Who we are or what we do?

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a cultural diversity class with a friend at Azusa Pacific University. As the two of us talked afterwards, she asked if I got the sense that her classmates thought of culture as the things people do rather than who people are or how they think. So which is it? Is culture what you do, who you are, or how you think about the world?
The answer is "yes." We have a tendency to divide who we are from what we do, but they are not so easily separated. We act in certain ways because we have particular beliefs, but our beliefs and thoughts are also shaped by our actions. Thinking is itself an action. We give labels to describe who we are, but those same labels define what we do. We are creative, introverted, a thinker, a musician, etc. We cannot divide who we are from the way we think or the way we act.
When it comes to culture, the being-act-thought divisions are just as misguided. Culture is what we do. I would be hard-pressed to explain any of my Irish-English-Navajo-Mexian roots without turning to the traditions that define us. I spent evenings at tribal dances as a child, so the culture of my ancestors would not be lost. My grandfather spoke Spanish, and I attended years of Spanish classes, so our language would not be lost. The same is true of the Christian tradition. Our "culture" involves worship, taking the Eucharist, being baptized, and studying Scripture. Our cultures are what we do.
At the beginning of this post, I argued that our cultures could not be divided into the being-act-thought categories, so why affirm that culture is defined by our actions? Culture cannot be defined solely by actions, but actions are important. Our actions are not autonomous. We perpetuate particular traditions because of how we think about the world, and those same actions shape who we are.
Participation in traditions forms our faith. As our churches gather for prayer, we learn to speak to and listen for God, but we also pray because we trust that God hears us and answers our prayers. We partake of the Eucharist because Christ commanded us, and we know that it is a means by which God pours his grace into our lives. As we continue to come to the table, we are formed as a community who shares a common table and lives a common life; we become a community which is unmistakably marked by the death of Christ. When our churches celebrate Passover, we are taught that the church lives in continuity with Israel, and then we begin to read the story of Israel as our own story. We obey the sabbath out of obedience, and we are formed in the rest of redemption and formed out of the ceaseless work of slavery (Deut. 5:12-14).
As Christians, we believe certain claims about God and the church and our lives are shaped by those beliefs. We are a redeemed people who knows that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the third day, that God is creator, sustainer, and redeemer, that the church is the body of Christ, and that Jesus will come again. But we are like Israel in the wilderness. We know who has brought us out of slavery but we are quick to return to our old masters or give our allegiance to new ones. Our participation in the daily, weekly, and yearly patterns and rituals habituate our trust and faithfulness to the God who redeems us. Without the practices, our beliefs lack the grounding and formation to be sustained, but without the beliefs and obedience, we have no purpose for our practices. Who we are shapes how we think which shapes our practices which in turn transforms who we are. Our practices, beliefs, and identity are indivisible.