The Culture War

I read with interest the essay by Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., entitled "Winning the Culture War," recently published on this listserv (VirtueOnline). In her view, the only hope for the country is for conservatives to politically defeat the liberals and reintroduce Judeo-Christian values. What does Crouse see wrong with the country?

The sins Dr. Crouse mentions in her essay are as follows: teenage pregnancy, sex outside of marriage, abortion, drugs, unwed births, divorce, cohabitation, STD's, homosexuality, and the shooting of innocent school children. In her view, these evils are the results of a liberal onslaught carried out by the media, the universities, liberal think tanks, and by progressive humanists feminists. The corruption is also promoted by organizations such as MoveOn, People for the American Way, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, and so forth. She believes that conservatives must enter the political process to reverse these evils. What are we to make of this?

First, she is not dealing with the fundamental realities of American life. A fundamental, daily reality for virtually all Americans is the American economic system composed primarily of giant corporations. These corporations continually expand in order to compete in the market, offset downturns, and give a good return on the shareholders’ investments. To expand, these corporations must produce an ever-growing flood of goods and services which the public must be induced to consume. To promote continuous consumption, corporations must advertise and the American public is saturated with advertising from morning until night. This advertising does not appeal to the sacrificial self created in Jesus by new birth from above. New persons in Christ Jesus daily take up their crosses, restrain their passions, sacrifice themselves for the good of others, avoid excessive consumption, turn the other cheek, and serve others rather than seeking to be served. Jesus taught this quite clearly. He also lived it. Advertising, by contrast, violates these Christian norms relentlessly. It offers exactly what the devil offered Jesus -- bodily satisfactions, power and wealth, and personal glory. As a result, the whole nation is awash in a sea of sinful consumption. This is the world in which we live.

As long as the country affirms an economic system based on expansion and consumption, the country will naturally affirm a permissive approach to life that promotes the evils Dr. Crouse deplores. Only when Christians began to obey the economic teaching of Scripture, limits, concern for the poor, the evils of unbridled material accumulation, will there be any real hope for winning the culture war. In my view, Dr. Crouse failed to get at the root of the problem. The root problem is that this country is committed to an economic order that requires the continuous satisfaction of sinful desires, for apart from ever-expanding consumption, the economic order would collapse. In short, the economic order is anti-Christian, and one sign of that fact is the sinful sexual craze described by Dr. Crouse

Further, in order to maximize profits, the giant corporations require a continuous stream of cheap raw materials, cheap labor, and new investment opportunities. These can be found overseas and the giant corporations scour the world to satisfy their needs. America now sits atop a gigantic world-wide enterprise, enmeshed with other powerful nations and economic combines, which together dominate the world. This economic system concentrates enormous wealth in a few hands, and these people by and large, direct the economic order and run the government. American politicians are wealthy, funded by the very wealthy, and beholden to the rich and powerful. They know that their foreign economic interests, such things as oil in the Middle East, minerals and food products in Latin America, cheap industrial goods from Asia, and so forth, must be protected. For decades, the United States has meted out a steady stream of wars, kidnappings, invasions, and subversions. The populace, including Christians, rarely judge these interventions by Christian standards, nor do they take the time to discover what is really happening. Perhaps a few of these foreign interventions could be justified by Christian just war theory, but most are the brutal protection of American interests papered over by words such as “democracy” and “freedom.” Seen in the large, they are the continuation of the 19th century conquest and exploitation of the North American land mass. The result, beginning with African slaves and the Indians of North America, and now with the people of Iraq, is terrible suffering.

Many people find it difficult to believe the foregoing. Why? The nation as a whole solves a fundamental problem, the need for economic and political security. As a result, many people are incapable of fully grasping the country's evils because they worship the country as a god that protects and nurtures them. For example, one of my conservative, Christian friends once told me that "Ronald Reagan is my hero, my John Wayne." I then asked him how he liked the Democratic Party. He didn't. I asked him to tell me what was wrong with the Democrats. He listed a number of evils and I agreed with many of them. I then pointed out that Scripture clearly teaches that all persons are sinners. All of us, from great to small, hurt the people around us and misuse the resources God has given us. For those who possess great influence and wealth, as do political parties and governmental leaders, these sins have terrible consequences. For most of the rest of us, it is our family and friends who suffer. I then asked my conservative friend to tell me the sins of the Republican Party. He could think of nothing, except one trivial case of some Republican who had taken a bride or something to that effect. Consistently, he had made a god, an idol, out of the country, the flag, Ronald Reagan, and John Wayne. As a result, he filtered out all evidence that would diminish his god. The result of his blindness, and he is not alone, is blind support for public policies that cause great suffering. This idolatry is a terrible sin, a violation of the first commandment.

By focusing on sexual sins, Dr. Crouse failed to grasp the depth of the problem. She writes as if the culture war was between conservatives and liberals, as if the conservatives were right and the liberals wrong. It isn't a war between conservatives and liberals. It is a war of all of us against God. That's the real war. That is why Jesus had to die. This country, liberals and conservatives together, is an idolatrous nation. Its three primary gods are Venus, Mammon, and Mars, the headlong pursuit of sex, wealth, and military power. As a broad generalization, conservatives worship Mammon and Mars, liberals worship Venus and Mammon.

The true God, the great God, will not brook this idolatry. He is just. Sooner or later we will reap what we sow. To avoid that outcome, we need to repent, not just of sexual sins, but all sins, including the headlong pursuit of wealth and power.

What was the attitude of Jesus or the prophets in the face of a nation that would not repent? First of all, they did not hate or denigrate their country. Hating one’s country is as idolatrous as blind love. No, they grieved for their nation, knowing their people would suffer for their sins. And they were right, the nation was destroyed. Here is Jeremiah, experiencing the coming judgment even before it happens.

Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry. Disaster follows disaster; the whole land lies in ruins. In an instant my tents are destroyed, my shelter in a moment. How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the trumpet? (Jer. 4:19-21)

This is Jesus, sick at heart over the impending destruction.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." (Lk. 13:34-5)

Let me recommend a few books, starting with the Bible. I take it for granted that most Christians, at least those who adhere to a straightforward reading of the Bible understand that Scripture commands sexual purity, sex restricted to a man and woman in marriage. I affirm that biblical norm and am very sorry for the immense suffering caused by failure to uphold that norm. I do not take it for granted that most Christians are willing to understand and obey what the Bible has to say on war and economic justice. To that end, read Amos and Luke's gospel and notice what God says about the poor and economic justice. Ask yourself a simple question, Is our economic system biblical? Secondly, read R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism(New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1955), as well as Karl Polayni, Origins of our Time, the Great Transformation (London: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1945). There you will discover that the economic perspective that dominates our culture is a radical departure from both Scripture and Church tradition. Further, check out the website of Veterans for Peace (www.veteransforpeace.org) and ruthlessly face what they have to say. It seems obvious to me that the war in Iraq is both illegal and immoral. Finally, read Jim Wallis, God's Politics: Why the Right Got It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). It is excellent.

Finally, like Dr. Crouse, I am in favor of political involvement, especially by people who repent and believe the Bible, all of it.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
October, 2006