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Michael Woods doesnt tell his high school students that he is gay. He doesnt bring up gay marriage or any other topic that might court controversy, either.

I am very cautious about a lot of things, said Woods, a special education teacher in Palm Beach County, Florida, who teaches science. I enjoy keeping my job.

But when LGBTQ students take note of the Im Here sticker on the back of his school ID, or his We are ALL HUMAN T-shirt, and come to him for advice or guidance, Woods is happy to provide it. He grew up in the county where he now works and remembers what it was like to be bullied.

For many of these young people, teachers are the safe space, said Woods.

Woods said he wont stop having those conversations when Floridas Dont Say Gay law, which limits classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity, takes effect this summer. But he worries that students wont feel comfortable turning to him for help. Already, some students are asking teachers what theyll be allowed to talk about, Woods said.

Supporters of the Dont Say Gay law, officially titled Parental Rights in Education, say theyre seeking to protect parents rights to decide how their children are raised and prevent teachers from indoctrinating students into liberal beliefs. Lawmakers in at least 20 states have introduced similar bills.

Meanwhile, in Texas, the governor has directed schools to report students who are receiving gender-affirming care, such as hormone blockers, as cases of child abuse. In Alabama, the governor signed a law last month requiring schools to notify parents if their child is questioning their gender identity.

In each case, teachers are being deputized as culture war cops, called upon to police their own behavior, and that of their students. Its a role that many are reluctant to take on, and one that has left them feeling confused, scared and uncertain of their relationships with some of their most vulnerable students.

Related: What do classroom conversations around race, identity and history really look like?

Florida, where the new law will prohibit schools from teaching students about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and require lessons for older grades to be age appropriate or developmentally appropriate, parents can sue the district to compel compliance. If they win, the district will have to cover their attorney fees and court costs, and may be liable for damages.

But the law doesnt define key terms like classroom instruction or age appropriate, and it gives the state Department of Education until June 30, 2023 to issue guidance on complying with the law a full year after the law takes effect.

Until then, teachers will be flying blind, unsure if theyre opening their district up to legal risk. Is it still OK to talk to first graders about families, if one student has two moms? Can teachers read second graders a picture book with two dads? What about a book featuring heterosexual romance?

In Volusia County, Florida, third grade teacher Michelle Polgar worries she may have to stop reading aloud the book Mouse in Love, a story about a male mouse who falls for his female neighbor. Romantic love in any form feels verboten. She wonders what will happen in share time, too if a kid mentions that his uncles got married over the weekend, and another kid asks what that means, does she need to shut down the discussion?

Am I going to have to police kids expression? she asked. Am I violating their First Amendment rights?

The laws sponsors have said that it will not prevent students or teachers from talking about their LGTBQ families or stifle student-led discussion or questions. But critics say the bills language is so vague that it will lead many schools and teachers to over-correct, avoiding anything that might anger a parent.

With the possibility of lawsuits, or someone getting upset, Im going to be walking on eggshells, said Polgar.

Anita Carson, a middle school science teacher in Lake Alfred, Florida, said shell keep talking to the LGBTQ students who come to her for support, even if it costs her a job. She points to a survey that found that LGBTQ students who can identify several supportive staff members had higher GPAs, better attendance and were less likely to feel unsafe in school than their peers who could name fewer supportive staff. Still, Carson said, the threat of a lawsuit is one more worry on my head.

If a kid comes out to their parents and says, Ms. Carson helped me figure out how to tell you, then Im possibly going to be sued, she said.

In Texas, where the governors order is being challenged in court, Adrian Reyna, an eighth grade history teacher in San Antonio, said he wont be intimidated into reporting his transgender students to state authorities.

They feel like theyve been carrying the weight of the community for two years. To then be used as pawns in a political game speaks to a lack of respect for teachers.

The one thing I can control is the space I create in the classroom, and I will do everything I can to create a safe and inclusive space, he said.

But he understands why many teachers, particularly sole breadwinners, wont want to risk losing their jobs or teaching certificates. The threat is real, he said.

Mandatory reporting laws in Texas and most other states have long required teachers to report suspected cases of child abuse to authorities, or face potential fines or imprisonment. But the governors directive breaks new ground, classifying gender-affirming care a spectrum of services that includes hormone blockers and surgery as child abuse.

