Recalibrating the Culture War in 2016

We thought that the culture war was behind us and that we were entering a Brave New World in which Christians would be a harassed minority in a society captive to progressive ideals of personal liberation. November 8 proved that expectation wrong in the Electoral College—but not necessarily on the streets. We still live in a contested environment. The candidate who flouted political correctness won. But his victory does not necessarily represent a victory for religious conservatives—at least, not in the way we’re used to thinking. There are crucial differences between the influential Religious Right of the 1970s, or even that of the 2000s, and the political influence and prospects of religious conservatives today.