I recently discovered that I am standing on the front line of a battle that will determine the fate of Western civilization. It turns out the line runs through the hearts of the eighteen-year-olds in my classroom.
The culture wars that started in the 1960s, it seems, have spawned an intramural skirmish. The last half-century has witnessed a multi-theater conflict between traditionalists (mostly Christians from many denominations but also many conservative Jews) and their more progressive fellow citizens over a range of social, cultural, and political questions that define who “we” are. That battle rages on, now with a number of public figures joining the fray against various stripes of “wokeness,” militant Islamism, empty nihilism, or quasi-religions like antihuman environmentalism. Some have announced their conversion to Christianity (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson) while others play coy about what they actually believe as they write very long books detailing why much about the world we live in is unimaginable and will become dysfunctional absent a Christian worldview (Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland). Still others awkwardly acknowledge their status as “cultural Christians,” indifferent or even hostile to the truth claims of the faith but deeply pessimistic about humanity’s prospects should the Church disappear (Richard Dawkins, Elon Musk).
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