Teachers dont want to be Gov. Greg Abbotts transgender police, said Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association.

Related: Social emotional learning is the latest flashpoint in the education wars

The past two years have been grueling for many teachers, as they coped with a pandemic that forced them to toggle between remote and in-person learning and sometimes do both at once and staffing shortages that have added to their workloads. In Florida alone, there are close to 4,500 teacher vacancies.

To some stressed teachers, the barrage of bills questioning their professional judgment feels like piling on, said Alejandra Lopez, the president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel.

They feel like theyve been carrying the weight of the community for two years, Lopez said. To then be used as pawns in a political game speaks to a lack of respect for teachers.

Lawmakers in at least 20 states have introduced bill similar to Floridas Dont Say Gay law.

Indeed, in a survey conducted earlier this year by the nonprofit EdWeek Research Center, fewer than half of teachers said they feel the public respects them as professionals, down from more than three quarters of teachers a decade ago, and barely half said theyre satisfied with their jobs. Another survey, by the National Education Association, found that 55 percent of respondents were considering leaving their jobs early. Neither poll asked specifically about culture war issues.

Carson, the Florida middle school teacher, said it feels like schools are lurching from one manufactured controversy to another, as conservative politicians and activists seek new ways to score points with parents.

These groups are outraged about one thing for a month, and then its another thing, and it seems they all shift at the same time, she said. We gear up to talk about one controversy, and we get to the meeting, and theyre upset about something else.

For gay teachers like Woods, the attacks can feel personal. It seems, he said, like an intent to erase an entire population of people, as if they dont exist.

Jacqueline Rodriguez, vice president of research, policy and advocacy at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said she worries the bills will discourage LGBTQ individuals from pursuing teaching careers by sending the message that this is not the profession to pursue if you want to bring your whole self to work every day.

Enrollment in traditional teacher-preparation programs dropped 35 percent in the decade between 2008-09 and 2018-19, and fell further during the pandemic.

Elana Yaron Fishbein, the founder and president of No Left Turn in Education, a conservative parents rights group, said most teachers support efforts like the one in Florida, but are afraid to speak up.

Unfortunately, the harsh cancel culture silences many of the teachers who oppose the radical indoctrination in schools, or leads them to quit their jobs, she wrote in an e-mail.

I guess you have spoken to the same teachers who support sexualizing children in K-12 schools, she said.

Related: CRT debate repeats past battles about state history textbooks

Concerns that schools are sexualizing children go back at least 100 years, to conflicts over the teaching of evolution, according to Adam Laats, a professor of education and history at Binghamton University. That fight took aim at atheism, but its subtext was that teaching students the science of evolution would cause them to act like animals and have animal sex, Laats said. Some preachers even warned it would promote bestiality.

The targeting of gay teachers, in particular, dates to at least the 1950s, when the Florida legislature created the Johns Committee to root out communists and homosexuals from public schools and colleges. The attacks peaked in the 70s, with Anita Bryants Save Our Children campaign, which popularized the notion that LGBTQ teachers were preying on students, Laats said.

Echoes of that 50-year-old campaign can be heard in the Florida bill, which supporters have described as an anti-grooming measure, designed to prevent pedophiles from exploiting children

I am very cautious about a lot of things. I enjoy keeping my job.

Still, a lot has changed since the 1970s. Public opinion polls show that 8 out of 10 Americans support schools hiring gay and lesbian teachers to work in elementary schools, up from a quarter of Americans in 1977, and close to 60 percent would be somewhat or very comfortable with a transgender individual teaching at their own elementary school.

But Americans remain divided over whether elementary school library books should include gay and lesbian characters, with about half of parents saying it would make them somewhat or very uncomfortable. And fully two-thirds of voters and 88 percent of Republicans believe its inappropriate for teachers or staff to discuss gender identity with children in kindergarten through third grade, another survey, by the conservative Republican polling company Public Opinion Strategies, found.

