The Culture War and the Role of the Christ Follower

Does a follower of Christ have a place on the wall of this ceaseless struggle?

Back in the summer I attended a conference operated by a well-known Christian institution of learning that purported to share biblically-oriented teachings on US history and patriotism. Why I was there is not important, but the second day in I spent an hour listening to a rather excited and angry man yell at us about how how the socialists and the liberals and the drag queens were coming for our children, and how it was a the responsibility of a godly man to take their place on the wall to stand against these things by running for school councils, boards of education, and fight the educators to save our children from all this wokeness that would corrupt their souls. At the end of his talk he told every man in the room to stand up and take an oath pledging to take our place in the fight against all the woke things of the world.

I wasn’t there for the entire week-long conference and I can’t say if the rest of it was like that, but the part I was in attendance for was seemingly devoted to turning me into a culture warrior. Apparently I was supposed to consider it paramount that I stand against the forces of liberalism at every turn. There was a strongly worded portion of the speaker’s talk that encouraged us to not tolerate lies spoken by the people around us, and his tone and meaning were pretty clear. Basically if we’re sitting around the table in the break room at work and one of our colleagues starts sharing some liberal talking point we were to verbally club them into submission with Scripture. And then tell them all about how much Jesus loves them, I suppose, if there was anyone left to listen.

There was also a good deal of talk about how as Christians we should be running for local offices such as school boards and city councils, to block all the liberal ideas that were waiting to be rolled out as part of the effort to control our every thought and force-feed depravity to our children. Gotta keep that CRT from being taught, even if it means banning books that simply reference the history of racial segregation or talk about inequalities in the system and don’t fall under the umbrella of an advanced social theory taught at the college-level to sociology students. Because woke is woke is woke, and I’m a Christian man with a family to protect from all the woke. Won’t anyone think of the children?

What is a the role of a Christ-follower in all of this? Is there a place for a Christian to stand on the wall against the hordes of liberalism (or conservatism, depending on where you are in the socio-political spectrum)? Is that indeed the battle that God wants me to focus on? Am I supposed to take heed to the apocalyptic language of media figures and politicians about how America is being destroyed by the people who aren’t us, and get out my shotgun and pitchfork to join the fight? Am I letting down the children of my community because I haven’t run for my city’s school board and demand that the books I take issue with should be banned? Maybe I shouldn’t be stopping there, after all, the governor gets to tell the school board member what to do, right?

I would very much like the US to operate in accordance with biblical, Christ-centered principles in all areas of government, including domestic and foreign policies. However, I’m not going to delude myself that all or even most Americans would willingly submit to that. The largely pluralistic society we inhabit in America today is not going to bow willingly before a Christian dominated policy framework. Even with the large number of Americans that are self-described as Christian, many do not subscribe to the same views that I do on what a biblically-oriented United States would or should look like, nor even that the US should be a theocratic state at all. And there is that niggling little detail that the US is structured as a democracy, in which we elect our representatives and leaders. Good luck winning an election in Boston or San Francisco on an platform based on traditional Christian values. And yet, I haven’t seen fit to quit supporting democracy, despite it’s many flaws.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

• Winston Churchill

One thing that is often overlooked in the relentless attacks on the people working in the White House, Capitol, or the governor’s office by the Christian right (or left) is that God is the one who established each government. We should take care not to reject the authority of those who hold office. We aren’t called to agree with them in everything, and we can and should stand against policy decisions that are opposed to God’s ways. But we are clearly called in Scripture to respect that authority.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

• Romans 13:1 (ESV)

Does that mean that I don’t think a Christian should ever run for office? Of course not. Maybe you’ve been called by the Lord to take a position of authority to help guide your community, state or country. I am, however, deeply skeptical of the idea that you can move the national culture toward greater godliness by enforcing change from the top down through political office. I’m far more certain that the more people that come into a relationship with Christ at large will lead to a far greater and more lasting cultural shift. The Second Great Awakening helped to usher in a rise in abolitionism and played a role in changing cultural views on slavery, for instance, and probably laid the groundwork for Lincoln’s eventual rise to the presidency. The handiwork of God can be seen quite clearly in what took place in his administration. When we set our hearts and minds on Christ, God can move in powerful ways.

Think about what could probably be considered one of the most significant cultural shifts that took place over the past hundred years, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Why was it successful? It wasn’t because Dr. King was elected President, or Ralph Abernathy became the mayor of Birmingham, or Rosa Parks was elected to be the governor of Mississippi. It was the very definition of a grass-roots movement. A lot of people who agreed that the system as it existed was wrong did the long, hard work of marching, protesting, and speaking out. They allowed themselves to be kicked and beaten and attacked by dogs, insulted and fired and denied employment, and disowned by family and friends who disagreed with them in service to a cause greater than themselves. They often had to direct their anger into the work instead of toward those who opposed them. They were diligent, determined and steadfast in walking in the truth that racism is a moral evil that this country had to get past in order to grow as a nation.

When the culture around racial segregation changed, the politics followed. That’s why we saw the policies around racial matters start to change with laws such as the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Politicians are generally looking at the culture to tell them how they should act, not seeking to be the change agents to lead the culture in a new direction. The political candidates that change their message to match the prevailing culture are the ones that usually win. Politics is generally a force to maintain whatever culture exists already, and rarely a force for changing it. I’m not saying it’s impossible to change the culture from the halls of power, but there’s a reason why we have a saying that goes “you don’t change the devil, the devil changes you”. There’s a line from the film Primary Colors where the presidential candidate expresses his amazement at his campaign manager’s naivete about politics: “You don’t think Abraham Lincoln was a whore before he was a president?”

