Even the name is violent, and the appearance of "Culture Wars" as one of the signposts of the early 21st century tells us much: We are living in very violent times.
When a new term like this becomes a household word, it is probably advisable that we examine it carefully. Instead of waiting 50 years for a graduate student to write "Culture Wars, the Early 21st Century's Conflicts as Evidenced in its Cultural History," what if we take a stab at untangling it now? Not that we will be able to render judgment as to who is wrong and who is right, but that being in the middle of the thing, we can look at the processes as they are happening. Who knows? That future graduate student may someday appreciate the effort, and our wounded world certainly deserves it.
I have heard the term "culture wars" used in a number of different ways. First, journalists have seized upon it to describe the opposing sides in the debate about gay marriage, or more generally the divide between secularists and religious folks. In this usage the term refers to an internal fight within "American" culture itself. What we have here is a family disagreement and it is about many issues which half of the family defines as one kind of morality, and the other as a different kind of ethics, and both think morality/ethics is on their side.
A second use of "culture wars" I have seen recently is an effort to describe the fight over "culture" itself as in "pop culture." In this struggle we have on the one side, people concerned with decency, children's rights and the use of media (internet, films, television, music) and on the other side, people anxious about the First Amendment, civil liberties and too often profits.
This "war" goes much broader than our "national borders" since it is in the very nature of today's media that it has no boundaries. The World Wide Web is just that - worldwide - and films and television beam out of Hollywood to be watched in the remotest corners of the world. So rather than being about the way we envision ourselves as "Americans," this culture war sees us separated along global groups of parents vs. corporations, or teachers vs. television conglomerates. The battle lines are drawn very differently.
A last usage I have heard, and which is probably the most painful to admit, is the one that pits half of the planet against the other half. The "culture wars" here are a reference to "Western Civilization" and those "others" whose idea of civilization is non-Western - or, as many would prefer to see it, un-civilized. This is the kind of culture war that makes nationalisms extremely dangerous on both sides and which threatens the very survival of the human race.
Culture Wars then, whether internal (about our sexual politics), external (about contemporary pop culture) or worldwide (about "civilization"), are all non-productive and belligerent ways of approaching tensions and differences - they are really in this sense "wars." Should we, people of faith, sign on blindly to one or the other side of these conflicts, or should we try to model a different way of doing things, much as St. Francis did during the Fifth Crusade by crossing enemy lines to try to talk with the sultan of Egypt?
Having experienced war firsthand, Francis did not enlist with the Christian soldiers, nor did he accept the lavish gifts the sultan offered him. Francis courageously refused to believe that war was the answer; he was a mediating presence whose very person proclaimed, "There is another way." Where would we find some guidance in developing this alternative way today?
In January 2002, in Francis' city of Assisi, more than 200 religious leaders from every major religion in the world gathered with Pope John Paul II to talk about and pray for peace. These people of faith crossed every "cultural" boundary keeping them on opposing sides while they converged on one idea, the same as had motivated Francis: Peace.
At the end of the gathering the spiritual leaders gave the world a document which few people have seen because "peace" rarely makes the news. The document, a Decalogue for Peace, although not addressing itself to the questions of this process of "Culture Wars," can work as guiding principles to shed light on what our response to this "call to arms" we are hearing needs to be. Let me try to summarize these new commandments and reword them in familiar language for us (the original document is available at the Vatican's website, www.vatican.va):
-We won't ever resort to violence and we will try to see the deeper issues causing conflicts.
-We will get to know each other better so we can live together.
-We will talk to each other and we will listen.
-We will respect each other's way of life and ways of being family.
-We will not give up when differences seem too big between us; rather we will discuss these differences honestly in the hope that we will learn something.
-We will forgive each other and be very clear that in the future we will do better.
-We will always try to see life from the side of those who are weakest and most powerless, and we will understand that there can be no happiness for anyone as long as someone is suffering.
-We will speak up about all this and not allow our voice to be lost. We will let others know that we are committed to working hard always for the cause of justice and of peace.
-We will constantly remember and remind others that standing with each other as one human family is the only way to counteract the influences that would dehumanize our world and turn everything into things to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.
-We will work for this, we will try to influence those in leadership, and we will provide leadership ourselves, all working toward "a world of solidarity and peace based on justice."
Along with the Holy Father, this Decalogue was signed by the Orthodox and ancient Eastern Christian Churches, all of the major Protestant denominations, and leaders of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism and traditional African religions.
Perhaps if we all sign on to this new Decalogue and no more people sign up for the Culture Wars, they will stop having them, and we can get back to the hard work of building a world worthy of being God's. Cecilia González-Andrieu writes from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
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