The book of Daniel unfolds with a massive culture war from its very first sentence—between the powerful Babylonian Empire and the dwindling nation of Judah. But what’s so interesting, however, is that Daniel not only tells us that there is a culture war, but also how it’s being fought.
In fact, what Daniel 1 shows us is that Babylon’s tactics of cultural warfare nearly 3000 years ago against Judah are eerily similar to the tactics being used in the culture wars happening today. And that’s what this post will cover today—what those tactics are, why those tactics are so powerful, and how those tactics are being recycled, repacked, and re-deployed in our own culture war today.
Up front, here are the 4 main tactics of cultural warfare we can see in Daniel 1…
- Assimilate the best, ostracize the rest.
- Emasculate men.
- Indoctrinate through the government school system.
- Rename people, places, things of the old culture in the language of the new culture so that the old culture’s history and values are lost.
Let’s look briefly at each, and hopefully by doing so, we can gain a sharper clarity and find greater encouragement as we navigate our own culture war here in America, being citizens of the kingdom of God yet living in the culture of Babylon.
Assimilate the best, ostracize the rest.
1b…Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal familyand of the nobility, 4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace... (Dan. 1:1b-4)
The first way Babylon imposes itself on the weaker Jewish culture is by ostracizing those whom they considered the ‘weak’ and ‘disposable’ and by striving to assimilate those whom they considered the ‘strong’ and ‘valuable’ and ‘strategic.’ Babylon exiles all the Jews, except for those of royalty and nobility – the highest level of ‘social elite,’ the gatekeepers and stakeholders. They identified those who had power, potential, promise – and treated them differently, strategically. Why? Because this is about power after all.
These were the Jews who had money, influence, intelligence, good interpersonal skills, and showed much promise for future leadership. They were, in a way, the ‘seed’ of the future of Israel. So, by Babylon accommodating this group with special protection and provision—perhaps they’d even come to see Babylon not as an enemy after all, but as an ally.
They’re not that bad!
They’re decent people!
Look how they treat us, at least!
We owe them now!
Wining and dining. Recruiting and converting. In any culture war, when power doesn’t squelch power, it caters to it—because it sees exploitative value in it.
Culture wars today operate by the same blueprint.
By recruiting stakeholders and converting gatekeepers of a certain subculture, the dominant culture lays claim to a new populous, new resources, and new opportunity that would have been nearly impossible to gain otherwise.
We see this same tactic occur again and again in our own culture. Think, for example, when a president ‘joins forces’ with a pop-culture icon. Or when a social movement finds additional momentum on the coattails of a professional athlete or movie star. When a certain political party finds an ‘outlier’ to speak on behalf of an entire religious group. Sound familiar?
When power is the ultimate goal, it doesn’t really matter how ‘sanctioned’ or ‘legitimate’ a subcultural gatekeeper is in the eyes of the dominant culture; it only matters that their platform and access is exploited for the bigger culture’s expansion – so that they can extend their reach to areas they would have had a harder time doing otherwise. Assimilate the best, ostracize the rest.
Emasculate men.
It was ancient tradition that servants in the king’s court would be made into eunuchs. While Daniel 1 does not explicitly indicate that Daniel and his friends were made into eunuchs, the book of Isaiah suggests so:
“All that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. . . And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (Is. 39)
Why make Jewish royalty and nobility into eunuchs? Why emasculate them? There are a number of reasons, but perhaps the most significant is that it would mean the loss of the Jews’ future hope of national leadership as well as the preservation of its past heritage. There would be no one after them to lead the new nation or to remember the old one.[1] Emasculating male leadership meant more than just sexual restraint; it meant death to their culture.
In the culture war today, of course, men are not literally being made into eunuchs. But the culture war is aiming to functionally emasculate them, and by three powerful methods: porn, abortion, and the deconstruction of gender as a whole.
High accessibility of porn and low cost of abortion essentially means high pleasure minus the low cost of responsibility. It is a tactic intended to keep men chained to indulgence and weakened by pleasure—removing the very things that make men strong: delayed gratification, relational investment, and societal responsibility. A cultural diet of porn and abortion serves only to short-circuit the very design of how God made man in his own image: to be known for their strength in service, sacrifice, and leadership.
Additionally, our own culture has even made the most popular word association with ‘masculinity’ none other than the word ‘toxic.’ Of course, masculinity, as a biological reality, is no more toxic than femininity as a biological reality. One gender is not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ simply by virtue of its own gender. Of course, that would be gender discrimination.
Yet, at the same time, our culture equivocates. It declares, “Masculinity is toxic!” while simultaneously saying, “Gender is fluid and nonbinary!” This is conceptual chaos. Clearly, its tactical intent exceeds its own logical framework. It wants us to think about masculinity in two main ways:
- If masculinity is real—well, it’s toxic.
- If masculinity is not toxic—well, it doesn’t exist anyways because it’s a social construct.
