NC Family Staff | August 10, 2024 | SHARE: 
A quick look at American culture will reveal that we as a society have moved away from a Judeo-Christian worldview, and even religion as a whole. Secularism is running rampant and pushing things like abortion and gender ideology. While not every Christian is called to run for office, every Christian is called to be salt and light and be a positive influence in the world around them.
This week on Family Policy Matters, host Traci DeVette Griggs welcomes Dr. Bill Donohue, president of Catholic League and author of Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, to discuss why it is so important for Christians to be engaged in the culture around them.
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TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. here is widespread acknowledgement from all sides that the American culture is in a state of moral crisis. Sociologist Dr Bill Donohue says there is a path out of what is increasingly a society that does not acknowledge God. He joins us today to discuss his 11th book, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis. Bill Donohue, welcome to Family Policy Matters.
BILL DONOHUE: Well, thank you. It’s my pleasure to be with you.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Give us some cultural perspective. Are things as unsteady as they sometimes feel today?
BILL DONOHUE: Oh, absolutely. Almost everyone you talk to, they might have a different opinion as to why things are the way they are, but almost everyone you talk to will say, “Nothing makes sense anymore.” What was right yesterday is wrong today and vice versa. The country is torn apart. We’re almost at a cultural Civil War, in the extent that we have two opposing views working against each other. We were founded in this country on the Judeo-Christian precepts, and that means basically that we understand that there is a God, that in fact, there is such a thing as human nature, that we understand that perfectibility is not possible here on Earth, that’s in the afterlife. We understand natural law, natural rights. And then we have this other vision, the secular vision, which is making major inroads and harming our society. The secular vision says no such thing as God. There’s no such thing as truth. Everything is a fiction. Human nature is malleable. It’s like a piece of putty. We can make it anything we want, as long as we get in control. There’s no such thing as original sin. Now these are two irreconcilable visions. There could be no compromise, any major compromise, anyhow, between these two. I’m saying right now that it’s at a height. That’s why we have so many problems. It’s due to the secular vision. I’m not asking for a radical religious vision. I’m asking us to tap the brakes, to get back to normal, practice common sense, the kind of society that the founders wanted, and resist militant secularism, which is the enemy of Christianity.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So is there a way back. Sometimes it seems we’re so tangled. How do we untangle this?
BILL DONOHUE: Well, for one thing, people need to educate themselves as to why this is going on. That’s why I wrote Cultural Meltdown, to explain to the average person. They know in their gut there’s something wrong. But what I’m trying to do as a sociologist is tell them how we got here, and therefore what we can do about it. There are some helpful signs. The first thing I want to say to the listeners is this, if you hear somebody on radio or on television who has credentials, an expert, alphabet after his name, and they say something to you that sounds really wrong, really bizarre, trust your gut, trust your instincts. Don’t trust the experts. And I’m not saying this about all experts. I’m simply talking about people who come out and they say some insane things, such as a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man. They can’t. You can believe in your head, fine, but that’s not reality. Truth does exist. It’s not a fiction. Human nature is fixed. God exists. You can resist all you want, but if the average person is a good average American, man and woman, and they know in their heart of hearts, there’s something wrong here. Too many of these experts are intellectually corrupt, and they’re selling a bill of goods, the secular, militant ideas that they know that are wrong. Stick to your own instincts and don’t trust these people.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Why are they doing this? In their worldview, the secular worldview, do these kinds of things make sense to them then?
BILL DONOHUE: Well, it does to them. When they look at Christianity, they look at the 10 Commandments, and as I’ve often said, the three most dreaded words in the English language to the secularists are, Thou shalt not. Well, listen, we had better put a restraint on our libido, on our id. What Freud said, was our pleasure principle. We need to have men and women channel their sexual energies in a constructive fashion. That’s why we have something called the institution of marriage, and it exists in every society in the history of the world. Now, once you take marriage and you say that it’s just another variable, and as long as people love each other, that’s all that matters, etc., then you get into this situation where they want a sexual free for all. Indeed, I have one of the chapters in the book on libertinism, which basically means a sexual freedom, no restraints whatsoever. What have we gotten out of that? Besides busted marriages, sexually transmitted diseases, death? The secular vision is not only intellectually corrupt. It’s morally bankrupt. We need to give back to our original principles.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: You said it was very important for us to know how we got here. So, will you answer that question for us?
