Legacy of the Sixties
So we have come
full circle. The fruit of the
“revolution” of the sixties has now come upon the United States. What was the legacy of the 1960’s? Maybe it is time to revisit.
The
Sexual Revolution.
Progressively,
immoral sexual activity was decriminalized in the period following World War
Two, and the result has been devastating on the moral fiber of the American
nation. Laws against adultery,
homosexuality, and fornication were repealed state by state, with the resulting
breakdown of the home, the explosion of abortion, one-parent, or no-parent
children, pornography, and perversity.
We thought we
were wiser than God. Today we see in
the highest levels of government admission to acts and practices that are in
themselves crimes against God and against humanity. Even the media has been embarrassed by the necessity of reporting
acts that defile even the lips that speak them. “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done
of them in secret” is the way Scripture speaks of them. (Ephesians 5:12) A generation ago, the admission to fornication, which is sexual
acts outside of marriage, would in itself have been admission to crime,
punishable by removal from office, fines,
and imprisonment.
Sexual sin
against marriage is not a “private act,” because it has societal implications
that society must pay for. Homes are
destroyed, welfare rolls increase, and children are impacted. If those commit it in high office, the
threatened loss of high level secrets, vulnerability to blackmail, and loss of
objective judgment and decision making impact the security of the United
States. Humanistic governments and
totalitarian regimes depend upon blackmail and guilt to keep officials in line
and secure their obedience. A guilty
man cannot act in good conscience for the best interest of the nation, for he
will be tempted to use the power of government to divert attention away from
his own shame, or, worse, to yield the interest of the state to avoid
revelation of his conduct.
King David
committed adultery with Bathsheba, with devastating effects on his family and
on the kingdom of Israel. [See previous
article] The result was civil war and
moral breakdown in his own family. A
public servant has no “private life.”
Those who think they can compartmentalize are living in a dream world
and are unfit for public service, whether they be Democrat or Republican. But guilt shuts a lot of mouths.
Forgiveness has
nothing to do with it. Children must be
taught very early that moral lapses have consequences. God may forgive the sin, and heaven may
still be gained, but the earthly consequences must be understood. The sixties did not repeal God’s moral laws,
and the nation who repeals the criminal aspects of moral failure must pay the
consequences in the fabric of society.
We see those consequences everywhere.
Our fathers
knew better. They knew that if
sexuality was not curbed by monogamy and law, the fabric of society would be
torn apart. If people are granted
license to practice whatever sexual activity, upon whomever, whenever they
please, then soon their sexual appetites become insatiable. There is no satisfaction for lust, but it
demands more and more. Those addicted to
sex become more and more reckless.
Nothing else has value. All
their thought is dominated by it. Even
national security, loyalty to colleagues, business interests, family, party
will be sacrificed to the pleasures of the moment. Even the laws will be corrupted in order to give license to
lust. The fornicator lacks “understanding,”
according to Proverbs 7:7. Not only
does his fornication disqualify him for leadership, but also he is disqualified
for his lack of judgment, for not having good sense.
Lying
Words.
Not only
morality, but truth was also a casualty of the sixties. War had become “unthinkable.” [Was the destruction of Jerusalem in ad
70 “thinkable’?] All “authoritarian” religions must be
opposed, and “tolerance” must reign.
“Do not impose your religion on others.” “There are many paths to God.”
“Explore other modes of reality.”
The result was the demise of truth.
Certainty in religion, and its application to morality, was neither
possible nor desirable. Obscenity had
its definition changed to intolerance.
“Make love, not war.” Sexual
activities of all kinds were beautiful and peaceful, dignity and morality
became the butt of crude humor on such shows as “Laugh In” and, more recently,
“Seinfeld.” The latter was a crude and
vulgar show about nothing, for there is nothing that matters, not religion,
morality, culture, or dignity. T. S.
Eliot said that the world would end in a “whimper,” but he was wrong. Civilizations end in the pathetic,
embarrassed giggle of hollow men, incapable of feeling outrage.
The use of
language changed. It was no longer used
to express truth, because there was no truth to express. American churches succumbed to temptation
and sought truth in feeling and irrationality, abandoning the creeds and “dry”
theologies. A candidate for office or a
minister in the church was judged by his ability to evoke emotion and feeling,
not by his ability to speak the truth.
Such words are
lying words. Clever people no longer
use words to convey reality, but to manipulate. The words are “true” if they incite to a desired end, whether it
is elective office or a church building program. “Dogma” is narrow-minded.
Documents must be “living,” susceptible of being twisting and
manipulated to the whim of the moment.
Unscrupulous
salesmen have used this technique for years, but moral people eschewed it. To use a word that I know will convey an
idea to your mind, different from the idea I reserve in my mind, is
dishonest. Even though I have an “out,”
and when pinned down can say that you misunderstood, I am still a liar, and
honest people will know it. Guilty,
lying people miss the point, though, because they have turned the truth into a
lie and have become incapable of telling or appreciating the difference.
Drugs and Suicide.
“All that hate
me love death,” wisdom says in Prov. 8:36.
Drunkenness and death are the concomitants of fornication and lies. “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in
rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and
envying. --Romans 13:13 Drunkenness and drug use go hand in hand with
fornication and lies. This is also a
legacy of the sixties. Alternate
realities are dream worlds, and the druggie and the drunkard are seeking to
escape from what they see as the emptiness of their lives.
The ultimate
end of emptiness is suicide and death.
When nothing matters anymore, when we are reduced to hollow men without
conviction and outrage, thinking becomes our enemy, and must be suppressed at
all costs, even suicide if needful.
Man’s
relationship with God is always personal, as Francis Schaeffer told us. We are never in a neutral position, but are
either in fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ, partaking of His life and
holiness, or we are a dry branches cut off, withered and dead, without hope and
without God in the world.
“Be not drunk
with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,” Paul tells us
again in Ephesians 5:18. The way of the
Spirit is clearly defined by Paul in Galatians 3:2,3. Access to the Spirit of God is never by man’s wisdom, his
efforts, or his righteousness. Access
is only by the “hearing of faith.” When
men turn from faith and from the truth of God revealed in nature and in
Scripture, there is only the darkness of sexual perversion, lying and hatred,
and the irrational hell of substance abuse.
It was so in the ancient world, and it is true still today.
“There is a
generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their
filthiness.” (Proverbs 30:12) America had such a generation. They thought they had discovered hypocrisy
for the first time in the behavior of their parents, their churches, and their
government. They did not see their own,
far more virulent hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of revolution and license. Their legacy is still with us, in our
churches, our schools, our courts, and our government. It is time to repent. We must reject adultery and fornication
because they are crimes against God.
David knew this and wrote, “Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and
done this evil in thy sight” (Psalm 51:4)
“O generation, see ye the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my
people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?” --Jeremiah 2:31