Woods and other Florida teachers say the new state law is a solution in search of a problem, since Florida, like most states, does not include sexual orientation and gender identity in its teaching standards for the early grades. Still, the law, which takes effect in July, is already having an impact, with some districts, including Woods, preemptively pulling books with gay and transgender characters from school libraries.

Thats happening around the country. In the nine months between July 2021 and March 2022, 86 districts and close to 3,000 schools issued book bans, many of them in response to complaints at public meetings, according to an analysis by PEN America, an organization that advocates for free expression. A third of the banned books included LGBTQ themes or characters, the study found.

Even before the bans, LGBTQ characters were underrepresented in curricula and lesson plans, according to a 2019 survey by GLSEN, an LGBTQ advocacy organization. It found that less than half of LGBTQ respondents between the ages of 13 and 21 could find information about LGBTQ issues in their school libraries, and fewer than one in five were taught positive representations of LGBTQ people, history and events.

What gets left behind is a sense of teachers being attacked, and that leads to a narrowing, a stunting of what goes on in schools.

Such representation matters, according to a research brief by the Trevor Project, which focuses on suicide prevention among LGBTQ students. It found that LGBTQ middle and high-schoolers who were taught about LGBTQ people or issues were less likely to report a suicide attempt than those who hadnt been taught.

Laats, the historian, said he expects the latest moral panic over LGTBTQ instruction to fade over time, fizzling as past panics have. But that doesnt mean it wont leave a mark on the nations schools and teachers, who will make a million tiny decisions to drop books or censor classroom discussion just to avoid the issue, he said.

What gets left behind is a sense of teachers being attacked, he said, and that leads to a narrowing, a stunting of what goes on in schools.

This story about the culture wars was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Teachers, deputized to fight the culture wars, are often reluctant to serve - The Hechinger Report

Michelle DeutchmanHigher education, and education in general, is caught in the crosshairs of culture wars that appear not to have much to do with education, scholars are noting. The latest battle has emerged over the issue of free speech on campus, specifically the freedom to teach about systemic racism and the vestiges of white privilege. Such teaching has come under attack with calls to ban critical race theory, which is playing out in legislators attempts to review and restrict tenure for any faculty member who is thought to be teaching divisive content.

One of the greatest threats [in the current fight] is academic freedom and state legislators trying to impose viewpoint-based laws around what can be taught at the university, says Dr. Michelle Deutchman, executive director of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement at the University of California.

Using legislation to try to impact the autonomy of universities is really dangerous, she continues.

Deutchman points out that there is already a system for reviewing the work of academics and making sure no one is off track. She says peer review, while not perfect, is a much better form of faculty accountability than allowing people who are not experts in these things, trying to make decisions about the things that underpin the academic enterprise.

A trojan horse?

Among the latest major legislative pushes for free speech on campus came after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Then, arguments of free speech revolved around allowing speakers, like Milo Yiannopoulos and Charles Murray, to speak on campus to deliver messages many students opposed as incendiary, hate speech. The most recent reactions, involving faculty censorship and K-12 book bans, followed the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis that spurred a resurgence in the movement.

As we see movement towards certain issues, we see unfortunately a backlash, Deutchman says. Free speech is a lot about power dynamics. As power dynamics begin to shift, people may be uncomfortable with that. The problem, she says, is that some people have bigger bullhorns than others.

Aubre Conner, an attorney and lecturer on issues of academic freedom, free speech, and other education law issues at the University of California at Davis, says it is important to interrogate who is controlling the narrative around free speech.

Individuals who felt like [the First Amendment] is supposed to be for them are trying to autocorrect the free speech conversation to again center them and center the white supremacist perspective to free speech, as opposed to taking an equity approach to free speech, says Conner. She says an equity approach would mean that, to shift the conversation, there would need to be an action to allow for that conversation to take place. She says freedom of speech is most important for those whose lives have been marginalized, more than those who are used to having power.

If were really going to center the people who need to be empowered to use free speech, these are the kinds of conversations, these are the free speech cases that should be front and center, not those who are trying their hardest to make sure historically excluded communities will continue to not have a voice about decisions that have been made over the last several centuries, says Conner.

Deutchman is an advocate for freedom of all speech including speech that may be deemed hateful because I think the whole idea is we dont want the government to be deciding what is hateful, adds Deutchman.

