By J.M. Phelps (One News Now)
The best-selling author who coined the phrase “culture jihad” is urging his fellow patriots and brothers in Christ to stand firm and speak out against the ongoing assault on traditional American values.
Recent events have compelled respected journalist and award-winning broadcaster Todd Starnes to chronicle his experience and call Americans to action. He tells OneNewsNow he felt inspired to use the “culture jihad” phrase a few years ago when he saw Islamic radicals invading Iraq, destroying the history and the culture of that country.
“They were turning statues into rubble. They were burning the artwork,” he shares, “[and it] really struck a cord [because I realized] that’s exactly what the leftists and the secularists are doing in this country.”
Starnes cites as examples the tearing down of statues in America and the desire to paint over historical artwork in America. He points to a failed effort in San Francisco to paint over a portrait of George Washington, simply because people said they found it offensive.
“[Leftists and secularists] are literally turning American culture [and] American history into a pile of rubble,” he shares – and thus the term “culture jihad” was birthed.
The author contends that one of the most important things God-loving Americans can do to counter culture jihad centers around their willingness to “take a stand.”
“We cannot be cowered by their tactics,” he asserts – warning that name-calling is one of those tactics.
“They will call you every name in the book,” he says. “[It’s an] ugly thing to be attacked [by anyone on the left],” he says, “[but] Hillary Clinton encapsulated it best when she called Trump supporters a bunch of xenophobic, homophobic, racist bigots.”
The Democratic presidential candidate at that time, Clinton unforgettably labeled Trump supporters as “a basket of deplorables.” Yet, Starnes believed another word the former first lady used was even more frightening: “Irredeemable.”
“[It was] as if [she was saying] people who hold to traditional American values [or to] Christian values are somehow beyond redemption,” Starnes recalls.
The Fox News commentator says when the attacks become personal and mock one’s faith, “the temptation is just to stay silent, to practice your faith behind the doors of your home, to keep your political beliefs to yourself.” And that, he declares, is exactly what they hope to achieve – but he advises not to succumb to that temptation.
“We are to be happy warriors,” he continues. “We cannot get out there and adopt the tactics of the left. We have to speak out and we have to engage the process” – and, at all costs, avoid violence.
When God-fearing Americans take a stand, Starnes argues, the war against the left becomes a winnable war.
“My hope is built – as the songwriter said – on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” he testifies. “My hope is not in a political party – but my hope is on the Lord.”
Starnes’ latest book – Culture Jihad: How to Stop the Left from Killing a Nation – releases on September 10. His Fox News colleague Sean Hannity calls it a “must-read” for anyone who is “an irredeemable deplorable, Walmart shopping great American that clings to God, The Bible, and the Constitution.”
J.M. Phelps is a Christian activist and journalist based in the Southeastern U.S. He is also editor and publisher of the website Lantern of Liberty.
Originally published by One News Now on Tuesday, August 20, 2019.
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