Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Future of Playboy America
Probably nothing expresses the attitude of modern America toward sex than the Playboy logo. Huge Heffner was the prophet of the sexual revolution. We now speak of "recreational sex" as if it were a commonly accepted thing. Now the latest development is the growing acceptance of homosexuality, with several states already legalizing same sex marriage.
What does God think about sex? The short answer is given in Heb. 13:4: "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (NASV). Here there is both an encouragement and a warning. The encouragement is "Let marriage be held in honor among all . . ." Notice that it says "marriage," not "shacking up" or a "one night stand." Marriage is a life-long commitment between a man and a woman – a commitment that is solemn and binding. This, God says, should be "held in honor among all."
On the other hand there is a warning as well: "and let the marriage bed be undefiled." The marriage bed is "defiled" when it is shared with sexual partners other than one's own spouse. Sex is to be kept chaste and pure – an exclusive relationship with just one person.
To underscore the seriousness of this principle the exhortation is coupled with a solemn warning: "for fornicators and adulterers God will judge." Here God pronounces His judgment on crimes against marriage. "Fornicators" are those who engage in sex outside of marriage, while "adulterers" are those who break their marriage vows by having sex with other partners. In other words, sex is to be confined strictly to marriage, and all other sexual activity is illicit. So serious are these sins that in the Old Testament adultery was punishable by death. According to our text fornicators and adulterers face condemnation by God in the Last Judgment.
Sex was created by God, and in its proper context it can be a sublime experience – the celebration of the heartfelt love of a husband and wife for each other. But in our depravity we have trashed it – we have stolen it, commercialized it, made it the butt of crude jokes and used it as a weapon. We have dragged it through the slime of porno shops and red light districts. We are obsessed with it, yet we cheapen it and abuse it. That which was intended to be pure and beautiful we have soiled and tarnished. What we have done to sex is one of the greatest of all crimes.
Our modern permissive attitude toward sex is destroying us. 46 % of all American high school students have already had sexual intercourse, including 30% of ninth graders! One out of every two marriages ends in divorce. 40% of all children are born to unwed mothers, and 26% of all children live in single parent households We have devalued the institution of marriage and are paying a heavy price for it. The family is the basic building block of society, the chief means by which children are socialized. And when the family is gone, it is gone, and not likely to be replaced. We have lost the golden chain that links the generations together. It bodes ill for the future of America.
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Can you link a lack of religious adherence to causing these numbers to increase?
ReplyDeleteNo. You cannot because it's not true.
I can show compelling evidence that religious adherence is correlated to economic inequities and that economic inequities are correlated to greater social dysfunction represented by these increasing numbers.
In others words, if you want to improve these numbers, reduce religious adherence that promotes economic inequities.
But you don't really care about the root problems of other people's suffering or what's true in reality if it directly challenges your religious beliefs, do you Bob?
What good for the goose is good for the gander. First you ask me to a causal link between lack of religious adherence and out of wedlock births, but then you only require yourself to show a statistical correlation between religious adherence and economic inequities.
ReplyDeleteCan I show a direct causal link? Of course not. I can only offer a commonsense observation as a person who has lived through the "sexual revolution" of the 60's and 70's and seen the tremendous social changes that have taken place since then? Is single parenthood the result of sexual promiscuity? I suppose a scientist could build an argument based on statistics to prove otherwise, but you can find statistics to prove almost anything. (I live in the Marcellus Shale region of northern Pennsylvania, and we are treated with conflicting "scientific studies" on almost a weekly basis about the effects of hydrofracturing. Now critics are arguing that the outcome of the studies is determined by who did the funding!)
As for economic inequality, the real question is, what would a genuinely Christian economic system look like? Let's imagine, just for a moment, that you are a self-professed Christian politician (I realize that in your particular case this would require a considerable stretch of the imagination). You are currently running for President of the US and have been invited to address a group of bankers and stock brokers on Wall St. What would you tell them? What would your economic program look like? What would be consistent with what Jesus Himself actually said?
Can I show a direct causal link? Of course not. I can only offer a commonsense observation as a person...
ReplyDeleteThe plural of anecdote is not data.