Culture’s assault on masculinity is either achieved by condemnation or eradication—because it cannot do without either. To be sure, our culture is not emasculating men literally; but it is spiritually, which is even more destructive.
But why should a power-hungry culture seek to make men weak, marriage nearly unattainable, and child-rearing undesirable? Because reproducing and raising children with certain convictions is the long-term threat to the culture that wants control. In biblical times, some governments would go so far as to mandating nationwide abortion of male babies under the age of 2 years old from a certain subculture because they perceived the inevitability of an upcoming culture war. (See Pharaoh in Exodus 1 and King Herod in Luke 1).
Why is emasculating men a tactic of cultural warfare? Because what a culture fears the most is strong men who love their families and raise their children up in a way that is contrary to the spirit of Babylon.[2]
Indoctrinate through the government school system.
4b…and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans… They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.
Notice that the education that King Nebuchadnezzar had in mind was not education in general, but a type of education in particular: namely, the “literature and language of the Chaldeans.” What is the literature and language of the Chaldeans? For Daniel and his friends, it was the new cultural ideology ushered in by the government of the new world power.
Why would a new governmental regime leverage the education system? Because it is the engine for tearing down ideological frameworks of the past and building new ideological frameworks for the future.
The culture war in our day and age is waged in the same way. Our current public school system will propagate whatever ideology is espoused by whoever has the most power. So, what is the ‘literature and language of the Chaldeans’ in our context today? It is post-modernism, deconstructionism, and a duplicitous form of tolerance.
Ironically, post-modern education brands itself as extremely open-minded, welcoming to a diversity of perspectives. But in reality, it teaches a very narrow, particular worldview. It boasts of tolerance, but it will not tolerate the slightest bit of disagreement to its own agenda and perspective—about anything. This is tactical warfare: an appearance of progressive winsomeness, spring-loaded with the intent to upend the ideological frameworks of the past and to establish new ideological frameworks for the future.
In our own day and age, it is not surprising that government school system serves more as the butlers of political agenda, not the bastions of academia; functions as petri dishes of critical theory, not beacons of critical thinking.
And there are countless studies that have pinpointed this sharp partiality in the state education system and university environment. To be sure, the state educational system is not inherently bad; but in the hands of a power-hungry government, it will be weaponized for cultural warfare.[3]
Rename people, places, things of the old culture in the language of the new culture so that the old culture’s history and values are lost.
6 Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. 7 And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.
Back in ancient times especially, names were more than identifications (like they are today); they were identities, windows into the truest essence of the person. Thus, the act of renaming—whether it be names or words or history—functioned as a power-play to change the way people thought about the deepest, most personal elements of life: God, themselves, the world around them.
Just as making men into eunuchs prohibits them from bearing kids who will literally pass their culture and history into the future, so also does the act of renaming fundamentally prohibit a culture from passing on its values, heritage, and history. The act of renaming, in a cultural sense, is like cutting down a tree and lopping off its branches so that it no longer bears fruit and no longer perpetuates itself.
Language is powerful and words matter—because it establishes associations and meanings and truths. It is the architecture for how we make sense of the world around us, the very basis for how we think. Thus, when those in power start changing words and names and language at will, it is an attempt to control how we think about the self, about others, about values, and about culture and history—to control how we think about the most personal, precious aspects of life.
And the hungrier for power a regime becomes, the more it will celebrate those who comply with their new language and punish those who do not. Have you ever heard of hate-speech or double-think? Sound familiar?
A power-hungry culture that is seeking to ‘win the war’ on another subculture will not tolerate other diversity of viewpoints, diversity of thought, or diversity of language. And if it cannot agree to disagree (and live peacefully in tolerance), it will forcibly rename and re-language and re-ratify the very way its people think about anyways, especially whatever is a threat.
As we see with Daniel and his three friends, their very Jewish names—their personal, Christian identities, their worship, their destiny—was a threat to the Babylonian regime. What types of words or names or places are categorized as a ‘threat’ to our culture today?
What did Daniel do? He ‘drew a line.’
8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
Why does Daniel ‘draw the line’ at the king’s food, of all things? Think about it: he’s been emasculated by force; he’s been thrown into a pagan classroom he did not choose; he’s been named after a pagan god he doesn’t worship—but when it comes to the king’s food, he ‘draws the line’ because he doesn’t want to be “defiled.”
Does that strike you as a bit… odd?
Naturally, we might think, “But Daniel has already been defiled!”
Notice, however, that all these acts of ‘defilement’ happened to Daniel, without any control on his part. He had no say in his emasculation, education, or identification. But when it came to eating the king’s food, he did see a small window of opportunity to pledge his allegiance to his true King. This was an area where he could use his free will, and also, without causing a scene. And so, he resolved to not eat the king’s food or drink his wine. He drew a line to not defile himself.
The common understanding about why the king’s food would ‘defile’ Daniel comes from the idea that the food must have been ‘off-limits’ according to Jewish dietary law. Commentators will confirm: the same word ‘defile’ in verse 8 is usually applied to dietary restrictions. But they also argue that it’s not as clear-cut we might we assume, either. [4]
They argue that there could be at least three reasons why Daniel considered the kings’ food and wine a ‘defilement.’
