What David French Gets Wrong About the Culture War

According to David French, when Christians and drag queens agree to coexist peacefully, both are “protecting the First Amendment from the culture war.” God and the devil can peacefully waltz together. But God and Satan are eternal and unequal enemies. One rules over His creation—including heaven, earth, humanity, and the universe. The other—the eternal loser—reigns over an empire of nothingness and chaos.

There is a brand of nonsensical liberalism that celebrates the triumph of processes. Such liberals celebrate speech but not what is said. They delight in choice, not what is chosen. They affirm the act of worship, not who or what is the object of adoration.

Under this perspective, the most absurd contradictions can coexist as long as everyone agrees to keep the peace and not harm one another. The greatest sin is to insist passionately on the truth of one’s content to the exclusion of others.

This regime tends to empty all content of meaning and purpose. Society becomes a meeting place of human desires where individuals only seek the achievement of their gratification. People can do whatever they want since all desires are equal before the law.

The David French School

This festival of absurdity was recently well expressed in an op-ed of the now-New York Times columnist David French. The piece is titled “How Christians and Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment.”*

As a lawyer, Mr. French long fought for a place for Christian programs at the secular table. He supports the right of Christians to hold After School Christian clubs using public school facilities. He also favors the same privileges for After School Satan clubs or the now infamous Drag Queen Story Hours. Indeed, anyone with access to public venues must be allowed to speak regardless of the message and even if opposed by a vast “democratic” majority of concerned citizens.

Some time ago, Mr. French got into a heated debate with conservative journalist Sohrab Ahmari, who made him the unwilling founder of a philosophy he dubbed “David-Frenchism.” It might be defined as this mania of choice over what is chosen. It is the dogma of emptying out beliefs to the point that all might exist peacefully.

Chaos and Relativism

Thus, Christians who promote God’s law must be on the same legal footing as drag queens who oppose it. After-school clubs honoring God must be treated equally with those that honor Satan. It is all a matter of choice—and the implicit denial that there is a correct one.

In a society where the delivery of the message is defended over its content, there is no good or evil, right or wrong. There is only the act of delivery, in which the holder enjoys all rights while the opposition is suppressed. Parents cannot protect their children from “evil” influences because all influences are emptied of any moral meaning.

Leftists who oppose God and His Law have everything to gain by gaming this system that opens up a long forbidden platform to target children. Christians have everything to lose by creating a suicidal atmosphere of relativism and confusion that invites Satan in and undermines the Faith.

Protecting Society From the Culture War

Everyone expects liberals to support this skewed vision of empty beliefs since the process always tends leftward.

However, the David-Frenchist position is perplexing. He is one of The New York Times’ token conservatives. One would expect him to stand up for those defending God’s truth in the fight for the culture.

Instead, he blames the culture war for breaking the liberal peace. When one “passionately supports a community or a cause,” he says the natural human inclination is to want to protect or defend this position. And he claims this is wrong.

He wants all views to be given a place at the table. The culture war happens because those who passionately believe in something strongly oppose the contrary. This ruins the game of emptiness. The culture war would end if everyone could passionately believe in nothing and let liberal society continue its slide to further decadence and nihilism.

When Christians and drag queens agree to coexist peacefully, Mr. French says both are “protecting the First Amendment from the culture war.” God and the devil can peacefully waltz together, affirming nothing, contradicting everything in a blasphemous attempt to save the status quo.

The Nothing Person

The problem with a culture that passionately believes in nothing is that it produces similar individuals. As society decays, “nothing people” emerge who shirk responsibility, avoid work, and fail to develop character. A “nothing man” grants equal citizenship to every evil that prevents him from reaching his true (albeit rejected) end and purpose.

This distorted metaphysics is what David French gets wrong. Things should function according to their nature and purpose, not their processes. Speech is important but of little use unless directed to speaking the truth, not babble. Worship is crucial when focused on its end is to know, love, and serve the One True God. Choice is only excellent when turned to freedom from, not slavery to, unbridled passions.

God Exists

The crisis inside liberalism revolves around which belief system (something or nothing) will prevail. Conservatives reacting to liberalism’s emptiness now see the answer in passionately believing in the few still surviving Christian principles. Postmodern liberals claim only more belief in nothing will overcome the obstinacy of those who believe in something.

It is a battle of certainties that touches on God. Liberalism is built upon a spirit of doubt that, rather than admitting the existence of God, turns His existence into a matter of personal opinion. That fiction no longer works in a world where human solutions increasingly fail.

The culture war is happening because some people are rejecting key liberal premises and are turning to the ultimate “Something,” which is God. They embrace the certainty that God exists whether liberals believe in Him or not.

Their shift changes everything. God and Satan are not equal powers but eternal and unequal enemies. One rules over His creation—including heaven, earth, humanity, and the universe. The other—the eternal loser—reigns over an empire of nothingness and chaos.

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*“How Christians and Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment,” New York Times, June 30, 2023.

The featured image, uploaded by George Skidmore, is a photograph of David A. French speaking at an event in Washington, D.C., on 9 February 2012. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.