Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture

by T.S. Eliot

Two long essays: “The Idea of a Christian Society” (on the direction of religious thought toward criticism of political and economic systems) and “Notes towards the Definition of Culture” (on culture, its meaning, and the dangers threatening the legacy of the Western world).

Genres: Religion, Philosophy, Christianity, Cultural, Theology, Nonfiction, Politics

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." He wrote the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age of 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.S._Eliot

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is certainly an important entry into the discussion about the relationship between Christianity and culture. Eliot, writing in the 1930s from Britain, offers a vision of Christian society that is distinct from the society in which he then lived--in other words, he acknowledges that what once may have been a Christian society had then moved past such a designation. This fact is significant because it forces Christians to grapple with the world as it is, rather than as we imagine it to be. Furthermore, Eliot believes that culture is in constant danger absent a Christian society, and that we would do well to become a Christian society. Eliot does not mean by this that everyone should become Christian, but that we should push toward organizing ourselves around the Christian ideals and symbols that have historically characterized that religion.

After sketching "The Idea of a Christian Society," in the first essay, Eliot moves on to lay out "Notes on the Definition of Culture," in his second, and longer essay. In this essay, Eliot believes that all culture has appeared or developed alongside a religion, thus making culture and religion intertwined. Eliot lays out a number of ideas in this section, from the notion that culture should be thought of in three ways: individual, group, and society. He believes that culture benefits from class structures, as they provide opportunities to transmit information in clearly defined roles and traditions. Eliot's fear is that without certain structures in society that culture will eventually disintegrate as people lose their connection to their individual and group cultures. Eliot distinguishes between his notion of class and the more offensive idea of a caste system. He believes that all people, when possessing certain genius or ability, should be able to step outside the traditional roles of their class and into other roles. All that said, Eliot has a great appreciation for culture at all levels of society, and that while those of upper classes may have a more broad or delicate sensibility when it comes to culture, all expressions of culture have a certain value to them.

The book is a major attempt to interact with the relationship between Christianity and culture, and while it is difficult to see how the ideas might translate outside of the more structured society of Britain, the work does help to give definition to the close relationship between religion and culture, as well as a number of the factors that serve to make up any particular culture.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book showed up on my radar after reading Alan Jacobs’ fascinating The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. Jacobs shows how various Christian intellectuals began to grapple with the cultural changes they saw coming following WW2.

This book contains two essays by Eliot: The Idea of Christian Society, written as WW2 was looming, and Notes Toward the Definition of Culture, penned at the war’s close.

The first essay is very worthwhile and I ended up highlighting quite a bit of it. I’ll go ahead and make the kindle highlights available. As for the second essay, I found it entirely unpersuasive and ultimately skippable.
So four stars for one and one star for the other yields a 3-star rating overall.

Here’s one of many quotes I appreciated:
“It may engender nothing better than a disguised and peculiarly sanctimonious nationalism, accelerating our progress towards the paganism which we say we abhor. To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion; and we may reflect, that a good deal of the attention of totalitarian states has been devoted, with a steadiness of purpose not always found in democracies, to providing their national life with a foundation of morality—the wrong kind perhaps, but a good deal more of it. It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society.”

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really two books in one--the first focuses on the Church and State relationship, the second on defining and discussing a Christian culture.

There is much good here, though I found his style made it difficult to follow the thread of his argument. There are some good, challenging ideas here. For example, he argues against the merits of a classless society, arguing instead that societies should be hierarchical with dynamic classes in tension with one another and people moving in and out of a class.

This is a good book to understand the cultural changes of the last one hundred years. I recommend it.

[cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

eliot says fascism is okay as long as it is christian 😭😭😭 it puts his claim about bringing christianity back into art in modernity into perspective….(this is a simplification but still such a bizarre claim)

[Alex O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read

[Jon Beadle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars for its scope and brilliance. Eliot was a traitor to the liberal doctrine; and every Christian should appreciate him for such defection.