- The type of food could have been a violation of Jewish dietary law;
- The food and wine could have been offered to idols, and Jews were not to partake in any idolatry; or
- The food was a symbol of fellowship and association with King Nebuchadnezzar.[5]
So, why did Daniel reject it, as if it was to ‘defile him’ as he says?
Personally, I believe that Daniel rejected the king’s food and wine, not because of what it was dietarily, but because of what it represented spiritually: a symbol of association with the king. After all, Jewish law did not require the Israelites to be vegetarians and to drink water only. Jews were permitted to eat many types of food and drink wine as well. If ‘defilement’ strictly had to do with diet, Daniel and his friends could have easily ‘picked around’ their plates, separating the ‘clean’ from the ‘unclean’ foods, much like kids do with food they like versus what they don’t like.
When it came to the king’s food and drink, I believe Daniel perceived an opportunity to stand against the cultural current, put his stake in the ground, and demonstrate who his true King was and what kingdom he was truly a part of. More than anything, it was a personal decision, a conviction to draw the line somewhere… at least where he could.
Nebuchadnezzar clearly wanted them to ingest what he ingested; to be nourished by what he was nourished by. Perhaps by feeding them from his own table, Nebuchadnezzar sought to buy their loyalty and allegiance. He not only wanted to be their new authority, but also their ultimate provider and sustainer. He was wining and dining his newly acquired, A-list recruits from Jerusalem. The food and wine functioned as an attempt to assimilate them into his kingdom and to associate them with himself. And to this concept, Daniel declined and resolved to not partake. He drew a line as a demonstration that his citizenship would always be the kingdom of God, not Babylon, and his King would always be the LORD, not Nebuchadnezzar.
We can ‘draw a line’ in Babylon, too.
The very principle of ‘drawing a line’ is a profound one, and it might just be the most powerful and practical principle when it comes to living in ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s palace’ all the while living for God’s kingdom. How so?
‘Drawing the line’ demarcates your convictions from your culture. It definitively defines culture’s authority from your authority. The act of ‘drawing a line’ is a way of making clear in your convictions that the culture around you—which is inevitable and inescapable at times—can and will only influence you so much.
As Daniel shows us, ‘drawing the line’ means that even if you live in the middle of ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s palace,’ it’s still entirely possible to live for God’s kingdom. The act of ‘drawing the line’ is the key to living with convictions—not merely outside of another culture—but in the very middle of it. Look at how Daniel navigated Babylon while ‘drawing a line’:
- Daniel didn’t run away from the public school system. He remained in it, learned from it, and God used him greatly—and not in spite of it, but because of it. Daniel gained wisdom and understanding, but he was not converted into the Babylonian worldview. He didn’t allow their attempt of indoctrination to get too far. He drew the line somewhere.
- Daniel was, in fact, emasculated physically; but he was not emasculated spiritually as a man of character and conviction. He didn’t allow their attempt of emasculation to get too far. His manhood was not defined according to Babylon, but according to God. He drew the line somewhere.
- Daniel’s name was changed to ‘Belteshazzar,’ after the name after King Nebuchadnezzar’s own god. But Daniel received it only as a Babylonian identification; it didn’t become his personal identity. His Babylonian name did not become the truest, most personal thing about him. He didn’t allow their attempt of identifying to get too far. He drew the line somewhere.
See, by ‘drawing a line’ somewhere, Daniel demonstrated that God was his authority when it came to truth, not Nebuchadnezzar’s educational system—even when he was a student in Babylon. That God was his authority when it came to masculinity, not Nebuchadnezzar’s idea of it—even when he was made into a eunuch. That only God retained the authority to name him and give him worth and meaning, not Nebuchadnezzar’s own god—even when he was given a pagan name.
Christian, what can we do in the middle of a massive culture war?
Like Daniel, we learn to trust God with what we can and what we cannot control in the culture war around us.
Like Daniel, we learn where to draw the line.
Like Daniel, we don’t live raucously and recklessly, but winsomely and wise.
Like Daniel, we live full of faith in our true King and serve faithfully in His kingdom—no matter what kind of culture we find ourselves in.
[1] Christopher R Smith. Good Question Blog. “Were Daniel and his friends eunuchs?” (May 28, 2014). https://goodquestionblog.com/2014/05/28/were-daniel-and-his-friends-eunuchs/.
[2] Kyle Mercer, Humility or Humiliation? – The Book of Daniel, Daniel 4. January 26, 2020. Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem, NC.
[3] Among many articles on the topic, these were two that stood out to me: (1) The Hoya, https://thehoya.com/conservative-feature/. (2) Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left.
[4] Kyle Mercer, Three Resolutions To Start Your Year – Daniel 1. Sermon given on January 3, 2020 at Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem, NC.
[5] David Helm, Daniel For You.
