AMERICAN CULTURE: CONFLICT OR TRANSFORMATION
Mere Comments points to a manuscript of Prof. Albert J. Raboteau's Father Alexander Schmemann Lecture at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, "Orthodox Christianity and American Culture: Conflict or Transformation?" It's loaded with quoatable material -- a few samples:

+ "It is easy to criticize the vulgar consumerism of mass media advertising. There is a more subtle form, however, that can turn religion itself into just another form of ego gratification -- a kind of spiritual consumerism that focuses on having spiritual experiences to aggrandize the self -- spiritual hedonism, but hedonism none the less."

+ "African-American Christianity has continuously confronted the nation with troubling questions about American exceptionalism. Perhaps the most troubling was this: 'If Christ came as the Suffering Servant, who resembled Him more, the master or the slave?' Suffering slave Christianity stood as a prophetic condemnation of America's obsession with power, status, and possessions. African-American Christians perceived in American exceptionalism a dangerous tendency to turn the nation into an idol, and Christianity into a clan religion. Divine election brings not preeminence, elevation, and glory, but as black Christians knew all too well, humiliation, suffering, and rejection. Chosenness, as reflected in the life of Jesus, led to a cross. The lives of his disciples have been signed with that cross. To be chosen, in this perspective, means joining company not with the powerful and the rich, but with those who suffer, the outcast, the poor, and the despised."

+ "Contrary to common opinion, pluralism is not relativism, nor does it necessitate relativism. Pluralism means encountering the values and attitudes and beliefs of others with respect for those who hold them. Pluralism, when taken seriously as respect for difference, actually rejects relativism for avoiding the hard truth that we do indeed differ. Pluralism is not a denial of truth; it is the difficult road we walk to achieve a mature understanding of the truth and the opportunity to share that truth with others who are seeking it. Whereas relativism patronizes others by pretending that difference does not matter because everything is a matter of 'to each his own,' pluralism appreciates diversity precisely because it challenges one’s own values, assumptions, and beliefs, including one’s religion. Pluralism challenges us to experience religion as more than cultural identity. It challenges us to appropriate, internalize, and live out the religious identity passed to us by family and society. It creates an opportunity to discuss and to argue for one’s own position."

+ "Pluralism challenges us to put our lives where our mouths say we are. In addition, pluralism offers us the opportunity not only to understand more deeply our faith in distinction from that of others, it also presents before us a 'field ripe for the harvest'. In this time and place, no less than any other, the 'Great Commission' – 'go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,' applies. And it becomes an urgent imperative for us, not simply to counteract dwindling or stagnant numbers of members, but because Christianity is by divine calling inescapably missionary..."