Morality
How the Sexual Revolution Changed the World
There are numerous events or movements that have changed the course of history. In the last two hundred years, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights movement, World Wars I & II and the Information Revolution come to mind.
Another one that I lived through was the Sexual Revolution of the 1950s to 70s. I know it’s not on the usual radar screens of earth-shattering events, but I believe it should be.
What really happened during the 20th century Sexual Revolution? What are its lasting effects? How has the Baby-boom-led sexual revolt changed the world as we know it?
Some of the answers may surprise you.
When we think of life changing events or movements we don’t normally think of sex. It’s a pretty basic yet wonderful aspect of human experience, and in my opinion, one of the greatest gifts from God for expressing human love.
That’s why most songs center around sensual love either from a desire or lament standpoint.
Many years ago, I noticed in the Old Testament that though all sins are equal in their motive (selfish and lawless), they are not equal in their ramifications or consequences. In fact, the clear teaching of the Bible and human history is that deviating from God’s wise boundaries of a man and woman experiencing sexual love in marriage is extremely hurtful and destructive.
That’s why the Old Testament elevates sexual sins above some others. Just peruse chapters such as Leviticus 18 or 20 and you will get the picture. Sexual sin is bad. It hurts and defiles people. That’s why God told the nation of Israel to hate it, avoid it, and legislate against it.
God does not want human beings to suffer the dreadful consequences of perverting his beautiful gift of sex.
Enter the 1950s. The world had just experienced two dreadful wars in which a total of 76 million people died (16M in World War I and 60M in World War II). That was about 4% of world population at the time. Millions more were wounded, displaced, some nations reduced to rubble, with psychological damage unfathomable.
Out of that devastation, a time of calm prevailed in the Western nations where GIs came back from the war, got married, had kids and begun to live more “normal” lives. At the time, a strong Judeo-Christian world view coupled with an evangelical awakening led by Billy Graham and others gave credence to biblical norms in sexual activity.
Most men and women married. Fornication and adultery were generally frowned upon. Homosexuality, incest, and pedophilia were seen as taboo. The Baby Boom generation–now the second largest generation in American history–were about to arrive.
I was one of them, born into a normal, religious home in 1953. Those were the days of “Leave It to Beaver,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” and “Father Knows Best.” That would all change in the late fifties through seventies when I graduated from high school.
The change seemed to start in Hollywood and the music scene. Famous actors and musicians began to sleep around. Stars like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and others encouraged the young generation to rebel against the old, traditional (and biblical ways). The rebellion appeared to be against God, various authority figures, and sexual norms.
I remember the mini-skirts rising, the pot and sex parties, Woodstock, Playboy, and on and on it went. A new world was being created where sex was simply my desire for you, baby, to “Light My Fire.” Today, almost anything goes sexually without hardly the blink of an eye.
That movement of “sexual freedom” has changed the world–and not for the good. Here are some of its incredible global consequences.
Atheist Growth
Sexual anarchy seems to go hand-in-hand with those who do not believe in God or a Higher Power to whom we are accountable. Of course there are some exceptions to that rule, but can anyone honestly argue that those who break the biblical boundaries of sex are partly running from God?
The statistics make it clear. Over the past fifty years, atheism has doubled in America from 7 to 14 percent of the population and many people now claim “No religion.” This has given birth to a relentless attack upon biblical faith by the media, government, Hollywood, and militant atheist groups who are trying to secularize every aspect of American culture.
Last week an Army chaplain was reprimanded for giving Christian literature to GIs during a “Suicide Prevention Week.” The American military–once a bastion of biblical faith and defense of liberty–is quickly becoming our biggest social experimentation grounds.
It all has its roots in the Sexual Revolution.
Disease Explosion
One of the medical fruits of the Sexual Revolution has been the growth of new diseases due to illicit sexual activity. At last report, the Revolution has spawned 26 brand new venereal diseases.
