Jesusland, an internet phenomenon born of the 2004 election.
Those who make claims about the 'Culture War' and the Religious Right seldom employ data or facts
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One of the strangest phenomena in American politics is the persistence of claims, based on scanty or dubious evidence, proclaiming the death of the Religious Right or that the end of the culture wars is at hand. Having written about the ever-evolving Religious Right for more than 25 years I have found myself often perplexed and sometimes gobsmacked by such claims.
These claims play a significant role in the discourse but they've received far less scrutiny than they merit. The term "culture wars" as we currently understand it was first popularized by sociologist James Davison Hunter in his 1992 book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Control the Family, Art, Education, Law and Politics in America. Hunter framed it as a set of issues over which "orthodox" religious people and "progressives" were at odds. Perhaps irreconcilably so. And he worried that the political invective hurled by both sides could lead to violence.
But it was unsuccessful Republican presidential contender Pat Buchanan's demagogic speech at the 1992 Republican Convention that really launched the term into our political lexicon. Although it is now generally referred to as "the culture war speech," Buchanan never actually used the term, which is significant because Buchanan was saying something very different than Hunter:
"There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be--as was the Cold War itself."
He makes it clear that this religious war is being waged on cultural fronts--but that culture is not the war itself. This is not a distinction without a difference. The religious war of which he speaks is not merely a collection of "social issues" over which people disagree, like abortion, homosexuality, and separation of church and state. It is, rather, a clash of profoundly different worldviews which are then played out in battles over specific issues.
The fascinating problem with the method of those who declare that the culture war is over, or about to be, is that they rarely if ever actually take the metaphor a step further. They do not name any of the belligerents, only the "issues" over which unnamed groups are said to be at war.
I believe there are two main reasons for this. One is the temptation to treat scandals and specific electoral outcomes as ultimate outcomes for the entire Religious Right or for the Culture Wars. On closer examination, the evidence from such episodes has never supported such conclusions. The other reason has to do with the temptation to draw sharp final conclusions from highly transitory polling data--as opposed to evaluating the players, ideologies, institutions, and leaders of the Religious Right.
We need to ask ourselves, and those who make these claims: How can there be a war without belligerents? How can there be an end to hostilities unless the warring parties themselves sue for peace? How can pundits say that peace is breaking out when none of the belligerents have even been asked if they would like to seek it? (And no, those engaged in self-selected common ground discussions, whatever you think of their merit, do not count.)
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