[Cole Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

This read was very out of my usual wheelhouse as it was a type of intellect I am not used to. It dealt with a lot of sociology and talk about interpersonal impacts, how we affect each other individually and have a gross affect on our region, culture, etc. I think that it is written well and he makes some great points, but I felt like it lacked specific solutions. One of these points was that culture is based solely around religion (or another way of saying this is what you worship) which I completely agree with, but I guess I was waiting for him to talk about what we as believers can do; however, he never really gave his perspective as a Christian. Oh well. I was super excited to read this because I’ve enjoyed so much of Eliot’s poetry, but for the most I don’t envision myself going back to his prose.

[David Jamison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was incredible. I’ll leave a few of my favorite bits here:

“We must abandon the notion that the Christian should be content with freedom of cultus, and with suffering no worldly disabilities on account of his faith. However bigoted the announcement may sound, the Christian can be satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organisation of society…” (pg. 27)

“We may go further and ask whether what we call the culture, and what we call the religion, of a people are not different aspects of the same thing: the culture being, essentially, the incarnation (so to speak) of the religion of a people.” (101)

“In a Christian Society education must be religious, not in the sense that it will be administered by ecclesiastics… but in the sense that its aims will be directed by a Christian Philosophy of life.” (30)

“And then we have to face the strange idea that what is part of our culture is also a part of our lived religion.” (104)

[Malachi Liberda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2nd essay in this book on the definition of culture is much longer, and is golden. The idea that culture does not develop outside some sort of religion, and that culture and religion are in some ways intertwined so deeply that they can’t be told apart, is at the root of his premise. Solid thoughts and framework.

[Samuel Sadler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm on board. Eliot sounds like a proto-Christian Nationalist.
A few highlights:
An early version of Renn's positive-neutral-negative world; Eliot offers the pagan, neutral, and Christian as three possible cultures. He criticizes straight liberalism as doomed for decay.
He spends a lot of time exploring the layers and nuances of culture. He also explores the relationship between culture and religion, which seem to be mutually constructive (or destructive). Culture always has a religious element behind it.
I've read this book over the last few months, and think about its implications often.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canonical.

[Landon Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read on religion, culture, politics, and language. Interesting because it was written in 1939, and interesting because it was written by an American who became a British citizen and lived in a nation with a "state church." The most fascinating part of the book is Elliot's prediction that modern societies will drift toward being outwardly religious or outwardly pagan - a prediction that has come to fruition in many modern nations.

[Scott Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read these essays while a senior at college. Now, about twenty years later, I reread them in a study on the English poet TS Eliot. Eliot uses language very carefully, as any poet should, but he is a poet approaching the world of an anthropologist. Further, he writes in an era (pre- and post-World-War-II) in which European culture was pulled apart at the seams and remade again.

Eliot himself is an American transplant in England. He was largely self-educated, though he studied at Harvard and Oxford. He converted to Anglicanism from a vague Unitarian background. He writes about Christianity as the glue that stands behind European and Western culture.

Eliot appreciates pluralism and diversity. He states just such in his first essay. He sees (correctly) that Christianity consists of a diverse culture which is interested in many things: especially in the education of both youths and adults and broadly in the worlds of the state, society, and the arts.

One cannot help but wonder what Eliot would think about today’s increasingly pluralist world whose composition extends beyond Christianity into Islam, agnosticism, atheism, and other faiths. The future of the West seems more like India than Rome. Was Eliot merely one of the last gasps of Christianity or does he have something unique to contribute to our discussion?

These themes are why I picked up this book again. I let my subconscious process his insights framed in history and set in a beautiful use of the English language. As always happens with these difficult and broad topics, I came to no definite conclusions. Nonetheless, upon concluding the book, I feel as if I have traversed these topics just a little bit more. Many talk about these issues, but few do so with as cultured and definite a voice as Eliot. That’s why it’s well worth the time to read him.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot to reflect on in Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, much of it surprisingly still applicable today. Eliot writes about the end of Christendom around 80 years ago, although today establishing a Christian culture and society appears even more difficult than it did then. Contrary to his detractors, Eliot does not advocate for a theocracy; he actually warns against it and encourages a healthy tension between Church and state. I view his argument as lending itself more towards a system built on a foundation of Christianity, a system in which people would live within a Christian frame. Eliot's constant recognition that creative tension is a good thing keeps his views from becoming too totalizing.

