This was best thing I've read in a long time. I am on pins and needles to see what kind of response you will get.

I am on pins and needles to see what kind of response you will get.

All of us crazy culture-warriors are currently planning on burning Jared at the stake.

J/K. Good post, Jared.

I'm not sure where I'm at on this. I agree with you. Every word, actually. I don't know how to translate it into real life, though.

I don't do protests. I've considered the tea-party thing, just because I'm a whacko fiscal conservative :) but haven't taken part yet.

What would you say to a person who plans on, for instance, attending a pro-life demonstration?

In other words, where's the line between being a Culture Warrior versus a good-faith effort to change various aspects of our country through legislative means (hopefully in concert with a Gospel-based approach to our fellow man and a proper view of the Kingdom versus the country).

Interested in your thoughts. Yours too, Hobo.

Again - great post. I can't disagree with any of it. I just need clarification.

I edited my previous comment to make it a bit more understandable (still not able to articulate, though. Wish I could write more better).

It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don't know Jesus to act like they do.

I agree with everything you say in your post, but that one line is the one thing that I remind myself all the time.

Bill, I'm not sure the tea parties are so much about the culture war as they are about out of control government that is ignoring the Constitution. Some might say they are the same issue, but I don't.

Taking another run at this: voting is probably the most basic way we express our views. It can be argued that every vote cast has the potential of changing our country's direction in some way, and votes are completely gospel-less.

What would a person with a God-honoring view of culture, the Gospel, the passing nature of nations, and the principalities and powers who are our real enemies, look like?

Some might say they are the same issue, but I don't.

And I think that's the rub.

I can't defend in any way the idea that our current economic issues and government policies come anywhere near the eternality of God's Kingdom. That being said, I do see a moral aspect to what a Government does with its citizen's funds.

Is it possible to be Gospel centered and still have a voice in the public marketplace?

What would you say to a person who plans on, for instance, attending a pro-life demonstration?

Assuming it's a peaceful demonstration, I don't know that I'd say anything about it. Maybe I'd say something positive.
Slavery didn't get abolished because people never said anything about it or demonstrated opposition to it.

In other words, where's the line between being a Culture Warrior versus a good-faith effort to change various aspects of our country through legislative means...

The first question is "Where's your hope?"
Now, everyone, including culture warriors, will say "In Jesus."
But ask them what would happen if they never got their legislative way.

An idol is anything the we through our affection and self-worth into that would crush us if it were taken way.

I don't know that there's a fine line. Like, if you do this you've bought into culture war. It's kind of a "know it when you see it" kind of thing. But somebody who's asking themselves the question "How do I know when I've crossed the line?" is already doing a lot better than full-on warriors.

I think the line is crossed when "too much" of our energy, our thoughts, our hopes, our concerns, and our theology is devoted to legislative/political/institutional things. Not sure how to define "too much," but if culture warring gets more of our time than gospel-driven relationships with other people, that's too much.

And also, if someone thinks the country can become "Christian" by outlawing gay marriage, repealing Roe v. Wade, etc., they've crossed a theological line, no matter how much time or energy they spend on actually trying to do those things. It's just not a biblical logic to think that way.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks Jared.

What would a person with a God-honoring view of culture, the Gospel, the passing nature of nations, and the principalities and powers who are our real enemies, look like?

I think he would, as Piper says, vote as if he's not voting and protest as if he's not protesting. :-)

Is it possible to be Gospel centered and still have a voice in the public marketplace?

Yes.

Bono has said stuff about people dying in Africa is like our current day Holocaust and we're just watching the victims get loaded on the train while we sit idly by. I'd have to say he's wrong. The real present day Holocaust is abortion. That's the only real issue I get worked up about.

Good thoughts, man.

I like this. I know I was guilty of being much more into the "culture war" when I was younger (that being..a couple years ago?).

Nowadays, I try to a.)be the best Christian I can, and b.)be the best citizen I can, in that order.

I try to vote in what I view as a responsible manner, in line as much as is possible with my worldview and morals.

If I were to go to a protest, tea party, pro-life, or otherwise, it would be as a concerned citizen of the United States, practicing one of the rights spelled out in the Constitution, to try to communicate something to my government and fellow citizens.

Not as a "battlefield" in some "culture war".

Subtle difference? Perhaps. But I think a big part of this might be the attitude with which these things are approached.

Good post. Not much else to say. Thanks for making me think a little more.
:)

Jared,

Much sympathy with your position, because I think alot of us evangelicals went off the deep end during the Clinton administation and never managed to come back. But ...

... for instance, outlawing gay marriage or repealing Roe v. Wade won't make anybody a Christian ...
But keeping gay marriage unrecognized will go some way toward preserving a fragile institution necessary for any culture, Christian or not, and the repeal of RvW will save hundreds of thousands of lives a year, and surely that's got to be worth something.

