When people ask me to list some must-read books — if the goal is understanding religion and the news — the first one I mention is “Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America” by sociologist James Davison Hunter.
Pundits love to toss “culture wars” around as a kind of journalism hand grenade, but few bother to flash back to this 1991 classic and note how Hunter defined that term. In 1998 I wrote a column — “Ten years of reporting on a fault line” — in which I noted Davison’s description of America’s ongoing legal and political wars about religion, morality and culture.
The key: Americans were no longer debating specific religious beliefs or traditions. Instead, he said they were fighting about “something even more basic — the nature of truth and moral authority.”
… America now contains two basic worldviews, which he called "orthodox" and "progressive." The orthodox believe it's possible to follow transcendent, revealed truths. Progressives disagree and put their trust in personal experience, even if that requires them to “resymbolize historic faiths according to the prevailing assumptions of contemporary life."
The book Hunter wrote in 1994, right after “Culture Wars”? It was called “Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America's Culture Wars.” Hold that thought.
All of this brings me to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) focusing on a new Lifeway Research study — on behalf of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary — probing how religious faith and practice affect what Americans believe about abortion. The survey took place days before the leak of the draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating that the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The survey results are complex and will provide little comfort for those committed to a consistent pro-life stance or. on the other side, the defense of America’s pro-abortion-rights legal structures built on Roe.
In the podcast, I argued that this survey deserves mainstream media coverage — but I sincerely doubt that this will happen. Why?