On the Culture Wars

Not a day goes by, especially in the summer, that I do not get overwhelmed and distracted by the culture wars.

Overwhelmed for a couple of reasons: 1) The "hot button" issues of the culture wars involve a collision of really intimate, almost private issues and a public component about various rights. Take abortion and birth control. This is a very personal issue about sexuality, pregnancy and creating life. It also involves issues of rights of mothers, a history of male coersion and a future of absentee dad-ism, issues of poverty and the questions about where life begins and how to respond to it. Perhaps you don't like my spelling out of the issues I see at play over the abortion/birth control debate, but regardless what makes this issues so overwhelming is that there are very real private and public dimensions to them.

2) There is a feeling that there is such a "divide" in the world over these cultural issues that one has to figure out what they believe. Given the often cyclical nature of various values, meaning that taking a stance on one issue often makes one have to make a statement on a seemingly non-related issue and things get messy. For instance, there is a slippery slope over the issue of "pro-life" when it comes to things such as the death penalty. So to recap that one, having to make up your mind and having to consider and sort through other issues is simply overwhelming.

3) Communication (and community) becomes incredibly hard. It is so difficult to have conversations with people who have a set of beliefs that is so different from your own. Very often we want to "win" the argument and we never really get a chance to hear the real and genuine concerns that another person may have. Therefore, feeling like you can never be heard and to also never really hear from and connect with another human is exhausting.

And finally, the culture wars are overwhelming and incredibly distracting for the Church. It divides us into so many factions that we simply stop being Christians to one another and to others.

I do not think that I will be able to really get my mind around what I think and how I will react about all of the different culture war battles and the latest skirmishes and flare-ups, but I did find some interesting food for thought today which I will share in my next post.