It’s Time for Christians to Abandon the Culture Wars

Amalfi Cathedral of Saint Andrew in the Piazza del Duomo, Amalfi, Italy | Photo by Meg Capone

The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.

The term “culture wars” stands as a ubiquitous feature of our public discourse. We all sort of know what it means: different ideological groups attempting to seize control of our political and social narratives. But to really understand the culture wars, we need to look beyond their goals and instead examine the weapons with which they’re fought. These weapons include marches and protests, “commentary” (rants and arguments) on social media, and political “heroes” (extreme exemplifications of a group’s ideology) to positions of power. The weapons seem geared towards a “the best defense is a good offense” mentality, with the ideal of winsomely hashing out disagreements replaced by “trolling the libs” or yelling “F*** Trump!”

One of the prominent ideological groups within the culture wars is Christian evangelicals. Debates about how to win the culture wars have raged within evangelical circles for years—I don’t want to rehash them here. I am more concerned with the fact that Christians have unquestioningly joined the same culture wars as every other group, picked up the same weapons, and fought with the same zeal. If Christians really want to fulfill the Great Commission, it’s time that we abandon the culture wars and their weapons.

We might immediately resort to “proof-texting” our arguments against the culture wars by pointing to anti-war verses, like “turn the other cheek” in the Sermon on the Mount or Paul saying “our struggle is not against flesh and blood” in Ephesians. But for every proof text against warfare, we can find another supporting it—for example, Paul also tells Christians to “fight the good fight of faith.”  We need to look beyond the metaphorical use of “war” to find our true objections.

Reflect on the aim of the culture wars: seizing control of civic narratives and institutions. At best, Christianity has an ambivalent relationship with power and power structures. In the gospels, the poor and outcast flocked towards Jesus while the political and social elites conspired to execute him. Likewise, as Christianity began to spread, the apostolic injunction was not to angle for as many influential public positions as possible, but (as 1 Timothy 2 says) merely to pray for “kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” The Scriptural depictions of power are at odds with the ends pursued by the culture wars.

For Christians, the weapons of the culture wars are even more insidious than their suspect ends. As someone who grew up evangelical, I understand the impulse to use the weapons of the culture wars. Christianity is often sidelined or ridiculed in public discourse, especially by so-called “elites.” Our gut inclination is to ridicule and sideline in return. As an example, we can look at the issue of gay marriage. If they hold to the church’s traditional perspective, Christians are apt to be labeled “intolerant” or “cruel.” When Christians receive this label, they often retort with an equally strong accusation: something like “progressives want to destroy the family!” 

The veracity of these accusations is unimportant; the very fact that Christians hasten to label certain people as opponents and attack their ideologies is antithetical to Scripture. The first epistle of Peter, dealing with slander against Christianity, tells believers to “make a defense…yet do it with gentleness and respect.” To designate an opponent and wield a tool of combat against them is to refute the principles of gentleness and respect.

Now, some might defend their argumentative strategies by saying something like “I’m not demonizing people, I’m attacking evil ideas.” There’s nothing wrong with aggressive refutation of bad ideas; indeed, it might be necessary to remove intellectual barriers as a part of effective evangelism. However, attacking ideologies is not the same as attacking ideas. Ideologies inherently involve people, so to attack “progressivism” or “the LGBT agenda” is to attack group members just as attacking Christianity is attacking Christians. 

For Christians to participate in the culture war, we have to pick up the dangerous weapons of division to invade power structures that we shouldn’t even desire in the first place. We need to abdicate our position on the battlefield. 

This doesn’t mean resorting to the “Benedict Option”—I am not advocating a withdrawal from society. Instead, we need to live as if the gospel has the same potency promised in Scripture, where it is proclaimed without political platforms or policies. At the same time, it is not accomplished through covert infiltration of “secular” institutions; the early Christians boldly proclaimed their faith in synagogues and forums. In the modern world, we might design alternative institutions or create new art. Or we might avoid defaulting to the nondescript secularism of corporate America in conversations with coworkers. Certainly, we will be told to shut up or even receive slander at times; however, Christ suffered far more than that without resorting to crucifying his opponents. The gospel will win out, but only on its own terms of engagement.