Change the Culture: Why Politics Can’t Do It Alone
Change the culture is a concern many Christians share as they watch values shift and families struggle. This article argues that while political leadership matters, lasting cultural renewal doesn’t come primarily through government power but through changed hearts.
- Many Christians see cultural decay as a bigger threat than economic collapse or jihad.
- The federal government has limited ability to change America’s culture.
- Cultural renewal happens through surrender to God’s Word and Spirit, regardless of who is president.
By Mark A. Taylor
Feedback for Criticizing Huckabee
Don’t criticize presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee without expecting some feedback. That’s evidently one piece of advice Peggy Noonan could offer. The former speechwriter for President Reagan said she’d been hearing from Huckabee supporters since making negative comments about him in her weekly column for The Wall Street Journal. “As I have read their letters, I have felt nothing but respect,” she wrote.
“They believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad. It is our culture.”
Signs of Cultural Decay
Most CHRISTIAN STANDARD readers would agree. We see evidence of cultural decay all around us.
Families are falling apart: fathers are abdicating their responsibilities; mothers are more concerned about themselves than their children; divorce is rampant.
Values and norms are changing: gays want to redefine marriage; wanton sex is expected; foul talk dominates the airwaves.
Contemporary media glorifies these failings and makes heroes of adulterers, murderers, and drunks—or at least those who portray them and sing about them.
Confronted at every turn by teachers who won’t let their children pray and judges who take down nativity scenes and school boards who ratify the teaching of evolution, some Christians have adopted a siege mentality. They believe their viewpoint represents a majority that should no longer stay silent, and so they’re grasping for ways to let their voices be heard.
“They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns, and beliefs,” Noonan observed.
What the Presidency Can—and Can’t—Do
But then she makes the point that deserves repeating: “While the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America.”
Much of the cultural erosion we lament grew during the presidency of Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter and flourished during the terms of the evangelicals’ darling, Ronald Reagan. Cultural decay begins in human hearts, not in the halls of education or entertainment or government.
Changing Culture Through Surrender
Of course, it is a good thing for Christians to be involved in politics, just as it is a good thing for Christians to be involved in academia or the arts. Christ has something to say and God has something to do in every area of human endeavor.
But we will not change the culture by wielding power, only by yielding to the power of the Living Word and the Holy Spirit and inviting others to join us in that surrender. As individuals and as congregations, we can do that regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
