Culture Wars? What Culture Wars?

Whenever I see a headline using the term "culture war," I briefly get my hopes up for what the news article will contain. I think to myself, "Perhaps those on the left have finally become concerned about the works of Charles Dickens being too widely read." Or, "Maybe the executives at MTV have finally realized the danger to their livelihood present in the Corries." But then, when I do click on that link, I am sadly disappointed to realize that the news item being referred to concerns only one of a handful of issues that seem to garner the title of "culture war" issues - abortion, gay marriage, contraception, religious speech in public, etc.

Don't get me wrong: all of these issues are important. What I have been longing for recently, though, is a true culture war, or perhaps even a culture crusade. The usual issues associated with the "culture wars" definitely deserve attention, but they do not necessarily seem to connote a battle between cultures. Rather, it seems to me that these issues are disagreed upon only by different ideologies residing in the same, drab modern culture. And there is a big difference between two different cultures being at war, and two different ideologies.

In fact, those on either side of the "culture wars" seem to abandon all semblance of hostility when it comes to matters of culture; they watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music, read the same books, and generally have the same lifestyles as their opponents. They simply have a different ideology regarding the hot button issues of the day. Disagreements between the "right" and the "left" are put aside so they can watch the Super Bowl together. The tensions between Republicans and Democrats disappear when talking about the goodness of the Industrial Revolution, an issue that should be contended in any true culture war. The differences between "blue" and "red" are differences in intellectual opinions, not differences in culture.

The primary weakness of an ideology or intellectual opinion, though, is that there is an implied separation between it and the rest of life. For those who are simply ideologically liberal, or ideologically Christian, they separate their beliefs from the actions they perform in the rest of their lives. It's as if they were walking modern colleges, with different departments of home-ology, work-ology, fun-ology, and ideology. Ideologies do not have cohesion, they simply wish to remain at the level of ideas and never make a demand on the rest of life.

But culture is a far more demanding, and thus a far more enriching thing. Culture is not satisfied with only the intellect. True culture is a combination of all those things that make man's life human. It includes all his actions: work, home, leisure, and intellect. Culture seeks to unite books, songs, poetry, philosophy, theology, liturgy, art, architecture, economics. A culture is pervasive, it is found in all the parts of a society. It is not content with simply having people believe in its ideas; culture aims to form people to see, hear, smell, touch, taste in a certain way. It wants to make them dream in a certain way, and only then will it make them think in a certain way.

Unfortunately, there is one widespread culture today, and only a few are trying to do anything different. The present culture is, as John Paul II so rightly put it, a culture of death. It is a culture that seeks to destroy human life materially and spiritually. It is a culture that takes children from their mother's womb by taking the mother's ability to think away from her. It saturates us with "entertainment," blasting us with image after image so that our imaginations becomes a blur, and we can no long concentrate on the higher things. Today's culture seeks to bring death to each moment, wishing to make us dull so that we can no longer feel pain or joy.

If we hope to bring about great change, then, we must engage in true cultural war. Right now, so far as I can see, this war is much smaller than the ideological "culture war" that gains the headlines. However, there are those out there who are becoming truly dangerous to the present culture. These people, many of whom I have been blessed to know, are trying to reestablish a Christian culture - a culture that by and large has been lost for the last hundred years. They are trying to live as differently as they can. They live without TV, without modern music. They are relearning the old songs, and celebrating the old feasts. They are writing down the old wisdom in new books, and they are rediscovering all the poetry of Christianity.

Christianity is such a beautiful, rich thing in everything it has to offer. As the Pope has mentioned so many times, Christianity is first and foremost an encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ. It is primarily a relationship. But it is a relationship that is meant to form and affect every singly aspect of human living. A Christian culture, then, is not something strictly resigned to Sundays. Ideological Christianity will isolate itself to Sundays, but Christian culture is something more. It is something that offers to order music, literature, art, and all the rest of culture to Christ. It proposes to direct all human activity to the one purpose of bringing man closer to Jesus. It is a beautiful truth, a beautiful gift from God, and a beautiful example we can offer to the world. 

And as more people become exhausted with the current culture (spiritually and literally), there will be those who have kept alive the old Christian culture as an alternative. You'll know them because they'll be singing and reading. They'll appreciate good craftsmanship, and enjoy good beer. They'll truly work during the week, and they'll truly pray on Sunday. And one day, they'll be the one's making headlines such as, "Shock! Local family reads out loud together" and "Culture War Update: Boys' school learns old Irish tunes instead of Lady Gaga songs." Now those are headlines I can't wait to read.