An estimated 1.5 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2013, and an estimated 39 million people with AIDS have died worldwide since the epidemic started. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the biggest burden of HIV/AIDS, with almost 70% of the global total of new HIV infections for 2013.
Let that sink in. 76 million people died unnecessarily because of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. But half that many (39 million) have died unnecessarily in our lifetime simply due to one STD we call AIDS.
History is littered with tribes, nations and civilizations that either declined or died due to sexual perversion. The Incas, Aztecs and Roman world come to mind. The modern Sexual Revolution is taking us down the same path, albeit being retarded by advances in modern medicine.
History’s Biggest Holocaust
One of the most tragic fruits of the Sexual Revolution was the revival on the ancient sin of abortion–killing an innocent baby in the womb simply because it is unwanted. As people slept around and sex started to multiply beyond marriage, something had to be done with the unwanted fruit of unrestrained passion.
Enter the tragic and legislative stupidity of Roe v. Wade in 1973. It came about for one primary reason: to get rid of the evidence of sexual chaos and evil. Abortion wasn’t new, it was just pagan–an ungodly practice revived in the modern world–to keep the Revolution roaring without “problems.”
The Guttmacher Institute estimates that between 1 and 2 billion human beings have been aborted in 20th and 21st centuries. That makes the Sexual Revolution abortion machine the greatest holocaust of all time.
Take a moment and weep over that statistic. At least a billion innocent children sucked apart or cut to pieces on the altar of selfish indulgence. Makes Hitler look like a piker.
Destroying Marriage and Family
Can anyone deny that “sexual liberation” is one of the main causes of the destruction of marriage and family in the past fifty years?
In former times of biblical mores, men and women either got married and kept sex in marriage because it was the right thing to do, or, if they weren’t believers, the man wanted sex and the woman wanted children. Both of those motives produced wholesome family units, with a mom, a dad, and kids.
I saw an article today that appeared a week ago in the Washington Post that shows how the Sexual Revolution has destroyed the America family. It’s called “The Unbelievable Rise of Single Motherhood in America Over the Past Fifty Years” and is based on studies by Princeton’s Sara McLanahan and Harvard’s Christopher Jencks.
It explains, for example, that more than 70 percent of all black children today are born to an unmarried mom, a three-fold increase in that rate since the 1960s. You can read the article here.
Hey, what happened in the 1960s? Oh yeah, there was the Sexual Revolution where men started sleeping around with whoever would have them, then split the scene. What was once sinful is now the new awful norm–kids without parents and diseases galore.
Ask the children if that kind of sex is “liberating” to them. In most cases, it sentences young ones to a life of poverty and lack of good role models.
Rising Narcissism and Anarchy
An awful lot of rioting is happening around America these days due to racial tension and exploitation. I know this can’t be directly attributed to the Sexual Revolution, but let’s be reminded of this: The essence of the Revolution was rebellion against authority–God, parents, police and others. At the root of the original movement was a spirit of anarchy and chaos which said, “I will do what I want with my body or to others.”
A couple generations later, that same spirit is once again manifest in American streets and neighborhoods.
Mushrooming Financial Debt
What does sexual promiscuity have to do with trillions of dollars of debt?” More than we realize.
I learned this consequence of the Sexual Revolution by looking at various charts. For example, if you read the Washington Post article you’ll notice a number of graphs that the authors use to demonstrate the rise of single motherhood and dissolution of the family. They show the uptick beginning in the fifties through seventies then exploding upward to the present time.
It’s exactly the same graph as the uptick in illicit sexual activity i.e. the Revolution. America’s debt bomb mirrors our sexual confusion. So what’s the connection?
People who cheat in marriage or relationships will do the same thing with money. When you’re living for pleasure or the next conquest, it’s all about the “now” without thought of the future. In the financial realm, the same spirit is in operation–living for today and not saving for the future.
