The term “culture wars” came into its own in the 1990s, though it had been coined approximately a hundred years earlier. It describes the clash that results when cultural groups holding conflicting values try to influence public policy.

In the past there was more than one culture war being waged. The women and men who fought in the abortion war might not take a stand with either side in the climate change war. But now it seems that the various culture battles have merged into a single great war between two sides with profoundly incompatible worldviews.

With the presidency of Donald Trump, the culture wars became a culture of war. There was no longer any lull in the battle. So-called news outlets are now training grounds for culture warriors, and media celebrities have become high-ranking field officers.

Many different conflicts have been sucked into the culture war. Vaccines became a battlefield during COVID in a way that would have been unthinkable at the introduction of the polio vaccine in the 1950s. Masking was weaponized. Teaching U.S. history became a battlefield. Neutral ground has all but disappeared.

In today’s climate, a social scientist can ask a few questions of almost anyone and know on what side of the culture wars they stand. “Are you religious?” “Are you from a rural or urban background?” “Do you have a college education?” “With what political party do you most agree?” And with just those questions they can predict with surprising accuracy where a person stands on the issues of abortion, climate change, gender identity, and more.

The war of values has become a war of words as each side tries to control the language that is used to describe them and their opponents. They are conservatives and liberals, right wing and left, traditionalists and progressives. There are reactionaries and extremists, the close-minded and those “led by the science,” patriots and woke communists. These words explode like shells and drive the sides further and further apart.

In the 1970s and 1980s, churches began to take sides in the culture wars. People like Jerry Falwell and, later, Pat Buchanan, characterized conflicts over social issues as a religious war for the soul of America. It became increasingly common for churches to identify themselves by their stance on social issues rather than by their theological distinctives.

There is little ground left on which someone like me can stand. Because I take the biblical writings as authoritative for faith and practice, I do not think that homosexuality or gender transitioning are God’s intention for men and women. But precisely because I take Scripture seriously, I cannot see gay or transgendered people as enemies. I see them as people like me, made by and responsible to their loving Creator. The culture war discourages such an outlook.

Teaching history has become a combat exercise in the culture war. Culture warriors must either ignore the abuses inflicted on non-white, non-European peoples or they must highlight those abuses almost to the exclusion of history’s other significant events. This leaves little room for anyone who understands that history, which is sometimes glorious and sometimes horrific, is always complicated.

Gun ownership is another battleground in the culture war. I have my own opinions regarding gun laws, but they are only indirectly influenced by the writings of the apostles and prophets. Because of this, I hold them lightly. But in the culture war, people must hold their opinions as firmly as their guns.

The culture war has left little space to stand, but there remains the higher ground of Jesus’s lordship and biblical teaching. Those who stand here must refuse to allow cultural battles to force them to retreat or to move them to antipathy for those with whom they disagree.  

The end of the culture wars has been declared by various social commentators in the past. Years ago, the Center for American Progress predicted that the culture war would end soon in victory for progressives. That prediction has not come true, the war rages on. But we do not have to rage with it. We can stand, stand our ground, but do so without anger or hate.