culture wars 77churches accuse (and outlaw) minority churches of
being cults, when in fact they are only different sects,
or denominations, of the same religion. In American
Christianity, the churches that derive from the pre-
dominant beliefs of the Bible (such as Mormons, Sci-
entology, the Unification Church, and Hare Krishnas)
are regarded as cults (especially if they revere a human
“founder” above Christ).
The political concern with cults surrounds their
exclusive and often destructive social behavior. Ran-
dom acts of violence or terrorism, “mind control” over
members, and immoral practices by leaders draw
social criticism of cults. This causes some dominant
religious and political groups to use the term cultto
criticize and harass their enemies. So, for example, the
Russian Orthodox Church led the Russian parliament
to pass a law persecuting cults that included many
western CHRISTIAN churches and missionaries. The
Muslim (ISLAMIC) world sometimes accuses Christian-
ity of being a cult for worshiping Jesus as the Son of
God.
Western freedom of religion allows the existence of
cults as long as they do not commit illegal acts and do
not violate the NATURAL RIGHTSof their members (espe-
cially the right to leave the cult when the individual
chooses). Religious LIBERTYallows voluntary member-
ship in cults that are not engaged in illegal activities or
enslavement of members.
Further Reading
Enroth, R. A Guide to Cults.Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity
Press, 1983.
culture wars
A way of viewing social conflict, especially in the
United States, which does not rest on class, race, gen-
der, or political party identification. The term became
popular after the publication of James Davison
HUNTER’s book Culture Warsin which Hunter, a sociol-
ogist at the University of Virginia, studied the social
conflicts in the United States (over the media, welfare,
ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY, education policy, the family,
etc.) and found that groups on different sides of the
issues were formed by moral attitudes rather than by
economic class, race, gender, or political-party mem-
bership. Hunter divides cultural attitudes into ortho-
dox and progressive groups: The orthodox people
adhere to some transcendent standard of moral author-
ity (the church, the Bible, the Torah or Koran, the clas-
sics, the pope, etc.) to which they subordinate their
own preferences in moral and political judgment; the
progressive viewpoint regards morals as relative to his-
torical change and individual preference. So, for exam-
ple, orthodox culture regards homosexuality as wrong
because they obey a higher law. The progressive cul-
ture regards homosexuality as acceptable because
some people want to engage in it and because they
place human preferences above any religious teaching.
Hunter applies this “culture-wars” division in soci-
ety to many political issues, including battles over the
media, the military, arts, education, and religion. He
finds that Roman CATHOLICS, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS,
CONSERVATIVEhumanists, Jews, and Muslims (ISLAMIC)
tend to be orthodox in their moral perspectives; secu-
larists, Liberal mainline Christians (Episcopal, Presby-
terian, U.C.C., Unitarian-Universalists), and atheists,
however, tend to be of the progressive mindset. In gen-
eral conservatives and REPUBLICANSare orthodox, and
liberals and DEMOCRATSare progressive, but each group
tends to be mixed.
The main contribution of Hunter’s thesis was the
transcending of the simplistic MARXIST sociological
view of social divisions by class, race, and gender.
Hunter’s research showed that the conservative ortho-
dox includes the poor, workers, blacks, women, and
other minorities. The liberal progressives include mid-
dle-class whites, men, and many well-educated people.
This offers a more complex, sophisticated way of look-
ing at social issues based on beliefs rather than on
social condition. It has caused both political parties in
the United States to view social policy in moral and
ethical terms, rather than purely economic terms.Further Reading
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars.New York: Basic Books,
1991.