To build a Christian society, he argues that there must be some social stratification (a classically conservative viewpoint) with an elite "community of Christians" taking leadership roles. Eliot recognizes that such a society would not be oriented around the profit motive, criticizing an economistic/technocratic view sometimes prevalent among liberals. For Eliot, as for other thinkers like Dawson, every society has religious views, whether they admit it or not. Therefore, he contrasts a Christian society with a market-secular one, a communist one, and a fascist one. Only the first he sees as desirable. Although Eliot admits that no earthly society can approximate Heaven, he views a Christian basis as the way to prioritize consideration of first principles over raw power or political expediency. Such a society must live in harmony with creation and God's truth, with the aim of helping people live more Christian lives.

This essay was stunning and remarkably applicable today. It won't be through government alone that we build a Christian society--it must be through the everyday evangelism and the hope and persistence of our placed communities. In my view (not sure Eliot would agree) this doesn't just apply to Christian society, but to any society seeking a religious basis for existence in a rapidly secularizing world. Surely, these efforts will take different shapes depending on our own contexts.

The only reason I couldn't give this book five stars is that Eliot's second essay "Notes Towards the Definition of Culture" is occasionally difficult to parse. Maybe this just makes it true to the title "notes towards," but I found myself a little lost at times. Nonetheless, I attempt to summarize here.

His primary argument is that "no culture has appeared or developed except together with a religion" (87). Religion is a whole way of life that includes culture, which is also an incarnation of religion. The issue here is that Eliot doesn't clearly define culture upfront. The best definition we get is in the Appendix, in another address. There, Eliot calls culture "the way of life of a particular people living together in one place" but in a way greater than the sum of its parts (197-98). I guess this makes sense. For him, culture and religion are both parts of one unity but different, something I'm still trying to fully comprehend.

Consonant with this somewhat fuzzy definition, culture is organic and cannot be planned/organized, a problem rampant among authoritarians of all stripes. However, a society can inform the conditions that impact cultural development, such as by refocusing education and supporting families.

The family is the main transmitter of culture in this view, a path linked too to social class. Like he does in the first essay, Eliot argues that there must be some stratification to preserve different aspects of culture existing on different levels. Elites (not always the uppermost class) are a repository for culture, connected to their social class so that they can transmit the mores of each class. We might call these influencers, albeit in a sense very different from how we use the term today... Together, these traditions, habits, and mores constitute a societal culture. Therefore, there must be continuity for a societal culture to develop through familial and elite ties; it must stem from "a piety towards the dead ... and a solicitude for the unborn, however remote" (116). I can't be the only one to hear a welcome echo of Edmund Burke in that line!

Eliot also argues that culture is inherently placed, exploring the intriguing interplay between global unity on first principles and internal pluralism within that unity. He rejects both kneejerk nationalism as well as a flattening globalist view, two dangers facing contemporary society too.

While the first essay might leave readers concerned about how Eliot deals with non-majorities, this essay calms those worries. He makes a powerful case for pluralism from non-liberal premises. Pluralism is good as it contributes to a beneficial tension, a friction between the parts of society and the world that encourages creativity. Within each person, these divided loyalties and cross-cutting identities help build solidarity and disperse animosities. On a broader level, distinct "satellite cultures" such as regional minorities or small linguistic groups contribute greatly to the flourishing of the whole. Therefore, cultural diversity can bring benefits to everybody when cultures give and receive from one another, avoiding the effacing impacts of colonialism, which he correctly condemns.

Eliot then takes on the difficult question of world culture--in his time there were world federalists seeking a ginormous superstate, and in ours, there are advocates of globalization unconstrained by borders or limits. Instead of these fantasies, a proper world culture (perhaps somewhat ill-defined) is difficult to imagine but consists of ordered relations between cultures, relationships that do not diminish each culture but also contribute to greater unity of first principles. For Eliot, this unifying principle is unsurprisingly Christianity. I wish he would grapple more with the reality of other religions in the world (condemning erasure via colonialism is surely a good start), something especially relevant in our post-Christendom era. I see a path for expanding his own praise for pluralism to this context, as at the end of the day Christians share a number of important principles with other world faiths. Applying Eliot's discussion, we can more readily see how pluralism anchored in truth enriches the Church and the world; this is the best counterweight to the dual traps of unrestricted globalization and aggressive nationalism.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

