Cultural Wars are as much reality today as they were in the past decades. The series of conflicts
between gender, race religion, and education described as “Cultural Wars” by James Davison
Hunter in 1991. Andrew Hartman who follows the footsteps of James D. Hunter (who focused on
orthodoxy and progressivism as the polarizing impulses), devotes a chapter to the religious
dimension of the “Kulturkampf” assessing the various crusades of the Christian Right. The
American Christian right has exported the model of the American Culture Wars to other parts of
the world. According to Hartman, the cultural war was the result of a gradual friction that built
up in the country between the 1960s and 1980s.
In today’s version, this aggressive atheism even in the policy arena where the argument that you
can't even express your faith at all in the policy arena, or in the public square. Although not
everyone believes this, there is certainly this prominence that even to the point we're seeing
legislation articulate a biblical worldview with respect to homosexuality or other areas of life that
is almost becoming legal, in fact the merging of the religious right were evolved and emerged
during a time in the sixty's and seventy's when people and society were at a crossroad, they had
grown weary of this kind of secularist stick atheistic thought. Additionally, people have
becoming more aware of Cultural Wars, and as we all recalled the incident with George Floyd,
where Mr. Floyd was murdered by a “white” police officer “Black Lives Matters” people came
out to support each other and wanted their voices to be heard. Such incidents are labelled as
racism and we all encountered this nowadays. They only difference from then and now is that
people are able to voice their rights, and somewhat get some kind of justice rather than not
getting any justice at all.
Similarly, the “MeToo Movement” was created to protect abused women and sexual harassment
in the workplace. However, politicians are the ones with the most issues with sexual harassment
in the workplace. It saddens to think that because one has power and authority, they can break
the laws and get away with it. In fact, some did get away with it, but now is the time to speak up
and with the help with Black Lives Matters and MeToo Movement, justice can be served, and
America can get rid of the unethical law-breaking individuals we put in office. The lack of
leaders who look out for the country as a whole, rather than their party or selfish benefits, is what
America is missing.
Moving forward we need leaders to see their job in office as to elevate and educate people and to
create a healthy and loving country with no divisions or segregate individuals based on the color
of their skin, or their religion and avoid cultural wars. I honestly don’t believe this will ever
happen in the future. It might just get worse than it already is.
In 1st Peter 2:17, the Bible says, “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God and Honor
the emperor”. Therefore, politicians and statesmanship who betrayed the people by focusing on
their interest during public policy disobeyed God’s words and authority. They fast-track the
development of a tyranny, which eventually oppresses the people (Shires 2007, 115). Politicians
should practice humility and use God’s words to serve their people (Fischer 1998).
Reference:
Nathalie Massip, Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America. A History of the Culture Wars », L'Ordinaire des
Amériques [Online], Comptes rendus, Online since 27 June 2016, connection on 09 March 2021.
Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America. A History of the Culture Wars. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015
Fischer, Kahlib. Jan.2021. Presentation: The Battle of Ideas in the Policy Arena (Lecture in PLCY 700, Liberty University,
Lynchburg, VA.
Shires, Preston. 2007. Hippies of the Religious Right: From the Countercultures of Jerry Garcia to the Subculture of Jerry
Falwell. Waco: Baylor University Press. ISBN: 9781932792577
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-culture-wars-today
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