Theyre holding the mantle of the free speech flag, but ultimately the things theyre doing [are] chilling speech, she says. Tenure provides protection for people to be more free to create knowledge and share new ideas. Theres this opus to say issues of equity, diversity and inclusion are competing at odds [with unrestricted free speech], says Deutchman.

Is there a push-pull between those two? Absolutely, continues Deutchman. Are they mutually exclusive? No. Thats where universities have to really lean in on their institutional values and help students contextualize speech that might be uncomfortable for them.

Conner says individuals, and especially faculty members, must be careful when taking an absolutist approach to free speech and the U.S. Constitution in general. An absolutist approach may perpetuate a perspective that is harmful to those who were excluded in the thinking, she says.

Just looking at the Constitution just from a historical perspective, the First Amendment and the [Bill of Rights as a whole] were put in place without really any kind of recognition or acknowledgement that Black folks, or any folks from excluded communities, would ever be able to experience those rights, says Conner.

We continue to try to figure out what equal protection under the law even means, she says. When it comes to thinking about the speech that we feel like we need to defend, depending on who the party is, theres typically always a choice Theres not necessarily that same run to protect free speech when historically excluded communities are asking to have their speech protected and empowered.

Conner says that even the courts have placed parameters around what types of speech should be protected; speech that is lewd, vulgar, or inciting violence is not protected under the First Amendment, for example. The key, she says, is to critically examine the values that are being communicated, and whether they advance the universitys overall goal of education.

Leaning into university values

Alain-Philippe DuranDr. Alain-Philippe Durand, dean of the college of humanities at the University of Arizona, is hoping to lead the conversation about the role of the humanities in helping institutions do just that.

We have this vision that the humanities should be a bit more of everything, and the skills that we teach in the humanities, things like critical thinking, empathy, adaptability, communication essential skills, soft skills are really important to the free speech debate and helping students process what theyre hearing, says Durand, who laments that humanities are often not a part of the conversation around freedom of expression.

Durand says the humanities helps people receive information and different perspectives with the intent to understand. What if all of these perspectives were presented and people learn that there can be different perspectives, but it can be done in a polite, respectful way, he asks.

The university is really the place where there can be this formative approach with the safety of the educators being there a safe educational setting, where you can have those things being discussed and settled, he says. If you leave it up to social media for people to get educated on these things, thats where I believe there is the problem.

One of the things the humanities teaches, for example, is the ability to discern when language is being used for manipulation. Even nonfiction prose uses tone, perspective, and cherry picking of facts to present a picture that is beneficial to the storyteller, explains Durand.

Its not just about the ideas that you present, but also the people who are in the room who are going to be receiving these ideas, and you have to pay attention to them as well, he says. And he points back to the mission of the university as well What are we trying to do here? Durand asks. Our objective is to educate. And at the end of the day, we want people to feel like they have learned something. If we try to go with the inflammatory approach, people are just going to close off.

This educational approach is largely about learning how to talk to each other, according to Deutchman. Part of those skill sets is were going to learn how to engage with people we dont agree with, he says. Its a skillset, just like anything else, like calculus or learning how to write an essay.

Aligning university priorities

Many colleges and universities have diversity, equity, and inclusion statements, and some have even revised their mission statements to include these as priorities. But faculty, staff, and students of color across higher ed may affirm there is still work to do around making these priorities a reality on many campuses.

College and K-12 campuses may rush to address the speech itself rather than the issues of inclusion and belonging, Conner says. Its one of those things where our campuses tend to feel like we can talk about campus inclusivity with somewhat of a cognitive dissonance of if were allowing everyone to come onto campus, then the environment must be welcoming of them. But Conner says, you cant create an inclusive environment if students are constantly being bombarded with messages that are harmful and impact how they are made to feel about themselves as individuals.

While it is important for faculty members to help students tackle tough conversations on campus within the safety of a university context, Conner points out that it is equally important to recognize that campus doesnt always feel safe for all students.

Its hard especially for students who come from communities where theyre constantly having to see messages about not belonging in multiple facets of this country that when they come to a space to learn, to learn about how they want to maneuver in the world, theyre not even welcome there, she continues. Just because free speech is allowed and can be helpful to the exchange of ideas, [doesnt mean] the impact of those words, signs, messages that youre not human. Youre still going to feel that.

