The Pivotal Battle of the Culture War

And how we've tried to forfeit it

Satan is deceptive, but in some ways he has no ability to hide his true intentions. From the very beginning, he has hated the family and tried to destroy it.

And it makes sense. The pinnacle of God’s creation was man and woman, the former created with a mission and the latter created as his co-laborer in it. When they fell, it was through the family God promised to work His plan of redemption (Genesis 3:15; 12:1-3).

Because he knows this plan, from the beginning Satan has aimed his guns at the home. He set Adam against Eve, Cain against Abel, and so forth with Noah, Ham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Esau, and the 12 sons of Jacob. Then Pharaoh tried to kill the newborn boys, a plot echoed by Herod after Jesus’ birth. David was undermined by adultery, Solomon by polygamy, Ahab by a pagan wife.

And that’s just in the promised bloodline. Nations which were under Satan’s control regularly sacrificed their babies and perverted the family in numerous ways.

Fast forward to today, when the biggest culture war issues involve man, woman, sex, and the family.

We’re arguing over what constitutes a man and a woman. Young people don’t want to get married, largely because women “don’t need a man” and men have porn and other distractions to prevent them from starting a family. If they do get married, they know they can just get out by a judge’s signature and a few hundred bucks for paperwork.

Meanwhile, men want to marry men and women want to marry women. Sex is totally unbound from marriage, as couples fornicate and cohabitate almost as a rule. When pregnancy results, in millions of cases they just kill the child.

Times don’t change. Satan is enjoying a period of success precisely because he has disrupted the family. Marriage rates are down, fertility rates are down, and divorce and abortion are widespread.

The problem is, the church has not looked to win this battle by casting a positive vision.

Instead, in an attempt to maintain a broad but shallow unity, we’ve too often started by asking “What is the minimum with which we can get by?”

To that, conservative Christians have generally agreed that gay marriage and abortion are to be openly opposed, porn use along with fornication and cohabitation will be highly discouraged but often go unchallenged, and opposition to divorce and remarriage are a toss-up depending on the congregation.

As for the rest, many Christians have adamantly informed me there is no principle the church should prescribe and teach when it comes to choosing marriage and bearing children.

It’s time we start pushing heavy artillery onto this battlefield, the front line of the culture war.

We have more to offer than “don’t have sex outside of marriage” and “don’t watch porn.” We can explain how marriage was God’s design for mankind (Genesis 2:18) and is the normative, joy-giving state for mankind to pursue rather than the day’s pleasure-chasing singleness which only ends in misery.

We have more to offer than “don’t kill your babies.” We can also tell people why they should have kids, and what a blessing the family is (Psalm 127).

We have more to offer than “don’t fornicate, don’t cohabitate.” We can also cast a vision for healthy chastity which cuts out vices like porn and aims for honorable behavior toward the opposite sex in every phase of life (1 Timothy 5:2).

We have more to offer than “homosexual marriage is wrong” and “you can’t pick your gender.” We can also explain God’s design of masculinity and femininity, and how to replace feminism with a Biblical framework.

We have more to offer than “don’t get divorced.” We can also explain how marriage was designed to work with male headship that neither domineers nor doormats and female submission that doesn’t attempt to “wear the pants in the family.”

Among the Think Deeper Podcast crew, it has not escaped our notice that the most popular episodes are almost always the ones in which we talk about masculinity, femininity, and children. Christians are starving for the Bible’s teachings on the issue of the family.

The world knows what they believe about these things, and they’ve made sure we know it, too. We have to know what we believe so we can show a better way.

If culture warring sounds icky, as it does to so many Christians, realize this primary culture war issue is also the primary Gospel issue of our day.

How so?

The Gospel is the good news of Jesus’ rule over everything. The kingdom over which He rules should look like a shining city set on a hill (Matthew 5:14), obviously set apart from a dark, grimy world.

Because of that, His kingdom should have a distinctly Christian way of forming the family. Muslims have a distinct family makeup. So do Mormons. So do traditionalist Roman Catholics. Why don’t we?

Jesus also came to save the world from sins—even their favorite sins. No; especially their favorite sins. Casting a positive vision on these issues and pointing them to His standard is preaching the good news that there is freedom from the chains which enslave them (Romans 6).

And before we can do that, we have to point out they have chains enslaving them. Preaching a robust theology of the family is the best way to do so.

Satan understands this truth. We had better grasp it, too.