The Culture War Is Over. We Lost. Get Over It.

It’s interesting how we change over time.

The increase in political rhetoric leading up to the 2012 elections has sparked some reminders of where I was four years ago, and even eight years ago. I used to be so engrossed in the political conversation; now I can only take it in small doses. I cringe now at some of what I wrote even on this blog during the last presidential race. (Don’t go looking for it; if I catch you going back there, I’ll start deleting. :))

It’s not that my root beliefs or political leanings have changed all that much (I lean conservative, if you wonder or care)–it’s more about the whole approach we Christians have taken toward politics in America, and how I was at one point totally immersed in that approach. There was a Culture War going on, and we were fighting the battle to preserve our way of life, through political debate, voting, and intense prayer. The Republican party, while not perfect, seemed to be our last, best hope for keeping this nation from falling into utter moral decay–and living in the Bible Belt at that time, it became so easy to blur the lines and treat the GOP as though it were the “Christian” party.

Hmmm….where do I even go with that?

Part of my deconstruction has involved a huge shift in perspective regarding the whole Culture War thing. We were fighting that war, in the spirit and at the polls, because we somehow got it into our heads that it was our job to be the guardians for morality, the defenders of a Biblical worldview. This nation was founded on Christian principles, gosh-dangit, and we needed to make sure that we didn’t depart from our roots. Even if we had to claw, fight and scrape to do it.

Perhaps a history lesson would have helped.

I eventually came to recognize that this mentality is a holdover from the whole “Christendom” philosophy going back to the days of Constantine–a philosophy that has been behind some of the worst things ever done in the name of Christ. Ever since Constantine made Christianity (or at least his version of it) the official religion of Rome, we Christians have had a difficult time differentiating between human governments and the Kingdom of God. When Christianity got in bed with the government, we started adopting a rulership mentality, believing that somehow furthering the Kingdom of God meant using earthly government structures to dominate the world in the name of our faith. Hence the Crusades, the Inquisition, and many other atrocities along the way.

Fast forward a few hundred years. When we say America was founded on Christian principles, we are only partially correct. Even though many colonists came here to escape religious bigotry themselves, much of our colonization was still founded more on “Christendom” principles rather than “Christian” principles. (Just ask the Native Americans about our evangelization tactics.) We have carried that mentality with us over the generations, and as we’ve witnessed the apparent deterioration of our collective moral compass (particularly over the past few decades), we feel a sense of loss regarding “the way things used to be.” We begin to fight to reclaim what we’ve lost, (mostly) through legal means. We pray fervently (nothing wrong with that, as long as we’re not assuming God’s agenda and our agenda are the same thing). We campaign and vote in feeble attempts to force the government to legislate the moral compass we feel we are losing. And we do all this, believing that the Bible gives us the moral high ground, and that God is certainly on our side since we’re trying to get this nation back in line with the Bible. Hence, the Culture War.

Does anyone but me find it interesting to see that the more fiercely we struggle on these fronts, the more of our influence is actually being lost on the greater American culture, and the less relevant we seem to be? Is it really a “victory” when enough Christians vote to pass or block this or that measure, when in the process we continue to alienate people for whom Christ died? Could it be that we’ve been missing the point?

Could be.

Now, I’m not saying that Christians shouldn’t have an influence; it’s more about HOW we go about it. If we go back further than Christendom, we’ll see that there’s actually a much deeper legacy to our faith. If we look at Jesus’ example, we’ll see that He never actually endorsed any particular earthly government; He was here to promote a higher Kingdom, one that didn’t rule by legislation, but ruled in the hearts of men and women. We forget that our faith was actually born in a very hostile culture, in the form of the Roman Empire. We forget that the days when the church was “turning the world upside down” were not the days when we dominated world governments, but in the days when we were actually viewed as subversive–not clamoring for our “rights” in the political scene, but quietly living the truth in direct contrast to the world around us.

I don’t talk much about fiction on this blog, but a series of books by Francine Rivers collectively titled “Mark of the Lion” really put this in perspective for me a number of years ago. Set in the latter part of the first century, the story follows a Jewish Christian girl named Hadassah who is captured and forced into slavery after the fall of Jerusalem. She becomes a house slave in Rome, in a culture where a moral compass was all but nonexistent. This was a culture in which deviant sex in all forms occurred regularly in public places, a culture in which unwanted babies were left exposed on the rocks, a culture in which men freely took young boys as sex slaves without consequence, a bloodthirsty culture in which it was considered sport to watch to men fight to the death, or watch society’s outcasts be fed upon by lions. This was a culture in which Christians had absolutely no governmental influence, no moral “high ground;” the only influence they could exert was person to person by practicing a lifestyle of Christlike compassion. While the books are fictional, their historical setting really paints a good picture of what early believers must have been facing on a daily basis. And without giving the story away (the books are definitely worth reading), it is also a very interesting depiction of how Christians can make a difference in a climate in which they have no political voice at all.

For that matter, consider the believers who live today in nations in which their faith is actually against the law, where they literally could be killed for admitting that they are Christians. Where is their “Culture War?” And what must they think of us?

I actually have a point by all this rambling. The point is that I think there has to be a better way to influence our culture than by trying in vain to reclaim a “Christianized” culture in America. The deterioration of the moral compass is not due to legislation; it was occurring in people’s hearts long before the laws started changing. From my perspective, the longer and louder we protest, the more silly we look at this point.  Regardless of individual political/moral leanings, I have a hard time believing we can win anyone to Christ by protesting abortion, or gay marriage, or any of the other issues we famously protest against. We might think we’re advancing a Christian agenda by those actions, but I don’t think we are advancing the Kingdom of God–not by a long shot. We would do much better to focus on the kingdom Jesus preached, the kingdom that rules in the hearts of people, not on the law books.

It’s time for a reality check. Look around us. The Culture War is over. We lost. It’s time to try a different approach. And you know something? I’m not so sure this is a bad thing. Maybe it’s just the opportunity we need.

Look–we’re blessed to live under a democratic form of government, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t avail ourselves of that. I’m not saying we should be completely apolitical, or that we shouldn’t vote our conscience. I’m just saying the Kingdom of God is bigger than any political structure, and that we need to see the bigger picture. Maybe if believers can come to grips with this, we’ll see we “lost” this thing because we were fighting on the wrong front all along. Maybe now we can finally get rid of this Christendom mentality crap, and get back to living the Kingdom of God, where we can actually have an influence in the hearts of people again.

And maybe then we’ll be back to turning the world upside down.