What’s happening in the US? I believe we’re witnessing a cultural shift, which feels like a culture war. In The Second Mountain, David Brooks points out the history of cultural transitions in Western civilization. One culture dominates until members of a counterculture gain enough strength to prevail.

Previous Culture Changes

In the late 1800s, American society favored the wealthy, who often maintained their power and privileges through corruption. Laws protected corporate interests, ignoring the rights of women, workers, minorities, and the poor. But with the onset of WWI, followed by the Depression, and WWII, 

A culture developed that emphasized doing your duty, fitting into institutions, conforming to the group, deferring to authority, not trying to stick out… This group-oriented moral ecology could be summed up by the phrase “We’re All in This Together.” 

Brooks, David, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, (Random House, 2019), Kindle edition, 4.

Then the 1960s produced another culture war when people began feeling imprisoned by the “pressure of group conformity.”

If “We’re All in This Together” was about the group, this new moral ecology was all about freedom, autonomy, authenticity. You might summarize it with the phrase “I’m Free to Be Myself.”

Ibid., 9.

The US had become an individualist culture. But Brooks observes:

When individualism becomes the absolutely dominant ethos of a civilization—when it is not counterbalanced with any competing ethos—then the individuals within it may have maximum freedom, but the links between the individuals slowly begin to dissolve. 

Ibid., 10.

 Consequently, Brooks notes:

It’s hard on people of all ages, but it’s especially hard on young adults. They are thrown into a world that is unstructured and uncertain, with few authorities or guardrails except those they are expected to build on their own.

Ibid.,13.

Leading Up to Today’s Culture War

So, the “I’m Free to Be Myself” narrative has been playing out for 50+ years and has developed into a culture of hyper-individualism. We are, therefore, ripe for another cultural shift.

People create a moral ecology that helps them solve the problems of their moment. That ecology works, and society ratchets upward. But over time the ecology becomes less relevant to new problems that arise. The old culture grows rigid, and members of a counterculture take a hatchet to it. There’s a period of turmoil and competition as the champions of the different moral orders fight to see which new culture will prevail.… At these moments—1917, 1968, today—it’s easy to get depressed and to feel that society is coming apart at the seams. There are gigantic and often brutal wars… Eventually society pivots over and settles on a new moral ecology, a new set of standards of right and wrong. 

Ibid., 7.

I suspect this war of cultures is behind much of the turmoil we see in our streets. Many of us agree that our culture needs to change, even if we disagree about the details.

Redemptive Strategies for Believers 

As Christians, we recognize our responsibility to redeem every opportunity to affect our culture. But how? Four steps:

1. Test our spirits, lest strong emotions stampede our wisdom and witness. We don’t need to attend every argument to which we’re invited. James advises us:

Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

James 1:19-20

2. Treat everyone, even our adversaries, with kindness and respect. Look and listen with grace-filled eyes and ears. Since masks hide the smiles on our faces, let people hear it in our voices, see it in our eyes, and experience it in our actions. Overwhelm evil with good, darkness with light, hate with love.

God… uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 

2 Corinthians 2:14

3. Take a stand for what’s right, not according to culture but according to Christ. Let the issues that break God’s heart break ours. His justice is redemptive, respecting people and restoring relationships. 

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.

Isaiah 1:17

4. Turn over control to God through prayer, managing what we can with wisdom and godliness, and trusting him with what we can’t.

We’re facing a new exodus. Despite our desire to return to the comfort of the familiar, growth in Christ invites us to a transforming faith. Our primary call isn’t to cancel culture but to follow Jesus and enlarge his kingdom, both within ourselves and the world. How will we be God’s agents of redemption in the culture war? 

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

Hebrews 12:1-2