“In spite of constant repetition, the cultural divide is not between hate-filled traditionalists and love-inspired progressives. It is an irreconcilable conflict of two opposing worldviews that affects our understanding of the deep meaning of life. It is the conflict between what the Apostle Paul calls in Romans 1:25 the Truth (worship of the Creator, Twoism) and the Lie (rejection of the Creator and worship of nature, Oneism).”
(Peter Jones – truthXchange) We constantly hear that the American culture is irredeemably split politically and ideologically, perhaps even close to civil war. Rarely is the cause of the split ever identified. Certain language is simply dismissed as hate speech, which means that some issues cannot even be discussed in respectful ways. The British periodical, The Spectator, gets close to an explanation of the current “yellow vest” rebellion in France against elitist progressivism:
For years we have lived in a climate of “You can’t say that.” You can’t criticize mass immigration—that’s xenophobia. You can’t oppose the EU—that’s Europhobia. You can’t raise concerns about radical Islam—that’s Islamophobia. You can’t agitate against climate-change policy—that’s climate-change denialism, on a par with Holocaust denialism, and anyone who dares to bristle against eco-orthodoxy deserves to be cast out of polite society.
English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton argues on BBC TV that “political correctness, far from being the cure to our conflicts, is actually the ultimate source of them. The ‘isms’ and ‘phobias’ have been used in order to put some complex matters beyond discussion, so that only one perspective can be publicly confessed to…. In the world of political correctness….there is no presumption of innocence, but only a hunger for targets.” (Christian Union News, 6 Dec 2018)
One of the issues against which you cannot speak is sexuality, which is notably absent even from The Spectator’s list.
Opinions about sexuality are driving a deep wedge in society at large, in Christian colleges (and among other Christian institutions), and in the Church. In society, sexuality has become such a leading political issue that people can lose their jobs by refusing to go along with the progressive agenda. Woe betide anyone who goes up against the progressive orthodoxy that all sexual choices are acceptable because we all have a g…d given right to define our own identity. For the moment, the political momentum goes only one way. Mature conversation (what we used to call “free speech”) is no longer possible.
Research: