepts OR MUSIC across these great divides -- and they felt greater at 10 than they do now. 

Of all things, rock and roll helped show me how much I shared with that 90% of America invisible from the tract housing I grew up in.  A shared foundation of the bible is the root of much of Elvis Presley’s music, of our constitution, and of my own hewn morality. Our shared faith (not religion, but faith) is expressed in songs like  “Clean Up Your Own Back Yard”. It is a musical rendition of Luke 6:42 “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye.” I thought I was all alone in my morality – Elvis proved me wrong.  And I was not the only one who liked the Elvis subtext -- even today people see the Elvis poster over my desk and share memories of rebellion, growing up, rock and roll, and how their parent's felt about Elvis.  It is great.