BILL DONOHUE: Basically, the idea grew out of the Enlightenment that religion was the problem. It stood in the way of freedom. We’re talking about the 18th century. There’s no such thing as human nature and the like. We have to put the right people in charge and will take over. The first expression of this was the French Revolution. That was the first also totalitarian regime in history. And they wanted to control your mind, not just your behavior. And then throughout we’ve seen this attempt. Marx certainly thought you could create the perfect society here on Earth. They believe in Utopia, because they believe that they have the right ideas. You have to first smash Christianity, get rid of family and religion, put these people in charge. They think that human nature is not fixed, and they’re going to change everybody, and they will force you to go along. That’s exactly what Rousseau said, the intellectual father, then Robespierre carried it out. And then, more recently, in the 20th century, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Now people say Hitler was on the right. Hitler was the National Socialist Party. All maximum government regimes are on the left. They all believe that they could create the good society, and they’re going to shove it down your throat. They first have to get rid of religion. That’s where it comes from.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: How did they accomplish this? Who’s complicit in this? Are we?
BILL DONOHUE: It always starts in the academy. It starts in higher education. It starts with the alienated, deracinated, rootless intellectuals who always think they don’t need God, but they’re smarter than God, and then they inform elites in our society. And increasingly, you see it Hollywood, you see it in education, you see it in the media. Basically, you even see it at the echelons, in the government and in the healthcare industry and in the corporate 500. This idea that we can just simply change our sex and become whenever we want. You can call me they and he and she. This is a lie, and not only that, in this particular case, it’s a destruction of women’s sports. Girls and women are expected to compete against girls and women, not against boys and men. Men, on the average, tend to be stronger and quicker. That doesn’t make them better. It simply makes them different. We understand that, as Christians, the complementarity between a man and a woman, one has strengths that the other one doesn’t. They complement each other. But we’re being sold the bill of goods today that, no, we can start de novo from the beginning, and we can create the Great Society. However, even the utopians now on the left are giving up. They have resorted to nihilism. They know that their great society didn’t work under with Stalin, didn’t work with Mao. Communism is a failure. So is socialism. All it does is enslave people. So now they basically want to tear down. Like the little boy trying to put together the erector set. It’s not working out too well for him, so he takes a hammer and he breaks it. That’s what they’re doing today.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So, talk about balance. For those of us who are Christians, how do we find a balance? Because this is alarming. We clearly need to take a stand, but we also need to keep our eyes on the fact that we have a higher purpose to share our faith when given the opportunity to be that light in the world. How do we do this, how do we maintain our Christianity and still fight this fight?
BILL DONOHUE: Well, first of all, you have to find out who the enemy is, and the enemy is militant secularism. They want to squash religious liberty. You have to get involved. Look, there are some very encouraging signs. Look at all the young mothers who found out during covid what their kids were being taught in the schools. Now we have Moms for Liberty. We have a lot of women, mostly mothers, not exclusively, who have run for the school boards. People have to become more active. We are called as Christians to put our religion into action. Now I’m not saying that we should tell other people what to do. I don’t want to get back to what they did to us, but we have an obligation. We should have a Christian informed conscience, and we should be proud of that, and resist the labels that they call us, Christian nationalists and the like. No, we have a place at the table, and we have to bring our America back to where it was all right.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Talk a little bit more about that, because I’ve had these conversations with people that are Christians, and they’re very well meaning, but they just don’t want to get in there. They feel they’re going to get sullied. Give us some more details on how that would work.
BILL DONOHUE: Well, I think you begin locally. That’s why I gave the example of the school boards and the like. You also have to confront the clergy if they’re not doing their job as well. It’s important that people start locally, getting involved politically if necessary, but certainly supporting the people who are on the right side. Let them know. You have to let teachers and clergy and other parents and local leaders and politicians know if they’re doing the right thing, because they’re taking a risk in our society. It’s not really free to be a plain-spoken Christian. You have to support the people out there who are doing it like yourself, because we need to drum up support for the people who are doing the good work and begin locally.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: And sometimes this is just not going to be smooth, is it? I mean, if these two visions, as you said, the religious versus the secular, are not compatible, we’re not necessarily going to be able to reason our way out of this. Are we?
