I hope you have watched HBO’s We Own This City, a companion piece to The Wire. It was flawed, not of The Wire’s stature, but still powerful.

There’s a pivotal scene near the end between cop turned professor Brian Gabler (played by Treat Williams) and crusading DOJ attorney Nicole Steele (the amazing Wunmi Mosaku):

BRIAN GRABLER: What are the police trying to do?

NICOLE STEELE: Arrest everybody …

BG: But why? What’s the mission?

NS: The drug war.

BG: Exactly. And in a war, you need warriors. In a war, you have enemies. In war, bystanders get hurt and nobody does anything. In a war, you count the bodies and then you call them victories.

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“In a war, you need warriors. In a war, you have enemies. In a war, bystanders get hurt and nobody does anything. In a war, you count the bodies and then you call them victories.”

What does it cost the church to fight the culture war the way we’re fighting it? What does it cost American Christians?

What does it cost us when we spiritually and mentally (and literally) take up arms against our fellow citizens and fellow creatures? “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6.12)

What does it cost us? I’ll explore that tomorrow.

Should we NOT fight the culture war? We certainly shouldn’t fight it the way we are tempted to fight it. I’ll explore that tomorrow, too.