Social activist and political commentator Star Parker spoke at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 20 in the Benson Auditorium as part of the American Studies Distinguished Lecture Series.
Parker is the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a nonprofit think tank that seeks to fight poverty through market-based public policy rather than entitlement programs. She has written several books, including “Uncle Sam’s Plantation” and “White Ghetto.” She is also a syndicated columnist and a regular guest on stations like ABC, MSNBC, C-SPAN and FOX News.
Addressing the theme “How We Can Win the Culture War,” Parker said the first step to effect societal change in America is to realize there is a culture war to fight.
“To win the culture war we’ve got to recognize first of all that we are in it, and that we as Christians are called to save America from the onslaught of the same big-government social engineers that gave us a society of moral relativism, sexual recklessness and economic covetousness,” Parker said.
Parker enumerated what she said are the three culture wars secular humanism has launched on America since the 1960s.
First, Parker said, is the war on religion. Citing Supreme Court cases such as the 1962 decision that ruled against school-initiated prayer in the public school system (Engel v. Vitale) and citing the removal of religious symbols from the public square, she said the secularization of society leads to a “culture of corruption.”
Second is the war on women, according to Parker. She said the sexual revolution of the ’60s left marriages weakened and “opened the door for a culture of meaninglessness” that includes homosexuality and abortion, and she discussed the prevalence out-of-wedlock births. Today about 50 percent of American adults are married, as opposed to 75 percent in 1960, and today 40 percent of births occur outside of marriage.
Third, Parker said, is the war on poverty. She said the war on poverty creates a culture of entitlement and weakens families, and that welfare programs designed to get people out of poverty have proven to be a failed social experiment that actually generates government dependency and contributes to moral decline.
“This is a social experiment that throughout history has proven to be unworkable,” Parker said. “It reduces mankind to savagery.”
According to Parker, Christians need to engage the culture war, not hide from it. One of the most effective ways to engage the culture war is to be involved in good works such as visiting nursing homes, the sick and the poor, or running for a local public office, she said. She also said they should remain steadfast and need to be witnesses by leading pure and healthy lives.
