A whistle in the midst of a hurricane

Culture as Liturgy: When the Nation Worships at Strange Altars

Douglas Murray, writing last week in The Spectator World, noted a striking contrast in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Memorial gatherings in America, Britain, and even as far away as South Korea were not marked by riots or vandalism - as was the case after George Floyd in Minneapolis and Michael Brown in Ferguson - but by prayer. “In response to a political assassination, the people on the side of the victim have gathered to pray.”¹

However, what we see promoted through America’s spiritual, intellectual, educational, economic, and cultural institutions is the glorification of the nation’s false religion of secularism.

Culture is never neutral.

Roger Kimball, the American conservative commentator, recently raised the question at the Blake Center for Faith and Family whether “it is common sense to pretend that men can be women. Or to pretend that you do not know what a woman is.” During her confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson professed to be baffled by that very question.

Kimball observed that since the 1960s - when America forfeited its Judeo-Christian, Biblically based foundation - our culture has suffered a “deficit of common sense,” corroding both education and public life. Restoration, he argues, must begin with acknowledging reality:

• The mutilation of children is not “gender-affirming care.”

• Anti-white racism is not “anti-racism.”

• Illegal migrants are not “undocumented neighbors.”

• A bisected cow in a tank of formaldehyde is not great art.

Kimball warns that the “long march through the institutions” has resulted in a stark decline: schools captured, churches hollowed out, and cultural centers steeped in liberationist ideas drawn from Marx. Secularism now holds the moral and political high ground of American society.²

Murray goes further by pointing out that within a single week, two movements at the center of cultural struggle -Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally in London and memorials for Charlie Kirk - leaned heavily into Christian elements. In Britain especially, Murray observed, Christianity has become “no more distinct than a whistle in the midst of a hurricane.” And yet prayer and faith surfaced as the unifying response in the public square.

The lesson is clear: culture is the public liturgy of a people’s religion. When the god is secular, the rituals are predictable - self-worship, identity politics, denial of reality, and ideology dressed up as common sense. But when Christ is at the center, the outward culture looks altogether different. Its response to suffering is not vengeance but prayer; not chaos but order; not despair but hope. In other words, the fruit of a nation’s culture reveals the object of its worship.

Spiritual men and women - Gideons and Rahabs - are stepping into the public square of America. Their lives will bear the marks of the Living Christ: grace, love, gentleness, humility, and unwavering devotion. They will love the Lord and the souls of men, willing even to lay down their lives for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But they will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath, because their hope is anchored in the Eternal.³

This is the kind of people God uses to rebuild nations. Not the proud, not the powerful, but the faithful. Gideons who stand against the idols of the age, and Rahabs who risk reputation and safety for the sake of truth. America does not need more celebrities or strategists - it needs men and women of faith who will live and speak as witnesses to the Living Christ in the public square.

1 Kings 18:44-46 tells us that it took Israel three and a half years of drought and famine to learn to distinguish the true God from false gods. By contrast, America’s infidelity with secularism began in the late 18th century and culminated in the cultural revolution of the 1960s. We are now six decades into a spiritual drought. The repercussions are unmistakable for those with eyes to see and ears to hear:

• Prayer outlawed in public schools [Engel v. Vitale, 1962].

• The Bible removed from classrooms [Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963].

• A concocted ‘constitutional right’ to exterminate unborn babies [Roe v. Wade, 1973].

• The Ten Commandments prohibited from schools and courthouses [Stone v. Graham, 1980].

• The exaltation of same-sex marriage [Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015].

• The veneration of ‘special rights’ for homosexuality and transgenderism [Bostock v. Clayton County, 2020].

America has arrived at her kairos - the appointed time when Jehovah intervenes. As Moses wrote in Exodus 3:7-8: “And the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them.’” God does not sit placidly in the heavens, oblivious to history.⁴

To that end, the American Renewal Project’s goal is for 500 North Carolina parishioners to run for local offices across the state in 2026 and 2028: city council, school board, county commissioner, parks and recreation, and more.

To incentivize the goal: if a NC pastor brings four (4) people he is encouraging to run for local office in 2026 [important filing deadline: December 19, 2025], and at least two (2) file to run, he will receive a complimentary trip to tour Israel with Pastor Ken Graves, January 6–14, 2026, including dinner with Ambassador Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem on January 11th.

'David Lane is bringing a group of pastors to Israel in January and I sure hope you are part of that group.' - Ambassador Mike Huckabee

"There's a difference between good and evil, and in the end, good must defeat evil." - Speaker Newt Gingrich

Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand.

David Lane

American Renewal Project

1. Douglas Murray, “Is Political Christianity Back?” The Spectator World, September 18, 2025.

2. Roger Kimball, Restoring American Culture, Imprimis [Hillsdale College], Vol. 54, No. 2, February 2025.

3. A.W. Tozer, Of God and Men: Cultivating the Divine/Human Relationship; 1960.

4. Maxie D. Dunnam, Exodus; 1987.