Ever since the rise of the “Religious/Christian Right,” culture war combat
has been the number one activity highlighted by some sectors of the evangelical/ fundamentalist church.
I believe that this has been the root cause of the widespread fracturing we have seen among Christian churches in the Trump era. Such is the deceptive power of culture war combat ideology. We are told that the battle is for the casue of Christ. When, in fact, Christ has never called us to do any such thing.
Blogger Caitlin Johnstone offers a good analysis of this error embraced by today’s culture-warriors. They miss the bigger picture. American evangelicals are particularly guilty of this particular blindness.
Because evangelical Christianity has always preferred to identify with the wealthy and the powerful, the church rarely addresses the class war continually being waged in this society.
Fortunately, addressing the class conflict between the haves and the have-nots does not require an either/or decision, choosing between either class or cultural issues.
It is possible to address both at the same time. Sadly, evangelicals prefer to remain blind to
the one and pour all their energy into the other.
Though I do not fully endorse Ms. Johnstone’s solution to this problem of neglecting the class issues in our society. I do find her social analysis to be spot on.
Here is a brief excerpt:
One of the great challenges faced by westerners who oppose the political status quo today is the way the narrative managers of both mainstream factions continuously divert all political energy away from issues which threaten the interests of the powerful like economic injustice, war, militarism, authoritarianism, corruption, capitalism and ecocide and toward issues which don’t threaten the powerful at all like abortion, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.
This method of social control serves the powerful in some very obvious ways, and is being used very effectively. As long as it remains effective, it will continue to be used. The worse things get the more urgent the need to fight the class war will become, anf the more urgent the need to fight the class war becomes the more vitriolic and intense the artificial culture war will become in order to prevent political changes which inconvenience the powerful. This is 100 percent guaranteed. And what’s tricky is that all the vitriolic intensity will create the illusion that the culture war has gotten more important, when in reality the class war has.
It’s just a straightforward fact that the more miserable, impoverished and disempowered the public becomes, the more hateful and all-consuming the artificial culture war will be made to prevent revolution. That’s what’s been happening, and that’s what will continue to happen. You can hate hearing it, and you can hate me for saying it. But it is a fact, and I think we all pretty much know it’s a fact.
You can read the entire article here.