In other words, the same character that rebels against God-ordained sex will do the same thing with finances. Lack of self control in one inevitably produces lack of self control in the other. The graphs are the same.
For hundreds of years, most Americans believed in God’s ideal for marriage and family. During that era, they also generally practiced his principles of financial stewardship. Debt was taboo and limited. So was illicit sex.
When the Sexual Revolution erupted fifty years ago, it produced the debt mentality that now enslaves us in trillions of dollars of borrowed money–both personal and corporate. Sexual atheists beget financial atheists. Unfortunately, they now occupy the power structures of our once wiser nation–with a day of reckoning coming.
That’s how the Sexual Revolution changed the world.
We need a new Jesus Revolution to reverse it.
A Tortured Report and Forgotten American Value
I think everybody in the universe now knows that Democrats in the United States Senate recently released a 6200 page report on what they call torture. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) were done on select jihadist extremists for a few months following 9-11 to try and save American lives.
It’s been a major story on the mainstream media for the past week. They call it “The Torture Report.” I call it “A Tortured Democratic Report That Will Cost More Americans Lives.”
Why is the report tortured, and what forgotten American value does it blatantly overlook?
As you now know, Republicans on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee refused to participate in the 40 million dollar project, pushed by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), because they smelled a rat that reeked of selective memory, hypocrisy and lying for political ends.
President Obama also weighed in on the report on December 9 while speaking to Jose Diaz-Balart on the Spanish version of MSNBC (Telemundo). He said, “We took some steps [in torturing jihadist detainees] that were contrary to who we are, contrary to our values.”
Before we analyze that statement, let’s recount the history.
History
On September 11, 2001, the United States homeland was savagely attacked by Muslim jihadists who believed that they would each be rewarded with seventy virgins in heaven for murdering innocent people.
They wickedly and premeditatively killed nearly three thousand American citizens of many races on that fateful day–the greatest slaughter on American soil since Pearl Harbor. They would have murdered more people if it weren’t for some brave passengers aboard American Flight 93 who thwarted their plan to fly a plane into the Capitol Building.
Their goal, according to one official, was to “decapitate” the American nation–financially (Twin Towers), militarily (Pentagon), and politically (Capitol Building–the assumed target of Flight 93).
This barbaric act by Al Qaida, and its leader, Usama bin Laden, fanned into flame the Global War on Terror that is still being fought in many parts of the world.
Lies and Hypocrisy
Erick Erickson of Redstate reveals the essence of the deception involved in the Democratic Report:
“Democrats, who spent a number of years being advised of what the CIA was doing to extract information from enemy terrorists, released a report claiming we were torturing bad guys. Further, they claimed that we were gaining no valuable information from that torture.”
“Individuals in the intelligence community have pointed out, mostly to deaf ears in the press, that (1) these same Democrats were well briefed for years; (2) there were no objections at the time; (3) we did, in fact, learn useful intelligence that kept us safe; and (4) none of the intelligence officers who were involved in the interrogations of the bad guys were interviewed by the Democrats.”
That’s what makes it a tortured report. Former Vice President Dick Cheney called it a “piece of crap.”
I agree.
And very expensive manure at that. Think how many poor children could be fed or educated with 40 million dollars.
The Democratic Party, now pumping their chests about American values and sniveling about us owning up to past mistakes, are, first of all, lying about the history. The former head of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program, Jose Rodriguez, has stated publicly they he and others from the CIA briefed all the principles involved at least forty times during the months following 9-11.
Rodriguez says that none of our national leaders at that time questioned their activities or asked them to stop what they were doing to extract information from terrorists that could save American lives. In fact, they asked him to “do more if necessary” to get the information that might prevent further attacks.
In all, twenty-six radical jihadists were interrogated using EITs. Only three, including the mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, were water-boarded.
Ten years later, leaders like Dianne Feinstein, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, appear to have selective amnesia about any of those meetings, their lack of concern about EITs, their support of the techniques, and the complete legality of the program.
