To say that the root of our problems is religious is to say a great deal, but also to say rather little. Compared with the heredity and environmental reductionism popular in modern (and in ancient) thought, a confession that human nature and its problems are fundamentally religious is quite radical and immeasurably important. If, however, this confession only amounts to the notion that religious ideas underlie any given culture, then the affirmation is far less radical. For to discuss religion only in terms of ideas or doctrine is to reduce religion to an ideology. For the Christian there is an equal ultimacy of thought and practice, of saying and doing, of lip and life, of preaching and sacramental practice. As a result, any discussion of the restoration of Christian civilization may not simply consist of how Christian doctrine differs from its challenging counterfeits and antithetical adversaries in the areas of theology and understanding — be it dogmatics, economics, politics, or aesthetics; it must also include an examination of practice.
The practice of the Christian faith is most concentrated in the activity of the Church. This is for the obvious reason that it is in the Church that men devote themselves most rigorously to the practice of the faith. To put it another way, while men are to serve God in all of life, it is in the special activities of worship and charity that they are to devote attention exclusively to God and redemptive concerns.
source (page 7 of html version)
HT: Mark Horne