BILL DONOHUE: No, and that’s unfortunate. We have reason on our side. We believe in science. They don’t believe in science. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. We know that life begins at conception. That’s not simply a Christian view, it’s biology 101. Your sex was determined by your father, not by your mother, by your father. It certainly wasn’t assigned by somebody in a hospital. That’s what they’re teaching at Harvard Medical School, and all over the country. Your gender, which they don’t even understand what the term means, is the social roles that are appropriate for men and women. We’re really talking here about your sex, and your sex is determined by your father. They are anti science when they say that. They love to say, Christians are anti science. No, we have science on our side, so our side really has to, also, it’s not just good enough to have good instincts. You have to inform yourself. Read about these guys, not just my book, with a lot of good books out there and listening to shows like yours, become educated and yes, you’re right now, you can get messy. I’m not asking everybody to be a cultural warrior. I’m paid to do it, but I love to do it. I was called to do it. But you can become a little bit more confrontational. If somebody says something to you that is really offensive. I’m not asking you to get into major fights with them, but you can ask them to correct themselves and say, you know, I didn’t find that amusing. If people have to become a little bit more involved the other side, they’re not shy, are they? They’re not shy about shoving their sick ideas down our throats.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Are we complicit somewhat in this? Have we allowed this to happen? Has the church allowed this to happen? Do you think?
BILL DONOHUE: I do think the clergy have been too reticent, too quiet, too diffident. We had the scandal in the Catholic Church, but you’re always going to have scandal, as long as you have sin, and you’re never gonna get rid of sin. And people need to grow up and be a bit more mature. Everybody in the Catholic Church, for example, those priests, we’re talking 65 to 85 by the way, they make it sound like it happened yesterday. That’s not true. Every one of those priests who failed us failed us because they didn’t follow the teaching. There’s nothing wrong with the teachings of Christianity, and it goes back to the 10 Commandments. So, if everybody followed the 10 Commandments, we wouldn’t have any of these scandals. But of course, we do. But people have to understand the other side is going to use this as a club. And what have they ever given us in history? As I said, they gave us Mao Zedong. He killed 77 million people. They gave us Hitler, tens of millions of people. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, 63 to 70 million people. That’s what happens when the secularists get in charge. And in this country today, Christians are afraid to express themselves on college campuses, including, sadly, some Christian campuses. Now we have to be a bit more vocal. Again, I don’t expect you to become a cultural warrior, but you just can’t sit back and complain over a cup of coffee.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So, you said you are seeing some hope. What are some positive signs that you’re seeing?
BILL DONOHUE: Well, it began in Europe, and it spread over to this country. I’m talking about transgenderism. The mad idea, gender ideology, that a man can become a woman and vice versa. They used to believe this, beginning with the Dutch in 2011 with their research, they’ve now realized that that research was false. Increasingly, all throughout Europe, particularly in Britain, they’re moving away from that. They’re rejecting it. They’re saying no, sex is binary. There’s only a male and a female. Guess who’s in last place, the United States and Canada. But there are encouraging signs. And I’m not one to be litigious, but I am happy that sometimes the only way you can correct the elite. I am happy that more of these young girls, 80% of these kids who transition, it’s a girl wanting to become a boy, not a boy becoming a girl. 80% of them regret what they’re doing, and they’re suffering physiologically and psychologically. If we allow them time, they won’t make that transition. But it is happening. They’re suing now, a lot of these young girls who have been led astray by therapists, by teachers, by doctors and other medical professionals, they’re suing the institutions, and they’re winning. And if that’s the only way we can get the elite to understand, you have to understand, the average American man and woman is not the problem. The problem is the elites, the ruling class, the decision makers. Not all of them, but too many of them. And they’re not just in government.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Well, we’re just about out of time for this week, before we go though, Dr. Bill Donohue, where can our listeners go to follow your work? Besides, of course, the 11 books that you have written and the most recent, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis.
BILL DONOHUE: Well, Cultural Meltdown is available from Sophia Institute Press. It’s on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you go to the Catholic League website, catholicleague.org, you’ll find a wealth of information, not only about my books, but about everything else. Get on our email list. It costs nothing, because when somebody offends us, we will find out the email of the offender, and then you can contact that person. Believe me, we have a huge list, and we win. We’re winning in the culture war. All I need you to do is to simply email somebody who’s offended us. We’ll provide all the information. It costs you very little time.
TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Well, thank you very much, and thank you for your passion on this issue. Dr Bill Donohue, thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters.
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