Amazing how a desire to score political points damages brain cells.
On Monday, December 15, Megan Kelley interviewed a psychologist, James Mitchell, who helped design the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Program and used it on Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other terrorists.
The interview with Dr. Mitchell was one of the most poignant and honest interviews I have ever seen. You can watch it here. The highlights:
- Dr. James Mitchell talked in great detail how the EITs were used, humanely, sincerely, and legally to get information from terrorists who killed our fellow citizens. I was struck by the great care they took to guard the dignity of evil men–something the terrorists never did in killing our countrymen.
- All of the terrorists walked away from the EITs with no permanent damage, thus, no torture. The people killed in the Twin Towers did not walk away. They jumped from hundreds of feet, burned to death, or died in crushing rubble and pain.
- Dr. Mitchell was visibly angry that the Democrats never called him to get his side of the story and that they had “cherry-picked” aspects of the information to showcase their political temper tantrum.
- He now has death threats because of the exposure the report gave. He knew that a “fatwa” would be issued because of the release of the report. He knew that other Americans would die because of the chicanery of the Senate Democrats and their staffers.
- Dr. Mitchell did not strike me as a political man. He is a normal guy who loves his country and only got involved when he realized it was the least he could do to avenge the loss of thousands who died. He reported abuses of the program (as did others) and felt the use of EITs were not only legal, but truly the “moral high ground” if we hate evil and want to save lives.
As both Dick Cheney and James Mitchell clearly stated, the enhanced interrogation techniques that were used after 9-11 were appropriate, self-correcting, humanitarian, legal, held to high standards, left no permanent damage and were necessary to break the back and plans of evil people.
The American people agree. A recent Pew poll found that 56% of Americans believe the EITs helped save lives, 51% think the CIA methods were justified, and that “the public expresses the most doubt not about the CIA methods and program itself, but about the Senate committee’s decision to release its report”.
The CIA tortured no one. They acted humanely and justly in the context of war.
The Democrats, by exposing CIA and civilian patriots and ridiculing the means they used to defend America, are the real traitors here.
What they did was dishonest hypocrisy.
American values
Our president, vice president, Dianne Feinstein, and numerous other Democrats stated that the reason for the release of the report was about values, taking the high moral ground, and having the integrity to own up as a nation when mistakes were made.
Mistakes and abuses are always made because we are human beings. When good people or nations make mistakes, they are nothing compared to the barbarity demonstrated by those who intentionally hurt others.
As Americans, with a 230 history of civil polity based on biblical principles, we always take the moral high ground compared to the Hitlers, Stalins, Mao Tse Tungs, or Usama bin Ladens of the world. We value life, property, nations, and all human rights–and work hard to protect them.
There is no moral equivalence with the bad guys. We believe in human dignity which comes from God.
Evil people do not.
And we are at war. During human warfare, normal civil rules are suspended to combat evil. When our enemies commit murder, or are war criminals, they forfeit their normal human rights. We are morally mandated to do everything possible short of torture (causing permanent physical or pschological damage) to save the lives of the innocent.
God calls that “justice.”
By the way, in a God-fearing nation, wise leaders go after the bad guys and protect the good guys. In a godless nation, it’s reversed: Good guys are punished and bad guys treated leniently.
I guess that tells you who the Senate Democrats are. They blasted the good guys (American interrogators) and victimized the bad guys (murderous jihadists).
Remember that next time when you listen to bloviating politicians.
And when an American president implies that we shouldn’t use strong interrogation tactics on human beings that murdered 3000 of our fellow citizens, and lectures us that this is “against our values,” remember this:
A supreme value of a God-fearing nation and government is to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13).
The Democrats seem to have forgotten that most basic of truths.
Can We Have an Intelligent Debate About Corporal Punishment?
Fox News got it wrong–and that’s not a good sign.
