You don’t hear too many political commentators talk about the culture war these days. But I suspect that term might surface now that the election is behind us. Secular, progressive politicians felt they need to hide some of their extreme views, but they will be more likely to promote them now that the election has passed.

At the same time, many of the more moderate Democrats have voiced their concern that their party lost elections to the House of Representatives because of their controversial messages. Former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill felt Democrats spent too much time talking about guns, abortion, gay rights, transsexuals, and socialism.

David Harsanyi cites some of those criticisms voiced by Democrats and then wonders why some of the candidates complain they were unfairly labeled socialist. He suggests that “if that’s not the message you want to send, perhaps Nancy Pelosi shouldn’t pose with a gaggle of Marxists on the cover of Rolling Stone.” Perhaps the party should reconsider how close they want to link Bernie Sanders to political campaigns.

He reminds us that McCaskill had to apologize for using the word “transsexual.” He observes that most Americans “have zero clue what McCaskill is sorry about. They may believe that letting genetic boys compete with their daughters in track and field is ridiculous.”

He also notes that the “constant obsession with race isn’t working.” Democrats lost ground with Black and Latino voters. If the goal is racial reconciliation, progressive use of identity politics, intersectionality, and critical race theory doesn’t seem to be the answer, even for minority voters.

I believe the culture war may be more intense than we have ever seen. The lesson some of the elected leaders should take away from the election is the hardcore progressive ideas don’t resonate with most Americans. But that is not what many are saying. Instead, they feel less inclined to hide their agenda and plan to fight like never before.

Yesterday I ended my commentary by saying that you should trust your own judgement. Many of the so-called “experts” really don’t understand your world even though they have great power in the media and politics to control you.

I think it is time to realize that censorship is going to happen, especially on social media platforms like Twitter, and plan accordingly. Last month, the Senate Commerce Committee held hearings on the topic of online speech. Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter) appeared on screen with a long beard and long hair looking like he had been living on the streets in San Francisco. The editors of the Wall Street Journal said he “gave the impression that he could not care less about his company’s abuse.”

One minute he denied that they were silencing views contrary to his political beliefs. The next minute he seemed to contradict himself by arguing they need to monitor what is being said in order to earn the trust of people using Twitter. Remember this is the social media organization that shut down the account of the New York Post for weeks and blocked all links to their story about the business dealings of Hunter Biden.

Here’s the issue. If Twitter can shut down the account of the fourth largest newspaper in the country (and the oldest newspaper, founded by Alexander Hamilton), it can shut down you. Senator Ted Cruz asked him who “elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?”

We are just going to have to face that Twitter and other social media platforms are not going to change, especially after the 2020 election results. Congress could change the

Communications Decency Act that provided them with immunity from legal action. But there aren’t enough members of Congress interested in amending the law. We need to find other ways to communicate because Twitter will continue to censor with virtual impunity.

We are often told to “trust the experts.” And that is good advice when you are dealing with a true expert. I want a plumbing expert in my house if I have a water leak. I want a doctor with medical expertise doing surgery on me. I want a trained pilot flying the plane I am taking from one city to another.

No, I am talking about “experts” who don’t really know the real world but often have great power in the media and politics to control you. That was illustrated the other day in a tweet from David Brooks (New York Times). The day after the election he admitted that the media got their predictions all wrong. “Pretty massive failure. We still are not good at capturing the rightward half of the country.”

People in the media, along with professors in the university and politicians and bureaucrats in government, really don’t understand you. Yet, they have enormous power to influence your views and to control your lives.

It reminded me of the test Charles Murray put together years ago to measure “How thick is your bubble?” He found that people who live in a bubble isolated from our world can be found in New York City, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and the suburbs around Washington, D.C. These are the media “experts” who determine what you read, hear, and see in news media, social media, and entertainment. These are the powerful people in government who pass laws and write regulations that control your lives.

There are two lessons we should learn. First, don’t be like them. Sometimes it can be fairly easy for us as Christians to retreat inside our own bubble. Read articles and watch programs done by people who are not like you. But the second and most important lesson is don’t always trust the judgment of some of these “experts.” They may be very disconnected from your world and don’t see it the way you see it. Trust your own judgement.

Anyone looking at charitable giving can see that individuals and voluntary associations are very effective. Don Eberly talks about this in his book. The Rise of Global Civil Society. He points out that during recent disasters around the world, private voluntary organizations had the capacity to raise more funds than government. They were also able to mobilize resources and manpower with a speed and efficiency that matches (if not exceeds) the best government aid agencies could do.

Private, voluntary associations have always been a part of American society. When Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in the 1840s, he marveled at the “tendency to form or join” voluntary associations of “a thousand kinds.” That is why he was optimistic about the future of this new republic. He saw that such organizations formed the bedrock of civil society. These associations, Tocqueville wrote, “were the things upon which progress toward all the rest depends.”

Don Eberly says that in Tocqueville’s day, there were 27 associations with an international focus. Today there are 40,000 such associations, with a very large number of them based upon a Christian foundation. He also reports that 50 million Americans are continuously engaged as “social networkers” with a person or community outside of the United States.

For years now, my wife and I have sponsored children in Africa and South America through groups like World Vision and Compassion International. You have probably done the same. And your church has no doubt provided you with an opportunity to visit the mission field or engage in short-term missions. These are just other examples of what Don Eberly is talking about when he says we are building community from the bottom up rather than from a bureaucratic governmental top down. It is excited to see what is happening in the world.