LECTURES AND ESSAYS ON SOCIETY AND CULTURE

T.S. Eliot wrote in the Preface to ‘The Idea of a Christian Society,’ “The three lectures which, with come revision and division, are here printed were delivered in March 1939… My point of departure has been the suspicion that the current terms in which we discuss international affairs and political theory may only tend to conceal from us the real issues of contemporary civilization.” (Pg. 3)

He states, “To attempt to make the prospect of a Christian society immediately attractive to those who see no prospect of deriving direct personal benefit from it, would be idle; even the majority of professing Christians may shrink from it. No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change. A Christian society only becomes acceptable after you have fairly examined the alternatives.” (Pg. 18)

He continues, “My thesis has been, simply, that a liberalized or negative condition of society must either proceed into a gradual decline of which we can see no end, or… reform itself into a positive shape which is likely to be effectively secular… the Anglo-Saxons display a capacity for diluting their religion, probably in excess of any other race. But unless we are content with the prospect of one or the other of these issues, the only possibility left is that of a positive Christian society.” (Pg. 20)

Later, he adds, “I believe that if these countries are to develop a positive culture of their own, and not remain merely derivatives of Europe, they can only proceed either in the direction of a pagan or of a Christian society. I am not suggesting that the latter alternative must lead to the forcible suppression, or to the complete disappearance of dissident sects; still less, I hope, to a superficial union of Churches under an official exterior, a union in which theological differences would be so belittled that its Christianity might become wholly bogus. But a positive culture must have a positive set of values, and the dissentients must remain marginal, tending to make only marginal contributions.” (Pg. 36)

He adds in a note of September 6th, 1939, “The whole of this book… was completed before it was known that we should be at war. But the possibility of war, which has now been realized, was always present to my mind, and the only additional observations which I feel called upon to make are these: first, that the alignment of forces which has not revealed itself should bring more clearly to our consciousness the alternative of Christianity or paganism; and second, that we cannot afford to defer to constructive thinking to the conclusion of hostilities---a moment when as we should know from experience, good counsel is liable to be obscured.” (Pg. 51)

In his Introduction to ‘Notes towards the Definition of Culture,’ he stated, “My purpose in writing the following chapters is not, as might appear from a casual inspection of the table of contents, to outline a social or political philosophy; nor is the book intended to be merely a vehicle for my observations on a variety of topics. My aim is to help to define a word, the word ‘culture.’” (Pg. 85)

He states, “We can assert with come confidence that our own period is one of decline; that the standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and that the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity. I see no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further, and why we may not even anticipate a period, of some duration, of which it is possible to say that it will have NO culture. Then culture will have to grow again from the soil… The question asked by this essay, is whether there are any permanent conditions, in the absence of which no higher culture can be expected.” (Pg. 91)

He asserts, “in a vigorous society there will be both class and elite, with some overlapping and constant interaction between them… The situation of a society without classes, and dominated exclusively by elites is, I submit, one about which we have no reliable evidence.” (Pg. 117) He continues, “All that concerns me at the moment is the question whether, by education alone, we can ensure the transmission of culture in a society in which some educationists appear indifferent to class distinctions, and from which some other educationists appear to want to remove class distinctions altogether… I incline to believe that no true democracy can maintain itself unless it contains these different levels of power… I must repeat, that the ‘conditions of culture’ which I set forth do not necessarily produce the higher civilization: I assert only that whey they are absent the higher civilization is unlikely to be found.” (Pg. 120-122)

He goes on, “In this chapter I shall be concerned with the cultural significance of religious divisions. While the considerations … should… have a particular interest for those Christians who are perplexed over the problem of Christian reunion, should be of concern not only to Christians, but to everybody except to those who advocate a kind of society which would break completely with the Christian tradition.” (Pg. 141)

He summarizes, “We know now that the highest achievements of the past, in art, in wisdom, in holiness, were but ‘stages in development’ which we can teach our springaids to improve upon. We must not train them merely to receive the culture of the past, for that would be to regard the culture of the past as final. We must not impose culture on the young, though we may impose on them whatever political and social philosophy is in vogue. And yet the culture of Europe has deteriorated visibly within the memory of many who are by no means the oldest among us. And we know, that whether education can foster and improve culture or not, it can surely adulterate and degrade it. For there is no doubt that in our headlong rush to educate everybody, we are lowering our standards, and more and more abandoning the study of the subjects by which the essentials of our culture… are transmitted;’ destroying our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans.” (Pg. 185)

This book will appeal to those interested in Eliot’s opinions about such civic/political issues.

