Practical

The practical implications of culture.  The culture in which we live is formed by the faith we actually practice.  Thus the world currently around us is Protestantism run out to its end.
With that thought in mind, we can ask and answer the following question.  Why has every culture since the formation of the Christian faith, failed? Every single culture: Protestant, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox has failed and degenerated.  Why?
I want to start with the idea of consistentsy.  None of us are perfectly consistent in the living out of our faith.  We make mistakes, we make bad choices, bad decisions and bad things often result from our sin.  This is true in the individual and true on a large scale in a culture.
But the thing to realize is the fruit, the end result of any system of thought or religious belief. We can see the end result of a consistent practice of Protestantism is standing before us, the United States of America.  That which makes up the core foundation of Protestant thought, that is, self as final authority, is fleshed out to a logical end in America.  America is Protestantism.
The failures we see in Roman Catholic countries and cultures is truly of the same form, just simply with a different emphasis.  The Roman Catholic Church declared itself superior to and independent of the other patriarchates of the historic church.  In doing so, in setting up a single individual as the final authority, the Roman church rebelled against the Church as a whole.  In essence, they were setting themselves up as the final authority. Thus the countries and cultures that grew from that way of thinking would eventually become like the parent, self identifying as authoritative.  And in doing so, would deviate from the historic faith, having no legitimate authority over them to protect them.
But what about those Eastern Orthodox countries and cultures that have fallen?  I would argue that these cultures have fallen or declined either through inconsistent faith (i.e., thinking and acting like Protestants), or are being treated and tried to further strengthen their faith. 
The last one may sound like a begging of the question, but we do see this explanation given in Scripture as an explanation for hardship.  God has never promised us an easy life.  To the contrary, the path of faithfulness is extremely difficult.
So practically speaking, the culture in which we find ourselves is going to either be faithful to the faith or not.  Either way, we are responsible to live our lives as ones denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Christ.  This means constantly repenting, constantly examining ourselves and dealing with all our weaknesses, finding and getting up each time we fall.  Ours is a life of perpetual salvation.