Why are suicides surging in America? There is no easy answer to that question, but there are some important clues. Some of the answers have been put forth by the latest CDC reports. We do have a number of deaths of despair that result from intended suicides as well as from opioid overdoes. And we also see suicides that have increased among our veterans that show the relationship between military combat and PTSD.

But there are social, intellectual, and spiritual reasons for the increased number of suicides. In her article in Intellectual Takeout, Annie Holmquist wonders what is driving this mentality of despair. She reminds us that half of the people who commit suicide do not have a “known mental health condition.” That is why looking at other issues is so important.

She takes us back to the seminal book by University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind. Even back in 1988, when the book was published, he saw a stark difference between the college students of that day and those just a few years before. They were “superficial” and continually indulged in “clichés.” They didn’t reason on a deeper level and were disenchanted with the world.

Believe me, if that was true of the college students in the 1980s, it is really true of the current generation of young people. They have grown up in a world of memes and clichés. They came of age in a world that long abandoned moral values. The recent discussion about D-Day and the Greatest Generation led many to suggest that the current generation might not be up to such challenges.

Sadly, this generation is growing up without an appeal to moral and biblical values. They don’t have anything to live for because they don’t believe anything would be worth dying for. Suicide becomes an option when life is sterile, superficial, and soulless.

The mainstream media nearly always think alike. And the best example of that came two weeks ago when Glen Greenwald resigned from The Intercept. Now I am sure you probably haven’t heard about that news outlet, so let me explain why this provides such a great example of media groupthink.

Glen Greenwald was one of the founders of The Intercept. He created it because he wanted to have a news outlet that was insulated from partisan pressures and corporate influence. He was probably best known for his criticism of the surveillance state established by President George W. Bush after 9/11. He was convinced that corporate power kept him (and others) from reporting important stories. That is why he created The Intercept so that he would be free from corporate pressure.

So why did he resign from the news outlet he created? His fellow editors would not let him publish a column about the documented evidence of corruption with the Biden family. In essence they were following suit with all the news media and social media that ignored the story or even blocked the dissemination of the story.

Columnist Jack Crowe concluded that The Intercept editors “succumbed to groupthink and quickly fell into lockstep on the Biden-corruption story” because their bias and partisanship comes from what “pervade so much of our media class: cultural affinity.” What keeps all of these elitist journalists in line is rarely corporate influence. They all have the same worldview and the same perspective on politics.

They concluded that the original story of Hunter Biden and the Biden family published by the New York Post had to be ignored because it might hurt the Biden campaign. That is why social media censored it. That is why the news media ignored it or labelled it as Russian disinformation. Sadly, even the editors at The Intercept gave into groupthink.

Yesterday I talked about a commentary by Dr. Jeff Myers that raised a significant concern about Christian young people who unfortunately embrace anti-religious views and socialist politics. He also compared the amount spent on the last elections to what colleges and worldview ministries spend to prepare young adults to apply a biblical worldview. He therefore concludes that “spending $100 to fix a problem that could have been prevented for $1 is crazy.” We need to rearrange our priorities and focus on cultural trends and support biblical worldview training.

But I would add a second priority of the critical need for these ministries and organizations to promote each other. Summit Ministries isn’t going to do the job all by itself. He does mentions homeschool curricula and one of his recent books mentions certain ministries.

Nancy Flory in an article about his commentary not only mentions Summit but PragerU and Turning Point. That’s a bit of an improvement. But it leaves out radio ministries like Breakpoint and Colson Center for Christian Worldview. It leaves out the Point of View and my daily radio commentary. It also leaves out other training ministries like Mind Games Camp and Worldview Academy Camps.

Growing up around Berkeley, I saw how liberals promote each other and form networks much better than Christians. We know that the job is bigger than any one ministry, but rarely will these ministries mention any other organization.

If you have been listening to the Point of View radio talk show, you know we promote lots of these ministries. And if you have been reading my Viewpoints commentary, you know I mention other commentaries and lots of other ministries.

I agree that we have much work to do. But I also suggest that we won’t be very effective if most of these organizations believe they are the only program or ministry doing the important work of worldview training.

Now that the 2020 election is behind us, Christians need to think strategically about how to have a more significant impact on culture, and especially on Christian youth who often embrace anti-religious views and socialist politics. A commentary by Dr. Jeff Myers (Summit Ministries) in the Washington Times addresses this issue.

He is concerned that his fellow evangelicals are only focused on winning the next election and blind to the fact they will lose future elections. Meanwhile, leftists engage the culture every day through social media, news media, entertainment, schools, and universities.

He therefore concludes: “Young church-going Christians aren’t fighting this leftward current. They’re swimming with it.” Most evangelical youth who attend church do not believe in absolute truth. And these young Christians are also five times as likely as older Christians to embrace Marxist ideas.

In the last campaign cycle, conservatives spend almost $5 billion trying to reach the small percentage of undecided voters. By contrast, the amount spent by every college, non-profit group, and campus group to prepare young adults to apply a biblical worldview amounts to about 12 hours of election-related advertising. He concludes that “spending $100 to fix a problem that could have been prevented for $1 is crazy.”

That’s why we need to rearrange our priorities and focus more time and money on biblical worldview training. He cites one study that shows how such training keeps Christian young people from straying from a biblical worldview. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of church-going young people actually have a biblical worldview. That’s why these worldview ministries are so important.