Will the Culture Wars Remain with Us?

Rachel Held Evans has a post today, A Response to Ken Ham: Let’s Make Peace.

Rachel’s book, Evolving in Monkey Town, was discussed in a Nashville article that made its way into USA Today. The article states the following:

Pastors and professors at Bryan College once told her if she questioned creationism she was no longer a true Christian.

“My generation of evangelicals is ready to call a truce on the culture wars. It seems like our parents, our pastors, and the media won’t let us do that. We are ready to be done with the whole evolution-creation debate. We are ready to move on.”

Ken Ham of the Young-Earth creationist Answers in Genesis takes issue with Rachel’s claim that young evangelicals are ready to “call a truce on the culture wars” and “be done with the whole evolution-creation debate.” He states in a post:

Well, Rachel, I have news for you. Your generation is not ready to call a truce in this battle in the culture wars; in fact, we are finding more and more people are getting enthusiastically involved in fighting the culture war by standing uncompromisingly and unashamedly on God’s authoritative Word.

Hundreds and hundreds of young people recently attended our Defending the Faith conference in Tennessee, and they are fired up to battle against evolution/millions of years compromise in the church—and the loss of biblical authority in the nation. Thousands of young people each month come to the Creation Museum—and go out more fired up than ever for their faith. Thousands of books and other resources are pouring into the nation from Answers in Genesis and other such apologetics organizations, which equip young people and others to fight this culture war. Millions of people—including millions of young people—go to AiG’s websites each year. And we continue to see increasing numbers of testimonies from young people who have turned away from their compromise positions—like that of Rachel’s—and/or have become on fire for the Lord.

No, the coming generations are not “ready to move on,” Rachel; they are increasingly seeking answers to the bankrupt compromise positions taught by many churches and Christian colleges. And they are gearing up to be reformers like Martin Luther, so they can call church and culture back to the authoritative Word of God.

Rachel’s response is that there are a number of young people who are leaving the church, and that she has observed evangelicals abandon the faith when they have learned that science contradicts Young-Earth creationism. She says:

According to Ken, the fact that thousands of young people visit the creation museum each year proves that this army is growing. But if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the numbers tell a different story. Young adults are leaving the church, with some studies suggesting that up to seventy percent of Protestants age 18-30 drop out of church before they turn 23. (In fact, Ken himself has observed this phenomenon.)

While the factors behind the trend are complex, I think I speak for a lot of young Christians when I say that you can’t argue us back. We are tired of fighting. We are tired of drawing lines in the sand. We are tired of Christianity being cast as a position in a debate when it is supposed to be a way of life.

What we are searching for is a community of faith in which it is safe to ask tough questions, to think critically, and to be honest with ourselves. Unfortunately, a lot of young evangelicals grew up with the assumption that Christianity and evolution cannot mix, that we have to choose between our faith in Jesus and accepted science. I’ve watched in growing frustration as this false dichotomy has convinced my friends to leave the faith altogether when they examine the science and find it incompatible with a 6,000-year-old earth. Sensing that Christianity required abandoning their intellectual integrity, some of the best and brightest of the next generation made a choice they didn’t have to make.

When I first read the USA Today article (before Ken Ham responded to it), I didn’t really care for Rachel’s implication that she speaks for her generation of evangelicals, since I know young people who are Young-Earth creationists. I wish she had said that there are many in her generation of evangelicals who are ready to call a truce to the cultural wars, or that she knows several evangelicals in her age-group who feel that way.

But I’ve often wondered what the future holds. Will the culture wars continue? Will tomorrow’s future of evangelicals be conservative, moderate, liberal, or even non-believing—or will one side even predominate? In Conservatize Me, John Moe says that he thinks conservative Christians will be running the show in the future, since right now they’re having a bunch of kids, whereas secularists and liberals are not. That doesn’t sit well with me. We already have enough people who think that their way is the only legitimate way to see things, and who try to shove their ideas down people’s throats, through arguments, or social pressure. At least right now, the different groups counterbalance each other so that none has complete control. But I’d hate for one group to dominate in the future, for that could severely curtail my freedom to be honest about my thoughts.

But there is the possibility that the children of evangelicals will leave the faith, or adopt a more moderate version of it, as they rebel against their parents, or are exposed to different ideas in life. That’s happening right now with people in Rachel’s generation, as Rachel notes.

What does the future hold?