[Jack W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most insightful books on culture, faith, and society I have read. In an age when most protestant public theology is either Marxist (Paulo Freire) or weak (Miroslav Volf), Eliot offers just the opposite, a Christian defense of class, Christian nationalism, and anti-liberalism. I have seen quotes from these works in Russell Kirk, Patrick J. Buchanan and James Jordan, not to mention numerous conservative journals.

Yet Eliot is not writing for the soundbite, but to persuade a generation of skeptics of the reasonableness of a Christian state, and to a generation of Christians to remember the good of a Christendom that now is just a byword to modern progressives.

He prefigures Sohrab Ahmari's recent work by denying that "rights" are ends in themselves, and gives the basis of a public theology that Anglo-American statesmen should seriously consider. This is a must read for American Christians disillusioned with the state of liberalism yet unenthused by Integralism or its dead Presbyterian cousin, Reconstructionism.

[Erik]

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 20, as one of Ten Books on the Humanities.

Included in the "Literary Classics" section of Fr. John McCloskey's 100-book Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

T.S. Eliot is well known as a poet, and somewhat well known as a playwright, but his work on philosophy is not sufficiently well-known, and this book is a solid example of the sort of work that should be far better recognized.  When we think of culture, there are a variety of ways we can think of it as, including the artifacts that are part of a civilization, bacteria growing in a petri dish, music and art, or religion.  The author demonstrates how all of these various matters can be viewed as interconnected, so that manners, art, and religion are all connected to each other as being essential elements of the survival of a culture.  If the author does not get too much into the arguments over culture that exist, in the sense that he maintains a reasonable attitude, he does point out the relationship between culture on various levels and scopes that makes this a very enjoyable work overall.  If you happen to like culture, and hate what is done to it, there is a lot here that one can enjoy as the proper definition and understanding of culture does help us preserve it simply by being ourselves and doing things that end up becoming aspects of culture.

This book is a short one at around 100 pages.  Really, this is an essay more than a book, but it is a long enough essay that it can be marketed as a book, as it has been.  The author begins with an introduction into how it was that the project came to be.  After that the author looks at three senses of culture and the relationship between culture and civilization (1).  This leads to a discussion of the relationship of classes and elites, and an insightful look at the difference between castes and classes (2).  After that there is a discussion of unity and diversity as it relates to the regions in which culture appears (3), as well as a discussion of unity and diversity as it relates to sects and cults, with a look at heathen religion as well as Christianity (4).  After that the author discusses the relationship between culture and politics (5) as well as providing some notes on the relationship between education and culture (6), as well as a conclusion.  After this comes an appendix (i) that looks at the unity of European culture, which gives the author the opportunity to praise those creative and cultural aspects of other nations that he most respects.

One of the most striking aspects of what the author says is that one does not improve the culture directly, but only indirectly, in the same manner that one finds happiness only indirectly, not by seeking it, for seeking it is the fastest way to make oneself miserable and seeking to uplift culture is the fastest way to harm it.  How is it that we help out with culture?  Simply by being ourselves and doing what human beings do.  And that ought to be enough, but that is usually not what people mean.  The author also points out, quite sensibly, that it is so difficult to be cultured in all aspects of the term that it is really only meaningful for human beings to look at culture in the larger picture of communities and societies, since well-mannered individuals are not often artistic, and intellectuals are not always religiously devout, but having a well-functioning culture requires all of those elements.  The fact that they are difficult to maintain in an age that is actively hostile to good manners and faith demonstrates that it is easier to recognize that culture is endangered than it is to do something about it.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of a Christian Society
Christian Ed. , per author, would train people to think in Christian categories but would not impose the necessity for insincere profession of belief. p. 22
Clerisy categorized so intelligent class, per Coleridge, is split for University level, the parochial pastorate, and local schoolmasters. p. 28
Folly is not the prerogative of any one political party or any one religious communion, and that hysteria is not the privilege of the uneducated. p. 46 good one!
. . . higher forms of devotional life. . . p. 47 pretty broad category.
When one is educated in theology, brought up in theology, and talks and lives with people of theology, then that one will, very very likely think in terms of theology.