Last Friday night, Sean Hannity anchored a newscast of experts to debate the Adrian Peterson child abuse situation. Peterson–a star running back for the Minnesota Vikings–was indicted for beating his four year old child with a switch that left welts, cuts, and bleeding that were still visible four days after the incident.
His case is one of a string of domestic violence problems that are currently rocking the NFL.
As to Peterson’s child abuse, most of the Sean Hannity Show participants ascribed to the notion that all corporal punishment is wrong. Others, like Sean, said that because some people in the South were raised that way, do we really want to put people in jail for punishing their kids?
I was frustrated as I watched.
Can we have an intelligent national debate about corporal punishment?
We better–or we will miss the wisdom of God and hurt our children and society.
Usually Fox News is pretty good about elevating the biblical worldview when it comes to public policy. Fox is not run by evangelicals, but it has strong Catholic roots with a clear conservative bent. Conservative views, in the main, are the Bible applied to social, economic, and national security issues. On the other hand, liberal politics generally follow more humanistic or secular values and mores.
Fox News is the most watched cable news station in America because it resonates with the majority of Americans who are either traditional, conservative, Bible-believing, common-sense people–or a mixture of the above.
But Fox whiffed Friday on corporal punishment.
The gallery of experts that Sean Hannity called together to talk about this issue seemed to be clearly divided to the extremes.
The majority of them were against any form of corporal punishment. They believed in “talking” to young children, giving them “time-outs,” or as Sean said, “taking away their machines as punishment.” (Actually, only teenagers should have their own I-Pads and cell phones, so this really doesn’t apply to smaller children.)
On the other hand, the minority felt that it was okay to punish kids as some people do in the Southern states or who have been raised in a Christian environment.
But no one clearly articulated the wisdom of biblical corporal punishment and how it should be done.
Even the Fox News Poll that drove the debate asked the wrong question. Here’s the wording: Do you believe it is wrong for parents to strike their children?”
68% said yes. 28% said no.
(The undecided were high on marijuana in Colorado or Washington State–just kidding.)
Notice the word strike–which almost sounds like a right-cross to the forehead. Other panelists used the word “hit” or “punish” as in “inflict a lot of damage.”
If we’re talking about striking, hitting, or shellacking a small, defenseless kid, then put me on the side of the no corporal punishment crowd. I never did any of those things to my six children when they were little. That would have been wrong.
The Bible, which is the basis on our common laws in America, puts this activity in the category of a crime which we call domestic battery or assault. People can’t get away with striking, hitting, or beating anybody that leaves severe damage or pain.
Especially vulnerable children.
Of course, normal life has always tolerated the school ground fight, the heated argument, or even the jealous wrestling match between two adversaries.
But when mundane human depravity turns to violence–striking and hitting that causes severe physical damage and pain–then the law brings in consequences to protect the vulnerable and innocent.
If Adrian Peterson beat his four-year-old child the way the pictures portray, then he needs to go to jail.
Period.
But he said he was just punishing his son with a switch like he learned from his own father. If Adrian Peterson’s father used a piece of wood to bloody and bruise little Adrian, they he should have gone to jail.
Period.
But there is another way–a better way–that the Bible clearly teaches is the best way to raise children.
In the modern vernacular, we call it loving discipline or spanking. Spanking is not striking, hitting, beating, or mutilating to cause severe damage. It is the loving and controlled use of a neutral object to cause fear of disobedience and respect for God-given authority.
There are numerous books on this subject that are based on the biblical wisdom. My favorite title is Larry Tomzcak’s God, the Rod, and Your Child’s Bod. Like many others, it lays out the principles of how we should correct or discipline our young children for their good.
Let me share the principles, then give you an example from my own experience.
Principles of Spanking (Loving Discipline)
1. It is only to be done on younger children who think concretely and don’t have the ability to understand abstract concepts. It is never to be used on older children or teenagers because they can be reasoned with and understand the importance of consequences.
2. It is never to be done in anger. Never. If you’re angry with your child for what they’re doing, then you need to settle down first before you represent God to them by bringing loving discipline.
