The Cultural War

Is there a cultural war going on?  The answer is yes.  It is a war between good and evil, darkness and light, righteousness and unrighteousness.  It is a war that has gone on since the beginning of human history.  This battle is depicted in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel and has continued as a theme throughout the entire history of mankind.  What we are seeing today is only an intensification of a war which has been going on behind the scenes for a long time in our culture.

What has caused the intensification of this war?  I think we can answer this by asking and answering another question.  Why have Americans been able to live together for so long with less conflict?  To answer this, it will be helpful to look at the founding fathers.  The founding fathers of our country were a mixture of religious and not so religious men, but they had some very important things in common.  They were all very moral men and shared the same value system.  Their shared value system and their respect for one another and the work which they were doing seemed to be enough to bind them together in unity and purpose.

When we analyze the founders we see a mix of high humanists and Christians.  The high humanists seemed to be men of faith, though not always completely Christian in their theology; yet they seemed to share the high morality of their Christian brothers.  However, like their Christian brothers, they often failed to live up to the virtues they espoused.  All seemed to have a great respect for the moral teachings of Jesus Christ.

The question then is:  What has changed?  I do not believe that Christian morality is much different today than it was at the beginning of our country.  If anything, it is less rigid and less dogmatic.  I think the problem comes when we look at the humanists of our nation today.  I would say that it would be safe to say that there are far fewer high humanists today than there were at the beginning of our nation.  Today many humanists have embraced a hedonism which borders on a low paganism more than a high humanism.  They have embraced a morality that cannot be accepted by Christians, and they have embraced a profane view of the world that leaves no room for a divinity or a people who believe in one.  In essence, they have declared war on religion and Christian morality.

Moreover, compared to previous times there are many more militant atheists who seem to have as their goal to marginalize religion in our culture.  They are continuously and openly attacking religion at every turn, claiming that our culture is a secular culture and that it was the intent of the founding fathers to create a secular nation.  (Of course, they call their attacks civil liberty).  If it is true that the founders wanted a secular culture, why did the founders talk so much about the deity, and why did they pass down so many religious symbols in and out of the public square?  If it was the intent of the fathers to create a secular nation, why didn’t they simply state it?  Only ONE president has ever said that America was a secular nation.  Guess who?  Obama.  However, to be fair to President Obama, he just may be right.  Our country is moving away from its religious roots at an alarming rate.  Of course, to some it may not be alarming, depending on one’s view of religion and one’s world view.  It will be interesting to see if  a nation whose roots are deep in religion will be able to remain free and prosper if cut off from those roots.

At this point in our history, I think it’s a tossup as to who will win this cultural war.  The humanists have control of the majority of the universities, the major media, and the public schools.  The traditionalists and the conservatives have control of talk radio and the home school movement.  They are writing far more books and still have the majority of churches supporting them.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the next decade.  You might have noticed that I left God out of the equation. If you bring Him in to the equation it sure raises a lot more questions. LD