In this solo episode of the Christianity Without Compromise podcast, host Jake Doberenz explains why the Culture Wars aren’t very Christian. The following is NOT a transcript.
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I’m a veteran of the culture wars. I fought in them for quite a while, long enough to develop the scars and stories that come with any conflict. But somewhere along the line, I realized I didn’t want to fight anymore. I didn’t want to live with that us-versus-them tension humming in the background of my faith.
Before getting into the reasons I walked away, it’s worth saying what I mean by “culture war.” I’m not talking about thoughtful engagement with difficult issues or the call to live faithfully in the world. I’m talking about a mindset—a posture—that treats society as enemy territory, culture as a battlefield, and Christians as soldiers whose primary task is conquest.
That mindset twists good desires into something harsher. It pushes us toward power instead of humility, fear instead of love, and victory instead of transformation. And as someone who lived in that mindset for years, I can say with confidence: it didn’t help me follow Jesus.
Here are the three reasons I left the culture wars—and why I hope you reconsider them too.
1. The culture-war mentality made me a worse person
I wish this wasn’t true. I wish I could say I fought bravely, with honor, humility, and compassion. I didn’t.
The culture-war mindset shaped me into someone who believed he was right and everyone else was either evil or stupid. I carried around a mental catalogue of enemies. Evolutionists. Secular philosophers. Anyone who didn’t read Genesis the way I did. Anyone who threatened the tidy universe I constructed in my head.
And when you divide the world into good guys and villains, you end up thinking about people in ways that are simply incompatible with Jesus’ teaching. You can claim to “love your enemies,” but if in your heart they’re monstrous, corrupt, or morally inferior, that isn’t love—it’s contempt dressed up in piety.
I look back at old social-media posts from my teenage years and cringe. I was prideful, argumentative, unteachable—someone who proclaimed Christ while bearing almost none of His character.
Culture-war Christianity didn’t help me love my enemies. It taught me to fear them, mock them, or defeat them. And that alone is reason enough to walk away.
2. The culture-war mindset distorts the gospel
The second reason is theological. Culture-war Christianity shrinks the gospel into a list: a set of propositions to affirm, behaviors to police, and cultural norms to defend.
Faith becomes intellectualized, externalized, and moralized. The Great Story of God’s healing work in the world—stretching from creation to new creation—gets reduced to “believe these statements and avoid these sins.”
And because the culture wars thrive on clear lines and simple enemies, they elevate conformity over transformation. They treat salvation as escape rather than participation. They mistake power for faithfulness.
But the gospel Jesus preached before His death wasn’t a bullet-point list or a political strategy. It was the announcement of God’s reign breaking into the world—a story that invites us to join God in restoring what’s broken.
When I finally began to study Scripture apart from the culture-war lens, I realized how small my “gospel” had been. I had traded the Kingdom for a checklist. I had swapped discipleship for tribal loyalty. I had confused fighting for Jesus with becoming like Jesus.
3. The culture-war mindset elevates the wrong issues and ignores the right ones
Culture-war Christianity always gravitates toward a handful of hot-button issues. Creationism. Sexual ethics. Abortion. Gender debates.
These topics matter, but the culture-war mindset inflates them into the essentials of Christian faith—even when Scripture itself doesn’t treat them that way. Meanwhile, the things Jesus repeatedly emphasized—mercy, generosity, enemy love, justice, humility, hospitality—get pushed to the margins.
I’ve seen churches build entire statements of faith around six-day creationism. I’ve seen Christians vote for leaders who contradict virtually every trait of Christ because those leaders hold the “right” views about sexuality. I’ve seen pastors thunder against premarital sex while quietly ignoring greed, cruelty, and the abuse of power in their own ranks.
Culture-war thinking doesn’t only distort priorities; it can excuse sin. It can hide hypocrisy. It can make Christians cheer for people and policies that look nothing like Jesus, simply because they align with the “right side.”
That is not discipleship. That’s idolatry dressed up as conviction.
Leaving the culture wars saved my faith
It took me years to see all this. It took kind, wise people—many of whom I once dismissed—to help me realize how much the culture wars had malformed my character and my understanding of God.
I had to acknowledge that I wasn’t becoming more Christlike. I was becoming more combative, more fearful, more convinced of my own brilliance. And slowly, Scripture revealed a different way—a way where the Sermon on the Mount matters more than winning arguments, where neighbor love sits at the center, where the Kingdom is bigger than any political project.
Paul’s words in Romans 12 capture the Christian life better than any culture-war manifesto ever could. Love sincerely. Bless those who persecute you. Live in harmony. Reject pride. Do what leads to peace.
That’s the kind of disciple I want to be. That’s the kind of community the world actually needs.
I’m out of the culture wars. If you’re still caught inside them—or if someone you love is—I pray you find a path out too. There’s freedom on the other side. And more importantly, there’s Jesus.
See Also:
The Sermon on the Mount is Serious - SOLO Episode
In this solo episode of the Christianity Without Compromise podcast (then call Smashing Idols), host Jake Doberenz unpacks the cultural and theological habit of sidestepping Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.
Follow this show and Jake Doberenz’s writings at jakedoberenz.substack.com.
Christianity Without Compromise is a part of the KFM Broadcasting network.