Babylon always promises utopia but is never able to deliver on it. Clinging to the false belief that government can make all things right if only the right people were the ones operating the levers of power is putting our hope in the wrong thing. I’m not anti-government, but I am against putting my faith into anyone but Christ to make all things right. My hope should be in the God who uses people, not the people He uses to accomplish His will. When Jesus takes His reign on Earth, we will finally see a perfect government in action. Until then, we will have to understand that every government that exists will be deeply imperfect and unable to adequately address injustice, inequality, or bring people into greater holiness.

What about changing the culture by just arguing with people to get them to the truth? I can spend my time arguing with people about how their beliefs are wrong, or I can be a witness to them of the love of Christ, but I probably can’t do both, because people don’t particularly want to listen to you talk about God’s love when you just finished browbeating them about their wrongheadedness. Am I going to finish my race (2 Timothy 4:7), or am I going to run up into the bleachers and argue with the audience?

How is a person’s belief changed? Has anyone ever shared with you about a time their long-held belief about something changed? Did it sound anything like this?

The thing that ultimately changed my mind about presidential candidate X was when my cousin screamed at me during Thanksgiving dinner about how stupid I was to vote for him, and I suddenly realized he was right.

I used to have this position on social issue Y, but after a coworker called me out in front of everyone for having that position I was forever changed. Now I agree with them.

Never heard those stories? Neither have I. What I usually hear is a story about how their position changed through encounters with people and experiences that challenged that belief. Maybe they had a perception of Millennials as being self-absorbed and obsessed with promoting themselves on social media until they discovered one of their Millennial neighbors who had quietly been spending their paid-time off building homes for Habitat for Humanity. Perhaps they had been inclined to think that homelessness only happened to drug-addicts and welfare-cheats, but then their business failed and they came close to losing their home themselves and realized that many people are just one crisis away from sleeping under a bridge. What usually doesn’t convince them is someone shouting at them on the street, or an angry exchange over Twitter (or X), or their uncle “owning” them about their logical fallacies during Sunday dinner.

It may just be that the way we live is a more powerful witness for Christ than what we say. When I think about the people who had the greatest influence on the values I hold today, I think about how they behaved toward me, and what I observed them to do. There was the dining room manager at the hotel restaurant I worked in in my early 20’s who stood up for me when another team leader wanted to exploit me for his own benefit. There was the fourth grade school teacher who gently helped me navigate my guilt and shame over having been involved in my first fight and assured me it was just a part of growing up. There was the college instructor who mentored me in journalism, and even though I didn’t end up as a journalist, I still use Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style as a writing guide today because he did. When I think of diligence, grit, worldly wisdom and clear, concise writing, I think of him. The reason I absorbed these values from these people was because they inspired me through their kindness, their sacrifice of time, their selfless giving, and their patience. They showed me the love of God through their actions and I was changed by them.

I wonder if the way we really change the culture is by being as Christ-like as possible, starting with the roles and relationships we have today. Maybe our path will take us through the halls of power where we can expand our influence over policy decisions, or maybe not. Maybe we will silence our critics with our unassailable logic, but more likely than not, we won’t, nor will we win any souls for Christ that way. When I really look at how Jesus behaved during his ministry on earth, it looks very little like the culture warriors that make up much of the church today. I feel as though we don’t give the Holy Spirit enough credit to change us through the Word and others through our encounters with them, and too often we fall back on arguing and pushing our own way to change.

Jesus seemed utterly unconcerned with matters of politics. He was carrying out his ministry in the Promised Land while it was under occupation by one of the most corrupt and evil empires ever to exist in human history. But whenever His disciples brought up the Roman occupation, His response was to redirect them to the kingdom of God, which is not of this earth. He also seemed to be largely unconcerned with directly confronting the wrongheadedness of those He encountered. Being a tax collector for Rome was just about the most hated position among the Jews of Jesus’s day, and for good reason. Yet Jesus didn’t condemn Matthew for being a publican when he invited him to be His disciple. Perhaps it was because He knew that simply accepting the invitation and being around Him would fundamentally change Matthew into the disciple and apostle he eventually became.

I don’t think it was that Christ cared nothing for the wickedness of the Roman occupiers. But He seemed to be sending a message that His coming death on the cross was going to completely defeat the devil and all of his allies. I think He was showing us that this is what Paul meant by being “more than a conqueror.” If I think I’m on the side that is currently losing I might feel the need to step up and help “take our country back”, but it feels as though that is conceding too much to the enemy. I have the spirit of Christ! Am I more than a conqueror, or am I just a foot soldier in an never-ending battle in a starkly divided culture? I would rather live victoriously now and look ahead to Christ’s return, when all things will be set to rights without a struggle, politics or conflict. Maybe the country is not working as I want it to, and maybe it is moving in some of the wrong directions, but I prefer to believe on a higher truth of God’s sovereign rule over all creation, and remember that it is just a matter of time before Jesus comes to manifest the world we yearn for under His perfect government. I’ll take His dominion over my tribe’s anytime.

Lord, I ask that You would give me clarity on how I should think about governance and social issues. I also ask that you would show me more and more of Yourself so that I can know how to emulate Your ways properly and behave properly toward others, regardless of who they are or what they believe. Help me to remain steadfast in the hope of Your return, when You will make all things right.