Conner says its important for universities to make sure there are enough student counselors to handle any additional stress students might be facing because of speakers brought onto campus. If there arent designated free speech zones to house messages students may find harmful, there needs to be an intentional effort to make sure there are alternate paths for students to take to get to class, and trauma-informed resources and staff students can access and that they know where and how to access those things.

If your campus police budget is higher than the budget for student counselors and making sure all of your staff have trauma-informed training then what as a campus are you demonstrating to students who come from communities where police dont often represent situations of safety, she asks. She says the question is especially applicable as campus police are often deployed when there are issues that come up on campus around free speech.

Conner says institutions should also understand that these issues can negatively impact enrollment, especially the diversity of the student population. If schools want to really focus on diversity, this is something that needs to be taken into consideration to retain and to keep students who are from historically excluded [communities] on your campus, says Conner.

At the core of everything is still a need for increased education and not just for students, but for everybody about how the First Amendment works, says Deutchman. We have rights, and we have responsibilities, and theres a whole conversation to be had about how you use those rights responsibly.

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Culture Wars - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

At a time when many employers are finding themselves caught between their increasingly diverse and often progressive workforces on one side and increasingly combative right-wing pundits and lawmakers on the other, Netflix has plunged into Americas corporate culture wars.

This round, the right is celebrating.

It started last October, when Netflix employees protested the companys defense of a highly popular special by comedian Dave Chappelle, who made remarks some viewed as offensive to the transgender community. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said he screwed up in his efforts to communicate with upset employees but defended the show.

Last week, Netflix released updated culture guidelines that attempted to limit expectations for how responsive the company would be to employees views on societal and political issues going forward. Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful, the memo stated. If you find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.

Fox News host Jesse Watters promptly praised the company for not sinking into the woke muck just to make a handful of people happy. Billionaire and culture critic Elon Musk, who had earlier blamed Netflixs business struggles on the woke mind virusand who recently declared he was voting Republicanalso Tweeted his approval.

A Netflix spokesperson said the company had been discussing the issues related to the memo for over 18 months and added that the company invited all employees to give feedback and received over 1,000 comments that helped improve the draft.

Days after the memos release, Netflix said it was cutting about 150 employees, or about 2% of its workforce, as it grappled with slower growth and a shrinking subscriber base. It wasnt long before social-media reports circulated that the company also cut dozens of contract writers, many of whom were part of its diversity communications initiatives, including Black community-focused Strong Black Lead, Latinx-focused Con Todo, Asian American-focused Golden, and LBTQ-focused Most.

The cuts were the latest in a wave of layoffs that began about three weeks ago, when Netflix let go several employees of Tudum, a new fan-focused website; many of the staff were women of color. Fox also asserted that Netflix axed the series Anti-Racist Baby and the documentary Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You.

Netflix noted that Stamped was a companion piece to Stamped From the Beginning, which is still proceeding. A person familiar with the company said the companys overall diversity numbers remain the same post-layoff and that all social channels are being affected (not just those that impact underrepresented groups). The person added that the agency contractors were cut because the company is changing how it supports its publishing efforts, including bringing some of the work in house.

Netflix is closely watched. Its guidelines are highly influential; they have been called Silicon Valleys most important document ever. So the companys moves, and the reaction they engender, bear watching. How this will all ultimately play out remains to be seen, but there are already lessons to unpack from the forces swirling around the company.

Theres new evidence that workers will vote with their feet.

Leaders should pay attention to those surveys that assert that workers are willing to leave their jobs if they dont believe a companys leadership is speaking out sufficiently on societal and political issues. In the four months after the Chappelle controversy erupted, its attrition rates reached all-time highs since the data began in 2009, according to Ben Zweig, chief executive of Revelio Labs whose research was featured in an MIT study on factors driving The Great Resignation.

Those deciding layoffs, like all forms of corporate decision-making, must be mindful of their impact on all forms of diversity.

Companies can be sure that others will be paying attention. Within hours of the news, reports were circulating on social media alleging that Netflixs layoffs had disproportionately affected departments and workers of color.

