Opinion: Culture wars and their connections to emotions and religion can lead to violence
“Culture” can have a very broad meaning when it refers to the total way of life of a people, but it can also refer simply to the views and values of different groups of people. Some of these views and values may differ or clash among people of different backgrounds, such as rural or urban, age, education and religion.
Families may have different cultures between them and even within them. Differences may simply be interesting and enriching, but recently we have been hearing of “culture wars.” These have taken place most often when there have been efforts to change a culture.
One of the most important “wars” has been going on over generations. It could be said to have begun “officially” in 1848 at the famous women’s meeting in Seneca Falls, New York. The women were influenced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who called for women’s equality and suffrage. Although the women’s movement for equality had even earlier seeds, women still did not win the right to vote until 1919. The Equal Rights Amendment has never passed the required 38 states to be in the Constitution.
Women are still not allowed to preach or be officers in some churches. Many women can report different times and places where they were slighted for advancement because they were women. On the other hand, great changes have taken place with many women attending medical schools, seminaries and other professional schools and now work professionally when they did not previously. Another layer of the war around women has been in reproductive rights.
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The women’s movement is an example of one aspect of the culture wars in America today and it shows how views and values are connected to legal-political issues. Furthermore, religious views contribute to the two sides of the culture wars in America.
When I graduated from college in 1950, I was keenly aware of the conflict over race brought about by the South’s Jim Crow laws and the Civil Rights movement. This conflict divided my church denomination because the denominational governing assembly passed a resolution favoring the desegregation of schools. I was living with an aunt at the time because my parents were still overseas.
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She never left the church, but my uncle (my hero because he had played football for the University of Alabama) told me that he did not like the church “meddling in social affairs.” He left our denomination and went to a church that would “just preach the gospel,” which some told me I should do also. This is another example of how the culture wars can affect families, as well as organizations. There were churches in my own denomination where officers actually blocked the way for African Americans to attend worship. Many “blockers” left the denomination, usually giving theological reasons. The conservative-liberal “war” was plain in both religion and society.
One of the most contentious areas of our culture “wars” is in the area of sexual orientation and transgender people. When I went to college and then seminary, there were no openly LGBTQ people. Now our denomination accepts LGBTQ members, but unlike many churches also elects officers (ministers, elders, deacons) who are in the LGBTQ and Trans communities.
This difference in my denomination is actually a “culture war” that exists among American Protestants and elsewhere. The culture “war” is between those that are labeled “Mainline” and “Evangelical.” Protestantism is not alone in being divided, but the line intersects other organizations and institutions, including colleges and the military, which establish different standards for behavior based on different views of human sexuality and gender differences. Thus, simply different views are not the only factor, but human, political and legal rights and standards come into play.
The “culture wars” were expressed in an actual attack on the capital on Jan. 6, incited by the Republican President. In general, the Right, represented primarily among Republicans, are most likely to be “anti-government” and feel under attack. At the same time, they lean toward emphasizing local control or “states rights,” which uses the term “federalism.” Anyone remembering the Civil Rights struggle will recall the federal government often had to overrule the control of the states and local governments in racial discriminations. The local white authorities were more often traditional or conservative.
Democracy has brought us through to today, but culture wars are serious because of their connections to emotions and religion and can lead to violence. We must grow in emphasizing our oneness around democracy.
Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D., lives in Black Mountain.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Culture wars involving women's reproductive rights can lead to violence
