It was on our side that people had trouble understanding the thoroughness of the Soviet evil. Reagan's "evil empire" speech drew ferocious criticism. Anthony Lewis called it "primitive." Tom Wicker called it "smug." Historian Henry Steele Commager said, "It was the worst presidential speech in American history, and I've read them all." Even months later, George Ball, a former high official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, published an open letter to President Reagan in which, almost in passing, he referred contemptuously to "your obsessive detestation of what you call 'the evil empire.' "

"What you call the 'evil empire'." Today everyone pretends that we were all singing from the same anti-Communist songbook. We were not.

In 1983 President Reagan asked for military aid to the government in El Salvador fighting communist guerrillas. Sen. Christopher Dodd went on national TV with the Democratic response. He called the Reagan policy "folly, pure and simple," as it proposed "to wage a conflict which cannot be won." The United States, said Dodd, had "to move with the tide of history rather than stand against it."

Well, it turns out the tide of history was not communism spearheaded by revolution, but freedom backed by American power. We are the tide of history.

The fall of the wall was the final vindication of that view, the view of the much-maligned cold warriors.

THE DANGERS OF WAR TALK

I regret the haunting title of James Davison Hunter's recent book: Before the Shooting Begins. Such rhetoric may sell books. But such rhetoric does little to foster an ambiance in which those Americans who are alienated from each other can seek reconciliation. Indeed, it reinforces the mindset of people like those extremists who laud the killing of abortion doctors and staff.

The vast majority of other Americans are not hostile toward evangelical Christians and are not ready to shoot anybody. We would be more accurate to portray the bulk of the American public not as belonging to two giant phalanxes of the Right and Left engaged in mortal combat, but as religious centrists, remaining to varying degrees committed to Judeo-Christian values and to First Amendment guarantees regarding freedom of religion. There are theaters of cultural warfare, but millions of Americans are not self-consciously enlisted soldiers in them.

THE USE OF WAR METAPHORS

Patrick Buchanan brought the glare of 'the national spotlight to the phrase "culture war" when he used his address to the 1992 Republican National Convention to declare a "war for the nation's soul." That moment was both the apex and the nadir of a presidential campaign that styled itself as a moral crusade. Oliver North's 1994 Senate campaign in Virginia echoed those themes. Buchanan's 1996 campaign was no less crusade-like, and the war metaphors were even more prominent as partisans were advised to "lock and load" and "ride to the sound of the gunfire." Other Republican hopefuls, Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and such "cultural warriors" as Rush Limbaugh, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, and James Dobson, director of Focus on the Family, have claimed there is an encompassing social divide over morality and values.
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War rhetoric obviously fits these three requirements. It names an issue of abiding moral seriousness, it identifies the good guys and the bad guys, and it implores people to get involved lest the cause be lost. Because of the need for a certain amount of the us-vs.-them approach, activist rhetoric easily escalates toward uncompromising portrayals of good and evil. That is what Hunter and others discovered in their narrow version of "culture wars"--the rhetoric of movement partisans trying to break through to the nonactive and prod them to action.

But this is not an ideological divide that pits half of America vs. the other half; this is the hype -- the "pep talk" of those who are trying to rally troops to their side. What is often identified as evidence for a culture war has more to do with the requirements of activist rhetoric than the attitudes or actions of the body politic generally.

HOW TO AVOID FURTHER POLARIZATION

Do some people talk in "culture war" terms? Of course they do. Is that talk a good guide to the world views, values or opinions of the public? Clearly not. In sum, the narrow version of the culture-war idea ignores the crucial difference between social-movement mobilizing and institutional politics.

While it may be comforting to know that America is not as divided or as unreasonable as the narrow culture-war thesis suggests, that does not make the current state of American politics any easier to take. Many people feel that their involvement is useless. Further, the stridency of much public culture no doubt discourages many people from involvement, even if they do care about an issue. I find myself turning off news programs when I feel that all I am hearing are the prefabricated ideological sound bites of spokespersons from interest groups. What can be done about this? If we care about our collective political life, and want as many people as active in public decision-making as possible -- which is, after all, part of the definition of democracy -- how do we avoid this cycle of polarizing activist rhetoric, public indifference and a resulting escalation of rhetoric?

Before addressing such questions, I want to emphasize that I am in no way opposed to social-movement politics. I have been active in some movements. I am suggesting, however, that there is a problem with a rhetorical cycle that seems to reward an uncompromising, absolutist approach to public life, for it results in as much political disengagement as political mobilization. I am searching for a type of politics that is inclusive and open, even to one's ideological opponents.

I pointed out above that the politicians who campaigned on a strident culture-wars theme were not particularly successful in electoral politics. Though cultural warriors won some primaries, and on occasion a seat in the House of Representatives, at the national and institutional level they lost--and generally they continue to lose. Elections have provided culture-wars campaigns with a platform, but have denied them power The institution of the two-party electoral system has historically fostered compromise, moderation and stability. Therefore, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I think a way to make the political system healthier is to strengthen political parties ....

On cultural war ...

Cultural warfare, while no less a transfer of power from one group to another, is for the most part seemingly painless. There are no tortured screams or bloody wounds, no limb-strewn nightmares to haunt a generation. In fact, cultural warlords seek to keep the battle from becoming bloody. Modern media fills the cultural airwaves with a mist of anesthesia, so that principles and values are slowly desensitized to the coming onslaught. The new culture arrives on the heels of this propaganda. It simply moves in and takes over, like slipping a fine new glove over a numbed hand. The outcome of the war is just as devastating, but without bombs bursting, twisted bodies to bury, or rubble to rebuild. A new class, a different culture, simply takes over.