The culture wars have reached corporate America.

That one companys memo has already been featured on Fox News says it all: What employers say and do is now red meat for the culture-war news cycle.

David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College who is working on a book on the political and social consequences of the diploma divide, noted that Netflix was in a tough spot, as it was stuck between its employees and its content creators.

And while the popularity of certain positions may wax and wane, Hopkins believes one thing will not change: particularly those in creative or technology sectors, any company in those areas is going to be hiring a workforce thats overwhelmingly left of center and politicized on these issues, and theyre going to have demands not only about the internal politics of a company but where the company comes down publicly on issues that are important to young cultural progressives.

Netflix is the latest illustration that leaders have to be more transparent, and more intentional, than ever before. They can be sure when they make a move, many others will watching.

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Netflix's Layoffs and Worker Ultimatum Lead It into the Culture Wars - TIME

Jamie Oliver is outraged that supermarkets can continue to promote buy one, get one free deals on food. In fact, the governments about-turn on its anti-obesity strategy has so angered the podgy chef that last week he marched on Downing Street in protest. In what must surely have been the most middle-class demonstration ever, people carried placards stating Slow down fast food and Give peas a chance. Oliver led the crowd, holding aloft a big bowl of Eton Mess dessert. Because Boris Johnson and a couple of other cabinet ministers went to posh schools and theyve messed up, geddit?

At first glance, the Eton Mess gag made it look as if the celebrity chef was having a pop at out-of-touch Tories. But dont be fooled. As Olivers Guardian article begging us to think of the fat-but-poor children reveals, the mockney millionaires real target is not posh people at all, but those of us who start our weekly shop by looking to see whats on special offer, not whats currently in season. Oliver expresses pity for the deluded masses, too foolish to realise that multi-buys are carefully designed to make people spend more money not less. But pity is only ever one small step away from contempt. As weve long since known, its the Turkey Twizzler-eating hordes that truly disgust Oliver. He is cross with the government for not forcing ordinary people to change their ways.

A quick flick through one of his cookbooks is enough to make clear that it is the people who consume cheap food, rather than the cheap food itself, that gets Oliver riled up. Chicken giblets and scrawny turkey neck bones are absolutely fine when lightly roasted and mashed into wine and shallots to make gravy, but they are appalling when covered in breadcrumbs and shaped into nuggets. Its the exact same food, with the exact same nutritional content. So whats the difference? Chicken nuggets are cheap to buy, quick to cook and easy to eat. Theyre immediately satisfying in a way that a plate of raw veg can never be. But thanks to Oliver and other culture warriors, whether you opt for a red wine jus with your free-range, organic roast chicken, or nine of McDonalds finest, is not simply a matter of personal preference but a major political statement.

Food has long been a focal point in the culture wars. These disputes over competing lifestyles may seem petty a distraction from real politics but they have become a key feature of political debate. For several decades now, commentators have interpreted class tensions and social inequalities through the lens of culture. With identity increasingly to the fore in public life, cultural differences rapidly become personal. Decisions about what to eat, read, watch, wear and buy are judged not as personal choices, or decisions taken in a particular context, but as political statements that reveal a persons moral character.

The solidly middle-class Oliver is ideally positioned to tilt at both the posh public-school culture of Boris and his chums and at the tastes and dispositions of the working class. In appearing to criticise the Tories, while expressing pity for the poor, he perfectly taps into the vibe of todays cultural elite. This is a shtick Oliver has long been practising. Almost as soon as he burst on to the scene in 1999 with his TV series, The Naked Chef, he became an activist, hectoring parents about school dinners while berating government ministers about obesity. Olivers combination of campaigning and cooking takes personal decisions about what we eat and puts them squarely in the realm of politics. He has helped make food a key part of the culture war.

Now, with spiralling inflation leading to an escalating cost-of-living crisis, there are some on the left who think the time has come to shake off the culture wars and get back to real politics. They argue that a focus on values, identity and lifestyle is a right-wing ploy to distract people from proper economic issues. The more we talk about flags and statues, the argument goes, the less likely we are to notice the huge profits made by energy companies, or the chancellor of the exchequers fabulous personal wealth.

