I thought you'd like to see this interesting piece written by a friend of mine, Vishal Mangalwadi on the work and long-lasting influence of William Carey in India.  It speaks volumes about the importance of all we just discussed about "what is man?" at the Circe conference in Dallas: how the cultural aspects of the Faith take root in the lives and practices of a people, giving an Incarnational reality to teaching.  And notice that later even at a point when many no longer believed the Gospel, Indians still live and think according to the patterns of a Christian culture, and benefit from them (for example, no longer practicing sati or child sacrifice).

I am not advocating this approach because I give greater value to cultural influence in this world then to the state of souls, I am just pointing out that when souls are converted, they begin to consciously change language, literature, technology, politics, et c., in accordance with the innate nature and value of the human being.  The result is a culture that makes the Faith all the more reasonable, and harder to disagree with than it would be without it -- for example, when one Indian says to the other, "This Christianity cannot be true."  The other might say, "I don't understand all of it, and I don't much care for the whole 'death-to-self' that it teaches, but look at the more humane way of life we now have.  We don't starve while protecting cows, we no longer perform child sacrifice, our political system no longer withholds justice from the poor simply because of their poverty, we are safer on the streets, we have universities and hospitals, people live more hopeful lives, and government corruption is down, so we have more money.  It may be that Christianity is not true, but if it is a lie, it is certainly a helpful one.  Maybe we should give its beliefs a second look before we give up on it."

In the West today, it would be good to get a glimpse of what life was like before the Christian mind led the culture.  To do so, we would have to go back a lot farther into our own past than the Indians do -- perhaps back to Old Testament times to read how the Persians, or the Philistines, or the Cartheginians lived.  Or maybe not that far back - perhaps the Celts, Goths, Saxons or Vikings before they were converted. These cultures lacked more than just electricity or anesthesia (neither of those was available as late as the American Civil War), what they lacked was a view of the human that couldn't even imagine universities, hospitals, or statues of blind justice.

In a culture in decline, a Christian standing alone but calling on his cultural inheritance stands in the midst of a majority.  To cultures in ascent, the work may be to call barbarians to imagine what the culture might become, but today we are in decline, and dismissal of our own history and cultural inheritance will only make the Gospel less compelling.  In either situation, however, Christians are advocates of the "permanent things," not looking longingly back to a golden cultural past, OR hoping for a utopian cultural future.  Of course those things do exist.  The Faithful, simply living out belief in permanent things, generate times that in retrospect will seem golden, and contemplate a future that will actually BE golden.