On tolerance ...

The Bill of Rights, as I and the best of America's constitutional scholars read it, embraces religious opportunity for shakers and glossolalians as well as believers who receive communion at gothic-cathedral altars, as well as Quakers who quiver under the Spirit, as well as those who carry Torah scrolls high on their shoulders, as well as Hispanics who bear the lash of the Penitentes. Religious freedom in America is not reserved territory for Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, or Lutherans. Religious tolerance here must also embrace religious practices which some - perhaps even the majority -- find bizarre and perhaps even offensive.

On cultural warmongers ...

The message from the cultural warlords is everywhere, delivered with the arrogant swagger of absolute confidence. Summarized, it is this: Heaven help the God-fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle class, Protestant (or even worse evangelical) Christian, the midwestern or southern (or even worse rural) hunter, apparently straight or admitted heterosexual gun-owning (or even worse NRA-card-carrying) average working stiff, or even worse still male working stiff, because not only do you not count, you're a downright obstacle to social progress. Your tax dollars may be just as welcome and green as you hand them over, but your voice deserves no hearing, your opinion is not enlightened, your media access is virtually nil, and frankly mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something about your new America. And until you do, why don't you just sit down and shut up!

Too many Americans are doing just that. That's why I'm here with a wake-up call.

On being an American ...

Most rank-and-file Americans I know resent the fact that this war has been foisted upon them. They already go to war for their families every day. They fight to hold down a job, raise responsible kids, make their payments, keep gas in the car, put food on the table and clothes on their backs, and still save a little to live their final days in dignity.

They prefer the America they built - the America where you could pray without feeling naive, love without being kinky, sing without profanity, be white without feeling guilty, own a gun without shame, and raise your hand to say so without apology. They long for leaders who will muster some guts, stand on principle, and lead them to victory in this cultural conflict. They are tired of being under siege for their principles and values that have been declared good, right, and just for more than two centuries.

On elitism ...

In twenty-first century America, however, just by signing on to a point of view or specific social agenda, a person can become part of the preferred class. In other words, by no more than posturing and parroting the party line, a person gains otherwise effortless admittance to the "us" and rejects the "them."

The entrance fee to the elite class is at an historical all-time low, requiring only that a person agree to the general tenets, for example, that white males are disposable, corporate America is inherently evil, southern Christians are somewhat dumb and misguided, guns are dangerously prevalent, and lesbian Islamic rainforest biologists (or name any other interest group you like) have more worthwhile views than other people. By no more than learning the language of political correctness, taught by modern media, you're more enlightened.

On religion ...

Several decades ago, the cultural elitists declared that God was dead in America. Many remember the infamous Time magazine cover that declared His demise. Since then God has recovered, rebounded, and proved His resilience. Despite a cultural spin that sought to reduce religion to backwoods superstition, the majority of people in America still find solace in religious traditions. In order to practice their religion freely, however, many Americans are being forced to wade through a thick muck of egotistical and elitist posturing that I doubt the Almighty is proud to witness.

On courage ... I seek to resurrect your greatness of purpose as a citizen of the greatest nation on earth, to reorient the compass of patriotism and conviction that already dwells in your heart, and to move you to action. I want to challenge you first to examine your own heart for the courage to be free, and then to do what it takes to live out that destiny. If I do my part well, the battle will be engaged by one more voice that refuses to let our most basic freedoms as a people be taken captive - yours.

On cultural collision ...

Let me draw the distinctions in broad strokes. On one side, we have a rural society based on farming, with a belief in independent self-determination, individual initiative, and mutual trust. On the other side stands an urban culture in which the individual is subordinate to the group, where transience and congestion alienate man from the land and from his fellow man, where upheaval and social decay give way to crime and a climate of fear, and where many are satisfied to sacrifice essential liberty for the illusion of safety.

So who started the cultural war, and why? For the answer, meet me at the city limits. In almost every act of cultural war, it's there somewhere: the fight between the city boys and the country boys. Look past the facts and faces of issues under debate, and you'll see one party calmly chewing on a wheat stalk while the other is flip-phoning 911.

On personal courage ...

In this collection of essays, I admit I've been critical of societal bullies, posturing elitists, cultural warlords, and other self-appointed engineers who would remodel the Bill of Rights. They should rightfully be "outted" and revealed for the damage they're doing. But I hope you've noted my admonition that the final solution isn't to accuse and condemn them, hoping they'll become converts while we commiserate and lament for a better world. That's a futile waste, since we have an infinitely more powerful weapon at our disposal.

No, the path to victory in cultural war, as it is in most matters of personal conviction, is to live by example - and live loud. All true teaching, like parenting, is best conveyed not by talking it up, but by living it out.

God's Election Lesson (November 14, 2000)

For people of faith, the deadlocked presidential election raises an urgent question: what is God trying to teach us with this unprecedented, painful situation?

This election - like the recent impeachment struggle-reminds us there's no 'moral majority' in America.

The lesson of this election is that we can't make progress by mobilizing a consensus that doesn't exist and forcing the other side into submission. We need to win converts, not arguments. This is not a culture war -- since wars involve destroying your opponents. We shouldn't try to destroy anybody -- but rather to persuade everybody.

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