This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Is the slippery slope really a fallacy?
A story from Canada today that, by its very nature, maximizes heat. I will try to keep my own emotions about this story in check. Sitting at the intersection of gay rights, abortion rights, surrogacy rights, and ultimately the violence upon which all government force is founded, I bring you: Couple sues surrogate who refused to abort their baby over a minor birth defect
https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/world-news/couple-sues-surrogate-who-refused-to-abort-their-baby-over-a-minor-birth-defect/
Long story short, the baby had a minor heart defect
(the article doesn't specify what)and a cleft palate, and the adoptive men wish their now two year old child had been murdered and are suing the birth mother for failing to do so (there are also claims that she failed to keep them informed in a timely manner about these issues). Last I'll say of my own emotions on this is that this strikes me as outright demonic behavior and if I say anything more about my feelings I'm going to drift into fedposting so I'll stop here.The main point I can take away from this is that all of the Christian right that warned about various slippery slopes have been validated over, and over, and over again. The slippery slope is technically a fallacy, yes. But Christians repeatedly pointed out "There is no limiting principle here, and the arguments you nake to support degenerate behavior X are just as applicable to degenerate behaviors Y and Z and there is nothing except public sentiment (and not even that if a judge somewhere says otherwise) preventing the awful things we're talking about from becoming reality."
For those who lived through the culture wars over abortion, gay rights, and similar issues, have your feelings on the matter changed in anyway whatsoever over the last decade or two, and in which direction? And why, if you're able to articulate. For me at least, to quote the meme an old friend shared in our edgy groupchat the other day, "Upon further consideration I have decided to become more extreme in my religious beliefs".
This is me. In college I was an edgy libertarian who thought the Wicca creed of "though it harm none, do as you will" was the height of wisdom. As I've matured, it has become clear that certain ways of being are simply better. And then I came (returned, really) to Christ which has increasingly made me a radical in the eyes of the secular world.
Just last night, in fact, I was approached by my senior pastor about taking a teaching role at my church, with the idea that I would eventually take his job. So I've got a lot of thinking to do about many of these issues, and how to address them in a compassionate but biblical way from the pulpit. My pastor says he was advised, for instance, to never teach the book of Romans, because when you teach Romans 1 (which condemns homosexuality among other things) you will lose half your congregation. He teaches it anyway :) This may not be that relevant to you all or to the discussion but I just wanted to share.
If you are teaching Romans 1 after teaching Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 on biblical gender roles and the numerous passages (including the Gospels) on the indissolubility of Christian marriage, I doubt you will lose any additional congregants that you haven't already lost.
If you are teaching Romans 1 before teaching those passages, that is probably the wrong order given the relative damage different sexual sins are doing in today's society.
If someone were to teach Romans 1 without teaching those passages, I would assume that they don't actually care about biblical sexual morality and are just a homophobe or a grifter appealing to homophobes.
Romans isn't an obscure book of the Bible, and the first chapter is typically where one would start.
Precisely - Romans is immediately after Acts in the conventional order, so if (as @FlailingAce appears to be required to do) you teach the New Testatment from front-to-back, Romans 1 is the first Pauline epistle you get to. And if you want an unequivocal declaration that Jesus is not the hippie he appears to be based on some readings of the Gospels, Romans 1 works. But if you are trying to teach Christian sexual morality to people who are receptive to it but not familiar with it, "God curses people who deny him by turning their wives lesbian" isn't the best place to start.
Paul was writing for a society where the Christian ideas about marriage (the Christian idea of marriage is similar to, but not the same as, the pagan Roman idea of marriage) and the family were not countercultural, so he doesn't need to point to the centre of the thing he is pointing at before he can point to the edges. This is the Bible we are talking about, so all of Christian sexual morality is in there, and it forms an intellectually coherent whole. But the presentation was optimised for a time and a place. (Well, a set of places that Paul was writing to.)
But in a world where "marriage" as it was understood from the dawn of time to the 1960s is a somewhat-eldritch piece of lost technology, the logical sequence to teach the material is:
"Christian sexual morality is basically normie-American sexual morality except we don't like gays" is not true, and empirically doesn't work as a seeker-sensitive white lie either.
The tradition in apostolic churches is to introduce the Christian teaching on marriage with John Chrysostom for that reason.
I know that Protestants do not do patristics to nearly the same extent. But before saying things like ‘Christian marriage was the norm in ancient Rome’ it’s probably worth looking at what ancient Christian preachers were criticizing in marriages.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link