Appendix The Church exists for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls. p. 72 3 very subjective words -- God - sanctification .. souls.

Definition of culture.
. . . advantages of birth . . . . p. 89
. . . asks whether there are any permanent conditions, in the absence of which no higher culture can be expected. p. 91
A religion requires not only a body of priests who know what they are doing, but a body of worshippers who know what is being done. p. 96
Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living. p. 200
some groups develop two religions -- one for the populace and one for the adepts. p. 10-1
. . . any religin, while it lasts, and on its own level, gives an apparent meaning to life, provides the framework for a culture, and protects the mass of humanity from boredom and despair. p. 106
We have all observed individuals occupying situations in life for which neither their character nor their intellect qualified them, and so placed only through nominal education, or birth or consanguinity. No honest man but is vexed by such a spectacle. p. 109
. . . no man wholly escapes from the kind, or wholly surpasses the degree, of culture which he acquired from his early environment. p. 115
[reasons to read books] acquisition of wisdom, the enjoyment of art, and the pleasure of entertainment. p. 163 !!!!!!
A high average of general education is perhaps less necessary for a civil society than is a respect for learning. p. 177 !!!!!

[Melissa Ranae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book consists of 2 lectures and/or essays by Eliot. I did not complete the second essay on the definition of culture. (I made it to page 135) I bought the book to read his ideas on a Christian society before WWll began. I found his ideas interesting and highlighted several paragraphs within his essay.

…”Western Democracies”…to speak of ourselves as a Christian society, in contrast to that of Germany or Russia, is an abuse of terms. We mean only that we have a society in which no one is penalized for the formal profession of Christianity; but we conceal from ourselves the unpleasant knowledge of the real values by which we live…”

“The more highly industrialized the country, the more easily a materialistic philosophy will flourish in it, and the more deadly that philosophy will be. Britain has been highly industrialized longer than any other country. And the tendency of unlimited industrialism is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from tradition, alienated from religion and susceptible to mass suggestion: in other words, a mob. And a mob will be no less of a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined.”

“The Christian and the unbeliever do not, and cannot, behave very differently in the exercise of office; for it is the general ethos of the people they have to govern, not their own piety, that determines the behavior of politicians.”

AND MY FAVORITE!❤️
“The Christianity expressed has been vague, the religious fervor has been a fervor for democracy. It may engender nothing better than a disguised and peculiarly sanctimonious nationalism, accelerating our progress towards the paganism we say we abhor. To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity is a very dangerous inversion…”

[Rex Libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good collection of two (longer) essays on the nature of Christian Society and government. Everyone knows Eliot as a poet, but after reading this book I have to say he has an intellect of the first rate.

Eliot's understanding of the relationship between religion and government is very different from the views espoused by many today. He is not proposing anything resembling a theocracy; rather, government would be very "agnostic." As it is a government founded by a Christian culture, it would not be Christian, but rather set up a legal framework that would allow the Christian culture to thrive.

Herein is one of the areas in which Eliot has a lot to say to us today. For Eliot, government is what allows culture to thrive. A government that IS the culture is a failed society. Government ought to be downstream from culture, but today culture is downstream from government. Another issue Eliot speaks to is the whole notion of "social justice." Justice with any kind of qualification ceases to be justice, but rather has some group or another putting the thumb on the scales and perverting justice to its favor.

