The Culture War Will Be Won in the Trenches

There is a rather enlightening, if depressing book entitled *Degenerate Moderns* by E. Michael Jones that demonstrates that most of our modern ideological woes - the constant pull towards leftward social and moral ideas - are largely an elaborate attempt to cover over and justify sexual immorality. His examples run the gamut from espionage rings in the British Security Service in the 40s to sociological studies in Samoa to Kinsey's theories which arose out of the University of Indiana. All in all the book is largely about sexual misconduct happening in private that swung the whole ideological norms of the West.  

Rousas J. Rushdoony argued similarly in the opening chapters of his marvelous *The Politics of Guilt and Pity*. There he makes the case that since humanity needs atonement, knows it needs atonement, *and* wants nothing to do with Christ, we come up with elaborate political schemes for justifying our cultural sins. But at the bottom of our secularized moralizing is something quite simple: guilt. We are desperate to cover things up with the latest social cause. Perhaps now we can atone for our sins with this new one - whether its a country (or countries) collectively agreeing to wear masks, destroy all their jobs for CoVid or marching in the streets and burning down Targets for "justice" vaguely defined, or our increasing obsession with protecting everyone's feelings - we need atonement. 

I think that thesis bears a lot of fruit and could use a lot more applications to current events. But a thread I'd like to pull on grew out of some reflections on the stories in Jones' book. Some women in our church are reading Jim Wilson's *How to be Free from Bitterness*. It's a marvelous little book I try to pick up frequently because its so practically helpful. It dawned on me as I was listening to the discussion unfold above my head (literally, I was in the basement), that all of our big culture war level issues can be tied quite nicely to some fairly basic sins in the bible. Much ink and tweets (or X's?) are spent addressing vast conflicts on a culture-wide scale. We often put our efforts confronting big Moral Vision questions - and we should. But do you know where they come from? They didn't come *from* Freud and Nietzsche and Marx - that horrid little triad just named something that was already in the water. They come from everyday normal sins like greed and lust and envy and bitterness and pride. These sins get blown up on a massive scale, politicized, protected and then, well, destroy civilization. Pastors, the biggest problem in your church is not the feminists. It's not the porn industry. It isn't the alphabet lobby. Don't get me wrong, those things should be fought tooth and nail. But often we're in danger of confronting big cultural ideas instead of confronting actual people and our own actual sins. The biggest problem in your church are bitter and envious wives who don't think they need to repent of their envy and bitterness. The biggest problem in your church is lustful and proud men who will not submit to the rule of Jesus and love and lead their wives and kids. The biggest problem in your church is parents who won't discipline their kids. And the biggest problems are people controlled by their passions - their emotional life, and then calling it love and compassion and empathy. And because they are the biggest problem in most every church, they are the biggest problem in the cities we minister in and in the nation we live in. These little bitternesses, these prickly little envies, those hidden lusts, they get coddled and excused and redefined into virtues. But they build up a head of steam and become culture-shaping laws and parades and film production companies. They become our confusions over words everyone has known for centuries like "love" and "justice". And they grow into world-shaping ideologies that justify unknown horrors and petty but wicked behaviors.

The abortion industry is the fruit of a million people's envy and lust and is designed to make such sin possible, livable. The Red Pill (Black-pill, I don't know I get all the pills mixed up) pick-up artists is the collective fruit of a million people's hubris and bitterness - excused as natural and manly and "reclaiming masuclinity". Ideologies too, not just policies and weird niche groomers. Marxism, feminism, a big part of the therapeutic culture of our day - all built to feed or defend or accelerate those little sins. 

I preached a wedding homily a couple weeks ago where I told the bride and groom that the most important battle in the whole culture war would be fought for their marriage - to obey Jesus, to trust God's words, and to navigate sins from within, temptations from without, and well, the Devil too. Christians - the war over a God-honoring, fruit-bearing, joy-filled culture is real. Its not just in your heart. It will be fought in the public square with laws and elections and by Christians learning to tell better stories on pages and screens. It will be fought in church position papers and denominational meetings. **But the most significant battle** will be learning to put all these things to death in ourselves and one another. It will be wives coming to terms with why they hate Ephesians 5:22 so much - is it bitterness? envy? It will be husbands coming to terms with why they are impatient with their kids or why they avoid their duties in the home with any escape they can find - even work. Is it pride? lust? greed? Yes, the culture war will be fought on big stages, but mostly it will be fought in the trenches of individual homes and hearts - with families and roommates and over careless words spoken in haste that Jesus said we'd be judged for. It will be fought by people who have been forgiven in Christ and so are eager to forgive others and to seek forgiveness. It will be fought by people who do the daily work of tending to the garden of our own souls and the garden of our family - pulling up weeds, trimming branches, protecting the fruit.