I am now a Culture Warrior

Posted on July 20, 2023 
Filed under Culture wars, Opinion

“‘I was wrong’.  This is not a phrase I use a lot!  At least when it comes to major subjects.   Over the years I have been aware of significant changes in thinking that have had an enormous practical impact for me – baptism, Calvinism, the European Union, socialism, worship and environmentalism being the main ones I can think of.  Recently I have been forced to change my view on the question of culture wars.

I often used to say that I did not want to get involved in culture wars and that it would be a mistake for the Church to do so.  Recently I have been compelled to rethink.  The trouble is that the term ‘culture wars’ is itself a product of the culture wars.  Here in Australia, we look askance at some of the culture wars that are going on in the US, and most of us want nothing to do with them.  It is a negative term associated with white nationalism, Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson,  and suggests that Christians are some kind of political force whose mission in life is to combat the Left.  No thanks.  We want to influence the culture, to win the culture,  not to fight it.  Besides which if we engage in culture wars then won’t we alienate people from the Church and the message of the Gospel?  Doesn’t the Scripture itself tells us that our weapons are not the weapons of this world? …”

– David Robertson writes compellingly at AP, the national journal of the Presbyterian Church.

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The trans culture wars vs lovingly pastoring gender incongruent church members – with Rob Smith