“The November 1994 American elections have revealed a surprising political shift to the right, with conservative Republicans gaining control of both houses of Congress and thirty governorships. Liberals and moderates are in a state of shock. …

“Have we finally exhausted the possibilities of the New Deal coalition formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, and is this the end of the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson and even of the welfare state? One can imagine a doomsday scenario: America remade in the image of God, with pro-ecclesia and pro-patria ruling the land, placing our secular republic in jeopardy.

“Perhaps this is too apocalyptic. … what seems to be assured is that the tempo of the culture wars will intensify. In this regard, Free Inquiry and the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism will move to the front and center of the barricades. For we are the leading secularist critics of organized religion.”

— Paul Kurtz, “The ‘Culture Wars’ Intensify”
Free Inquiry, Volume 15, No. 1 (Winter 1994/95)

Editor’s Note: Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) was the founding editor of Free Inquiry. The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (acronym CODESH) changed its name to its present form, the Council for Secular Humanism, in 1996.