The Culture War College
Beginnings
War Colleges have existed for some time now all around the world. In the United States, War Colleges of the major armed services educate and train our fighting forces and their leaders about war, and how to prepare for future war in ways we cannot even conceptualize today. I’ve attended or visited all of our nation’s war colleges as part of my professional military training and was, for a time, editor of the professional journal of the Air Force at Air University.
These are accredited institutions awarding advanced degrees in national security or military studies. Perhaps they exist for only a select few that the services want to invest their time and money. The Armed Forces can little afford these leaders being assigned away for any significant time from combat operations that are ongoing throughout the world. These operations are focused on a foreign enemy and are located usually in a foreign land.
When you look at a military officer’s commissioning oath, we have sworn to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. After the fall of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, our Armed Forces began to assess other operations they could engage. At the time we were looking at “policing actions” and something called “military operations other than war.” For me, personally, I began to explore the notion of what might comprise a “domestic enemy” and it was out of this initial examination in 1998 that the idea for a U.S. Culture War College took shape for me.
I began by asking the question, “Do we have domestic enemies?” Since the oath we take as military officers has at its core a spiritual component, the answers that immediately presented themselves had at their core, a spiritual component. So, these subjects have not been part of my professional military record, but rather have been found in the Churches and small group studies where I have been teaching these lessons since 1999. They are found in the “devotions” hours of the Christian organizations where I have worked since “retiring” from the Air Force. And now, you find them on this website.
The Present
You’ll find a Basic Course of instruction on the website today. These are the foundational concepts that I’ve developed over the years to place our conflict against Satan and his agents in terms a military professional could understand. Of course, I hope everyone regardless of military background can understand this conflict for the culture and that is why the target audience for these courses has been and will always be the heads of household for young families. It’s not that singles or others can never understand these lessons. It’s just that when I was writing and presenting them, I had moms and dads of younger children in mind.
The Basic Course presents certain truths about Truth and Freedom. You’ll need to understand these early and often in order to proceed with future coursework or applications. Like our formal Armed Services War Colleges, the lessons on this website prepare you for future cultural conflict that we cannot even conceptualize today. Our approaches to the culture war battlefields arrayed before us, and our understanding of the combatants competing with us on those battlefields, and the truth of what everyone’s after in this conflict are as timeless as the scriptures themselves. So, the Basic Course presents, over time, a methodology for engagement. Hopefully, after you have completed this course, you’ll think differently about engaging the culture for the cause of Jesus Christ. Hopefully, you’ll be encouraged to engage the culture early and often with your family, your circle of influence, and yes, your opponents.
I would encourage you to look over the Blog posts that will come on a regular basis. These posts apply the principles I’ve taught in the Basic Course to real time, real world events going on in our cultural conflict. Thanks for reading and I appreciate your interest in my thoughts and these ideas.
The Future
An “Advanced Course” in cultural apologetics is in the works and may be debuted on this site in about a year or two. The subject of apologetics sometimes makes our brains “hurt” just thinking about it. We often leave it to other “big name” people to be our apologists in the culture when I think God wants us to speak into our families and our communities. And yet we may feel woefully prepared to so engage in that sphere. I would hope that the Advanced Course would result not just in your preparation, but also give you encouragement for the journey down that road.
More immediately, a course in “Dreaming with Reality” is already being adapted for publication on culturewarcollege.com. You might think this an odd course to include here, but I believe everyone can dream about what’s down the road—especially for our families and our circles of influence. It’s just that no one is being taught how to dream and that’s what this brief course is about. Who taught you how to dream? Who’s teaching your children how to dream? Or, could it be that someone is telling them what they should believe? This information has been well received when I’ve presented it and I’m eager to post it online for your benefit.
Finally, you’ll find a “Speaker Request” button on this website and I can, with expenses defrayed and a fee, come to speak to your group when the schedule permits. I’m not averse to visiting with you in the future out in the several states. Let’s explore that notion together. Simply sign up using the speaker request form available to you there.