[James Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

By no means bad, but this wasn't what I expected, and it's not something you would really need to read generally. The first part had many ideas of the idea of a Christian Society, which were certainly interesting in the abstract, but were based in 1930's England, and so less relevant today, when we are further from the Christian society we would aim for. It's not that we can't aim for it, but it would take a new start to get there. The second half had to do all with Culture, and what it was and what influenced it. My main takeaway here is that culture is so multi-faceted, like an ecosystem that it cannot be directed, but only swayed, lest it be broken and destroyed altogether. That's true for every aspect, including politics, religion, education, and imperial tendencies, that I am able to see more clearly a personal conclusion which is that we work it out day by day, and even as there are many forces at work, the work of evangelization of Christianity is the way to start to work on reforming the culture. Anyway, there's nothing shocking here, so I don't think most people need to read it, but again it was not bad.

[David Doel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a series of talks given by T. S. Eliot shortly before World War 2 and some essays and talks from shortly after the war.

His vocabulary is enormous and much of the writing is heavily philosophical, so this is one of those experiences where I may have absorbed some things without fully understanding or appreciating them.

For me, the most useful experience was the very last item labeled as an appendix (entitled The Unity of European Culture). He was giving it to a German audience, so maybe he decided to eliminate the seven-syllable words. I think his thoughts in that essay would be useful today as we confront a clash of cultures within our own country, largely driven by politics.

We need to get over the politics and our dislike of one another and return to being one nation under God. There is more to our culture than politics, much more and every one of us has something to contribute.

If you didn't learn a lot about the book from my review, that's okay because you probably won't read it anyway.

[Kutek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es re loco este libro. Por un lado, tiene uno de los exámenes más lúcidos de la palabra "cultura" gracias a un desarrollo dialéctico que no suele encontrarse en ensayos de este tipo. El mismo Eliot avanza semi historicamente para dar cuenta de todas las posibilidades que están atrapadas dentro del breve concepto de cultura y religión, las explora y desarrolla desde varios puntos de vista que dejan en evidencia las rutas y mapas que se pueden formar entre ambas ideas. Pero, por otro lado, no deja de dar cuenta de las opiniones problemáticas que Eliot tenía: pese a que sus argumentos suenan y hasta parecen coincidir con algo cercano a la teoría marxista o de izquierda, y hasta da su lugar a la crítica del colonialismo y la colonización como problemas separados, sigue muy lejos de tener una base histórica que reconozca la opresión y la injusticia dentro de la cultura. Eliot es un biólogo social muy capaz de intuir un hecho dialéctico, pero no de traer un documento que, irónicamente, acerque su noción de cultura "del día a día" al día a día de sus lectores.

[Crazyhorse Marinelli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am doing something with this book that I very rarely do; I'm going to put it back on the shelf unfinished. I'm giving up on it. Someone gave me this book when they were told I was looking for some of t.s. eliot's poetry to read. It's not poetry, it's basically pre-WWII op-ed in essay format, and it is BORING AF!!! I tried, I really did. But unless you are actually wanting to read a 20th century poet's inexpert thoughts on this subject, it is unreadable, nothing more than a rambling, shambling discourse designed for the author to hear himself postulate on a subject that perhaps had some meaning for himself, but which he was incapable of making any meaning of for the average reader. I'm not giving up on reading his poetry, but I will forever be leery of reading anything of his that ventures beyond that realm.

[Mark Seeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perceptive analysis but definitely dated. When Eliot wrote this, he said, "We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline." I wonder what he would assert in 2019 when race, gender and class have eclipsed all of what is good, true and beautiful? Eliot is certainly right in claiming that "culture can never be wholly conscious..." Mainly because he don't perceive our culture because we see with it. It is the unconscious background in our thinking and planning. We can't step outside of it.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, so the first part, "The Idea of a Christian Society" is really good. Without Eliot's little bit on purgatory in this essay I would still be trying to figure out where to place it. The second part "Notes towards the Definition of Culture" is one of those essays that humbles the reader in the remembrance of linguistics as understanding. He knows how to combat post-modern tendencies while still enjoying them. What more could you ask the man?

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good European perspective on the relationship between church and culture, including how government and education play a role. T.S. Eliot clearly functions on a higher level than I do and the book was published in 1939, so there are some parts where I'm just like "huh?" Enjoyed for the most part, though

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most interesting parts were the defense of high vs low culture and Eliot's brief thoughts on the definition and purpose of education. The rest felt a bit unspecific in prescription but over specified w/r/t the texts Eliot responds to.