Engaging In Today’s Culture War

It has been said repeatedly that life in America changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. No one in the United States will ever forget that fateful day when 19 terrorists attacked our country using commercial airplanes. Since that day our lives have been consumed with the reality of war. We read or hear about the war on terror, the Afghanistan conflict, or the War in Iraq in every newspaper, magazine, and radio and television station on a daily basis.

Even though the war on terror is very real and extremely important, there is another war that has been raging across our land that gets very little of our every day attention. This war is far more devastating to each of us than those we hear about in the news. This war is a culture war and the results from this war will have a major impact on not only our lives but the lives of all future generations that will follow us.

The reason why there is this ongoing culture war is due to a far greater terrorist attack than the one that occurred on 9/11. It can be accurately stated that because of this earlier terrorist attack, life in God’s creation changed for all time. Of course, I am referring to that day in the Garden when Satan attacked the crown jewel of God’s creation — MAN. When the attack was over, sin had entered the world and God’s creation has never been the same.

Since that day every society and every generation has been engaged in an extremely intense culture war. All culture wars have been and always will be wars over the concepts of reality and truth. Today we are fighting our culture war and the current state of war is very much like the one fought during the time of the prophet Hosea. This prophet wrote about the culture war of his day and described its state by declaring that:

· There was no acknowledgement of God in the land
· God’s people were being destroyed from a lack of knowledge (truth)
· His law was being ignored

Because the culture war had gotten to this point and God’s law was being ignored, God said that He would ignore their children.

My mind goes to the prophetic words of James Dobson more than a dozen years ago when he described the culture war of our time in his book Children At Risk. Dobson accurately saw this war as:

· A war of ideas
· A war aimed at our children and youth
· A war that would be fought in a major way on educational turf

Over the past several decades, the intensity of our culture war has grown greatly — especially on educational turf. I recently heard Josh McDowell state that we now live in an anti-Judeo Christian culture where society opposes and attacks the reality of God and the truth of His Word at every point of battle.

Not long ago I was given this cartoon from the Sept. 1, 2003 issue of The New Yorker. This cartoon is titled “Moral Compass 2003”. The options on this compass for making moral choices are dangerous to say the least. However, this cartoon accurately depicts the postmodern culture in which we live that boldly proclaims there are no moral absolutes.

Moral Compass 2003

I once received an e-mail update from Barna Research, which reported that only 4% of adults in the United States have a biblical worldview. The research discovered that only 9% of born again Christians have such a perspective on life. From every indication, we are losing the culture war.

In a recent address to a large group of Christian educators, I suggested several strategies to which we must devote ourselves if we are going to turn the battle around. These strategies have specific implications on how Christians are to educate their children.

1. We must honor and preserve truth
2. We must know, understand and commit ourselves to a biblical philosophy of education
3. We must teach to biblically impact the next generations’ beliefs, values and actions
4. We must understand that formal education is one of the greatest influences on the development of beliefs/worldviews of individuals and societies
5. We must unite home, church and school into a unified whole that will equip our children to think and act from a biblical worldview.

Here at Kingdom Education Ministries, we are dedicating ourselves to engage in today’s culture war and are committed to fulfilling these strategies. I believe that by following these strategies we can successfully engage in today’s culture war and raise a generation of young people who will think and act from a biblical worldview.

Glen Schultz

Author Glen Schultz

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Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Paul Kienel says:

    Glen

    I am extremely proud of you. I can’t believe a man of your magnitude ever worked for me ! I am glad to be on your KEM mailing list. It was great being with you at ACSI’s first Nexus Convention.
    You were, BY FAR ,our best speaker !

    If ever you are in our neck of the woods, please come and see us.

    Paul the fossil

  • Everything else in life stems from that choice.