But these activists only tend to notice the distraction of the culture wars when it is their side that is being called into question. Indeed, they are the ones who made statues and flags contentious issues in the first place. Wishing the culture wars away ignores the fact that such disputes are how class politics plays out nowadays. And whether they realise it or not, many left-wing activists are on the opposite side to ordinary people in this new fight. Those who have spent decades waging a culture war against working-class people, expressing horror at what they say, think and eat, are in no position to empower working-class people.

There is no way of simply bypassing the culture wars now. This is the terrain on which todays political and class battles are being fought. So the culture wars must be fought and they must be won.

Joanna Williams is a spiked columnist and author of the upcoming book, How Woke Won, which you can pre-order here.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

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Jamie Oliver and the culture war against the working class - Spiked

Heres something you often hear people say as they get older: I remember the last time that was popular. Fashions once considered outdated come back in style. Movements arise and subside, and then surge again. A benefit of age is the wisdom and perspective you bring to the current moment. History doesnt always repeat itself or move in predictable cyclical patterns, but the more you study it and the longer you live, the more you see how the present and the past rhyme.

I must be getting older, because ever since I turned 40 last year, Ive said several times, I remember the last time that was popular. Most recently, Ive been saying that about online debates over the proper posture for Christians seeking to engage the culture in this era. I see the resurgence of a neoReligious Righta return of the culture war mentality among many younger evangelicals who believe the need of the hour is for the church to jump into the fray of hardball politics and be bolder and louder in opposing leftward trends that are harmful for society.

I say neoReligious Right because its not exactly the return of the Jerry Falwell era, and there are some crucial differences that set todays thirst for culture warring apart from my parents and grandparents generation. Well get to some of those distinctions soon.

But this resurgence has piqued my interest because I came of age in the 1990s. My parents were part of the religious right. They followed state and national politics closely and got involved in local elections, with my father serving two terms on the city council. I remember the night of the 1994 midterms and the Gingrich-led Contract with America. In those crucial years of adolescence, Rush was on the radio, Jerry Falwell was sending out videos replete with right-wing talking points and conspiracy theories, Southern Baptists were boycotting Disney because of the companys leftist agenda, men were gathering in Washington, DC, for Promise Keepers, and the character flaws of Bill Clinton were on full display (and worthy of our disgust).

Fighting for the soul of the countrythe culture war mentalitywas the demonstration of faithfulness. Churches were asleep, and Christians apathetic. It was time to wake up. The moment was urgent. As Carman sang in 1992, The only way this nation can even hope to last this decade is to put God in America again!

Historians debate the zenith of the religious right. Was it in the 1980s with the election of Ronald Reagan and the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment? The 1990s when Bill Clinton was impeached? Or the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004, when voters made clear their disapproval of same-sex marriage? Whatever the case, the moral majority exerted considerable influence on politics and culture during these decades.

At the same time as many pastors and church leaders sought to bring their convictions into the public square, a countermovement was taking place, most notably in the rise of megachurches and the church growth movement. Evangelism was front and center for these congregations. Emphasizing politics made it harder to reach people with varying philosophical and political commitments. Political posturing was divisive and counterproductive; even worse, it distracted from the churchs main mission of winning people to Jesus.

Another countermovement also existedthe religious left, though it was never as large or influential as the religious right. Leaders in this group often chastised white evangelicals for their political idolatry, but too often the religious left was just a mirror image of the kind of engagement they so despisedthe only difference being the political priorities and positions aligned with the left rather than the right. As the Emerging Church movement got going in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some of the leaders who distanced themselves from the political postures of the right wound up walking in lockstep with partisans on the left.

By the time the Emerging Church conversation was at its height and evangelicals were cheering the Iraq War, I was a student at an evangelical university in Eastern Europe. My perspective on American politics had shifted considerablynot away from an underlying conservative political philosophy (which I continue to espouse), but due to my encounters with global Christianity, a wider range of reading, familiarity with different churches seeking to be faithful in various contexts, and seeing the American culture wars from the outside. Much of the attention the American church devoted to politics seemed wildly misplaced and misguided, out of step with churches in many other parts of the world.