3. It is theologically naive.
It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don't know Jesus to act like they do.
And so, politically and socially, we should ... do nothing? I am sure you don't think that, but I don't know where else this argument here is leading.

5. It battles against flesh and blood.
We're not supposed to do that. (Eph. 6:12)
I really don't think that passage is a prohibition against such battles, but a reminder of where the central battle is.

Some of your other arguments against the culture war strike me as accurate statements of how it has gone too far in the hands of some people, but not accurate as a description of the thing per se, not an accurate description of the way it was maybe fifteen years ago.

Here's a question for you: William Wilberforce, the guy who headed up the movement that eventually stopped slavery in Britain. Started the SPCA. Big time politician, right? And, even for a professional politician, absolutely driven toward his goals, working day and night for decades. And he had lots of followers too. So: Was he (and his followers) the type of culture warrior you describe here? If so, then ... what???? If not, what would a person look like emulating him in the modern American political situation?

But like I said, alot of us have gone off the deep end on this, and I have alot of sympathy for your post.

Bob, a few lines from my post:

Which, by the way, is not to say that certain sins shouldn't be illegal.

I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade, and . . . I would vote to outlaw the former and repeal the latter

One from my comment #7 in response to Bill:

Slavery didn't get abolished because people never said anything about it or demonstrated opposition to it.

I think one reason why William Wilberforce had so much impact is because he worked to sway hearts and minds in conjunction with his political efforts. From my experience, full on culture warriors are too busy battling "them" from afar to even think about living alongside "them" in real life.

Fwiw, I have written about abortion elsewhere several times. I am totally in favor of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and I don't think Christians should choose either social action or political action, but should employ both. I still say too many of us do either or both with not much tether to the gospel, however.

Bono has said stuff about people dying in Africa is like our current day Holocaust and we're just watching the victims get loaded on the train while we sit idly by. I'd have to say he's wrong. The real present day Holocaust is abortion. That's the only real issue I get worked up about.

Bird, can't they be equally bad?

If Christians want to make a difference as culture warriors, they have to realize that its not about watching Fox News, and being "socially" conservative.

Its about finding ways to be gospel-centered and transformational. I think about the women who have made cookies for everyone carrying signs on both sides of an abortion rally.......that's outside the box.

It's about not confronting the "sin", but instead being Jesus to the sinner. I know that sounds trite - but there is a HUGE difference between those two, and when I think of "culture war", I think of the former.

I would go as far as to say that when we confront sin without love, we not only are not effective, but we lose, big time. We polarize things further and make them worse.

I think I mentioned in another thread that I watched "Milk" recently. The movie devotes a fair amount of time to Anita Bryant - and paints her as a culture warrior.

When I was a kid in San Francisco, during that time, my family thought Anita Bryant was awesome - taking a stand against homosexuality.

In reality, she was proposing legislation that would get public school teachers fired if they were gay, or even if they were "sympathetic" to or friends with gay people.

I'm sorry, but (in retrospective) I have a huge problem with that. That's confronting (and punishing) sin and people who sympathize with sinners.....technically, wouldn't Jesus get fired?? I think we lost the culture war by a landslide in that era.

I'm wondering if the phrase "Culture War" is by definition without love.

best thing I've read all day.

I haven't read the comments...just wanted to add that sinning isn't necessarily the lack of not doing good. Sinning is any act that is not done out of reverence/love for Christ, even if it's a good act. That's why good little old grandmas who pay their taxes and bake cookies still go to hell if they haven't embraced the saving grace of Jesus.

Bob, a few lines from my post:

I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade ...

One from my comment #7 in response to Bill:

Slavery didn't get abolished because people never said anything about it ...

I appreciate and am not surprised by your positions on gay marriage, RvW, and, goes without saying, slavery. But I am confused as they can be reconciled with several of the things you said in your post. Thanks.

(saw this at GDC first but wanted to comment here too)

The thing is - at least here in the Christ-haunted south - I think that many church-goers would be just fine with better behaved pagans. Behavior and moralism is what gets taught in church so it would seem like an easy task to transfer that goal to the culture at large.

I have a friend who does Bioethics education and he looks at what he does as good stewardship(and a re-engagement of the culture that Fundamentalism tried to escape from over a century ago). I think that's a helpful perspective. Passing certain laws can also be seen as good stewardship - taking care of the creation or protecting the least among us. But its not to be confused with the Gospel.

Bob, perhaps it's the difference between caring about those issues and making those issues one's raison d'etre. I believe culture warriors do the latter.

Bird, can't they be equally bad?

Fair enough.