3. Never use one of your own body parts (a hand or foot) as the tool of punishment. Use a neutral object so that the chastened child will associate the punishment with something separate from you. The Bible calls this a “rod.”
4. Never spank or discipline in a public place. If the child is defiant or acting up, take them from the room or public area and do the correction in private. Spankings should never humiliate the child in front of others.
5. Talk to the child so that they know what they are being punished for. Do it soberly and clearly showing your grief over their continued disobedience which has led to this moment.
6. Don’t spank often–only when there is defiance or continued disobedience. I only spanked my six kids a few times in their lives. After the first couple of disciplines, they learned quickly to respect my authority and avoid punishment.
7. Spank them primarily on their “bottoms” where God has provided ample fat cells and padding. Make it sting or hurt, but never enough to break the skin, bring welts, or cause bleeding. That would be assault and battery. Two or three swats is sufficient to place the fear of God and you in them.
8. After you finish spanking them, hold them in your arms to show your love and protection over their precious lives. Talk to them about how wrong it is to disobey and how you loved them enough to do something you hate to teach them to obey God-given authority.
9. Help dry their tears and send them on their way with a great lesson learned.
That is biblical corporal punishment. It’s what the all-wise God knows that we human beings need. It will help us grow to respect authority, have a healthy fear of sinful behavior, and desire the rewards of obedience. Those lessons will help us live a wise and successful life. (Biblical Basis: Proverbs 13:24, 19:18, 22:15, 23:14, 29:15, Ephesians 6:4, and Hebrews 12:6-7.)
Now here’s my story.
Our four year-old David was refusing to share his toys with his twin sister. I asked him on a number of occasions to share and play well with her. Instead, he defied me, kept grabbing them from her, and generally was being a small bully.
I finally said, “David, stop doing that and be nice to Bethany.” He turned to me in a look of defiance and said, “No!”
In three seconds, he knew he was in trouble.
I got up out of my chair and started moving toward the kitchen. In a special drawer there was a wooden spoon with a hole in it that everyone knew was the Boehme “rod.” (In later years we duct taped it and it became a famous family heirloom and source of many “wisdom-learning” memories.)
As I approached David with the spoon in my hand, his eyes got as big as saucers and he began to try and extract himself from his doom. “I’m sorry–I’m sorry,” he yelled to all in the room that would hear.
Unmoved, I picked him up with one arm while holding the spoon in the other. We then disappeared upstairs where the lesson would occur.
Sitting him down on his bed, with the door closed, I shared with David both what I was about to do and why I was doing it. The words went something like this:
“David, I love you very much. And because of that love I am going to spank you for being mean to your sister and not obeying me. I want you to learn to treat others properly and to learn to obey your parents. What I’m about to do will hurt me more than you.”
I then pulled David’s pants down to his knees and laid him face down across my lap. Using the wooden spoon, I gave him three quick swats on his behind with enough force to make it sting. David began to cry, and the spanking was over quickly.
Pulling his pants back up, and cradling him in my arms, I held David close and told him that I loved him enough to do something I hate doing to teach him the importance of obedience. I then prayed for him as he cuddled on my shoulder. After talking some more, and drying his tears, I took him back downstairs and he returned to playing.
He rarely disobeyed me again. Neither did any of the others. I was teaching my children through the loving use of discipline to fear punishment, learn to do what’s right, and respect authority.
Those are big lessons in a fallen world, and when we don’t teach them well, our kids grow up to be careless, rebellious, unloving, disrespectful, and unwise.
Can these lessons be learned through other means?
Sometimes.
But not with every kid. Some need tough love at an early age to learn that life is not about them–it’s about obeying God and others who are important in our lives.
I wish Fox News had laid out the case for wise, biblical discipline. It isn’t no to all corporal punishment or yes to child beating.
It’s the loving use of discipline for the good of our precious children.