So, I gravitated toward stronger distinctions that would help the church maintain its priority on discipleship and evangelism: (1) distinguishing between the church as an institution and Christians as individual believers and (2) prioritizing the mission of the church over the implications of Christians living out their faith. I tried to understand the cultural and historical reasons why many black Christians and white Christians who share confessional unity could be so divided on political priorities. I lamented the intrusion of political debates into every sphere of life.

The gospel-centered movement that arose in the late 2000s and into the 2010s was, in part, an answer to the Emerging Church movement, whose aversion to institutions and authority prevented it from building structures that could sustain its growth. Look at the foundational documents for The Gospel Coalition (written in 2006) and you get a glimpse of the challenges facing the church during that era, including postmodernisms effects on how we interpret Scripture.

The gospel-centered movement was also an answer to the prevalence of church growth philosophy. Leaders decried overly pragmatic approaches in the church, shared concerns about the decline of serious doctrinal instruction, and sought to reestablish the priority of the gospel itself as the unifying force for evangelicalism and the renewal of the church.

Gospel centrality, by nature of its spotlight on the fundamental message of Christianity, cut against the focus of many religious rightinfluenced churches. Political disagreements remained, but they were demoted. The excesses of the moral majoritys approach to politics were on display, and younger pastors turned away from that combative posture (although sometimes replacing cultural combat with intramural theological combativenesscommonly regarded as cage-stage Calvinism).

Synergy showed up in the gospel-centered movement and the missional conversations at the time because both rejected the politicizing of the church so often seen in the religious right as well as the leftward theological drift of the Emerging Church and religious left. This alliance made sense because the gospel and mission naturally go together, as the good news we spread is about the missionary heart of a God who seeks and saves the lost.

During this time, the old guard of the religious right appeared as more of a caricature of its former glory, with increasingly bizarre viewpoints put forth by gray heads with unmerited cultural confidence. For many younger pastors, the whole idea of taking back the country from godless forces felt like a lost cause. If older evangelicals thought of America as a type of Israela country chosen by God for special purposes in the world, younger evangelicals saw the country as a type of Babylona place where the true church will, for the foreseeable future, be a moral minority, prophetic from the margins.

The Israel/Babylon motif has shaped recent generational approaches to political involvement. The old religious right, in thinking of America as a type of Israel, reacted to current events as a betrayal of Christian heritage and prioritized politics as the mechanism for effecting change in society. Younger evangelicals, in thinking of America as Babylon, reacted to current events with a sense of resignation and prioritized pastoral help and counsel in a rapidly secularizing society.

But then, in the span of less than a decade, a series of convulsions reshaped the landscape. The Supreme Court decision redefining marriage for all 50 states in 2015, the rapid loss of political will to enact conscience protections and ensure religious liberty, and then the surprising victory of Donald Trump in 2016 (brought about by a resurgent religious right and widespread white evangelical support) changed the environment. The push for acceptance of gender theories that require a certain suspension of disbelief (not to mention the suppression of speech defining reality) only exacerbated the tensions.

The Israel/Babylon motif doesnt capture the concerns of this current moment. The neoReligious Right agrees with younger evangelicals that were in Babylon. The debate is about how the church should respond to this environment. What does faithfulness in Babylon look like?

The earlier sense of resignation, of being passive in the face of rapid political change, has come under fire from many younger pastors and leaders who believe this cultural moment calls for a rejection of the excesses of old religious right and the apolitical above the fray response so often on display among the leaders of the church growth and gospel-centered movements. You cannot focus on discipleship, they say, without dealing with politics because faithfulness in the public square is a part of discipleship. Overreacting to the religious rights problems has led to a widespread failure in addressing political questions in discipleship, creating a void that leaves the church vulnerable to all kinds of false ideologies.

History is rhyming again, and so were witnessing the rise of a neoReligious Right that seeks to recapture something of that movements focus on political priorities while connecting political thought to Christian discipleship. In forthcoming columns, I want to give some attention to this new development and then offer suggestions for how these resurgent culture-warring sensibilities can be properly channeled so as to result in a stronger church, without the collateral damage often associated with these kinds of battles. More to come.

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The Return of the Culture War - The Gospel Coalition