At first I wasn't sure I agreed with your post. In a way I still don't. But I do agree with your comments clarifying your post. Your post sounds like your theology is liberal (that is to say, it appears "let's-all-get-along" and community-oriented and not Christ-centered), but your comments correct that assumption. Please include them in the main body of your article because they really do help clarify what you are trying to say. And I almost didn't read them.

"I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade, and even though I would vote to outlaw the former and repeal the latter, neither of those actions in themselves will make a single unbeliever say "How wonderful Christ is!""

Yep. Our reaction is quite the opposite, actually. It makes us say "How terrible Christianity is!"

Sid, thanks for commenting.

Quick question, if you're still reading this thread. And, I promise, this isn't loaded.

What would it take to make you say "How wonderful Christ is"?

Again, not a loaded question. I'm just interested in the unbeliever perspective on this.

Well, since this thread seems to have just a smidgen of life left in it,

Bob, perhaps it's the difference between caring about those issues and making those issues one's raison d'etre. I believe culture warriors do the latter.

I absolutely agree with you here. I was thinking the exact same thing myself not too long ago when I was thinking about some evangelical blowhard I had watched on TV going off about something or another. "Yeah, that's a fine cause, I guess, but that's not what Christianity is about," is what I was thinking.

Still, though, I think alot of people -- maybe most -- who are
-fighting RvW
-fighting gay marriage
-fighting for more of a voice in the education of their children
-fighting to make it possible for local libraries to filter the internet
do not belong in the same category as that evangelical culture war blowhard who got me so ticked. We should actively avoid a raison d'etre culture war. But I do want to see vigorous, heck, strident, Christian action in government on social issues. Not sure if we agree on that or not. But thanks for responding.

Sid, thanks for commenting. I am sorry you find Christianity terrible, or at least the views of some Christians terrible. I hope you can at least respect that for those Christians, their views are not about popular opinion or public relations, but what they hold dear about their faith.

Peace.
---

Chris, I don't know if I've ever been accused of being "let's all get along"-style Christ-uncentered, so thanks for that. :-)

I don't think the post needs any correction. If it was about everybody getting along, I wouldn't ahve called views foolish, etc.
Also, I explicitly say in the post that the most important thing is the gospel -- that's pretty much the running theme and anchor of the whole thing -- and I say that the point of Christian mission should be to get people to see how great Christ is.

I don't know how to be more Christ-centered than that, but I know I have room to grow.
Thanks for commenting.

Bob, depending on what 'fighting' those things mean, I may be with you.

Honestly? I'm a little ambivalent about gay marriage. I just can't get riled about it. We gave up the sanctity of marriage thing a long time ago. I feel like evangelicals should just go back to shepherding marriage within their church communities.

I know others don't feel that way. And, again, if it were up for a vote where I'm at, I'd vote against it (or for an act defining marriage as between man and woman).

Hello Bill and Jared,

What would it take to make you say "How wonderful Christ is"?

Sid, thanks for commenting. I am sorry you find Christianity terrible, or at least the views of some Christians terrible.

I hope you can at least respect that for those Christians, their views are not about popular opinion or public relations, but what they hold dear about their faith.

Sid

Thanks for commenting. You wrote: "And I most certainly don't respect the attempts of people to make public policy for all members of society, even ones outside the in-group, based on that."

I have some quibbles with what you've written, but I'll leave them to the side, for now. But a number of us have wondered if we wouldn't be better off as a persecuted minority - and by "better off" I mean more useful to the Kingdom of God. Though we're still quite a ways from that, Christianity and its adherents may once again (in the West) be what the church was back in the first - third centuries, and what it is even today in places like China and many places in the mideast - 1,000,000 miles from being the "in-group" and legally suppressed by the authorities.

Again - we're a long way (I think) from that in the West, but very possibly heading that direction.

I think in general you're getting your wish regarding public policy, and have been for some time. Abortion with few restrictions has been the law of the land for 36 years, and gay marriage is only a matter of time (imo) - Side note: Abortion is by far the more clear-cut moral issue from my point of view. I hope that whatever happens with Christianity in this country, the country wakes up and begins once again defending its weakest citizens.

The bitter truth is that the Christian culture war is not carried out for Jesus' glory and renown, but for ours

i don't disagree with u, yet i don't agree entirely.
The thing is that as christians we have a duty to bring God's kingdom to those around us. Our lives and actions are intended to gradually tranform human society into a just and christian one.
A certain St Josemaria Escriva (yep, the founder of Opus Dei) once said taht 'These world crises are crises of saints'.

it cannot be helped taht many have forgotten taht we are to change the world for God's sake and not for our own.

You make some very good points. I am going to read this a couple more times to really process the info. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!