#505

Is This The End Of America?

This Has Happened Before

Back in the late 1930s an Oxford sociologist by the name of J. D. Unwin did a study of 80 tribes and 6 civilizations over 5,000 years and saw one similarity between them all that led to their demise. Here is how an article I found from breakpoint.org summarizes it:

It is not normal or healthy for a culture to talk about sex this much. From Pride month to education to companies telegraphing their commitments to inclusion and diversity, to just about every commercial, movie, or TV show produced today, sexual identity is treated as if it is central to human identity, human purpose, and human happiness. And this vision of life and the world is especially force-fed to children, who are essentially subjects of our social experimentations.

The authors then pointed to the aforementioned Unwin to make their point:

“If the energy spent talking about sex is disproportionate, it’s important to know there were some who saw this coming. The best example is Oxford sociologist J.D. Unwin. In 1939, Unwin published a landmark book summarizing his research. Sex and Culture was a look at 80 tribes and six historical civilizations over the course of five millennia, through the lens of a single question: Does a culture’s ideas of sexual liberation predict its success or collapse? ”

Unwin’s findings were overwhelming:

“Just as societies have advanced [and] then faded away into a state of general decrepitude, so in each of them has marriage first previously changed from a temporary affair based on mutual consent to a lifelong association of one man with one woman, and then turned back to a loose union or to polygamy. ”

And then they gave us the money quote:

What’s more, Unwin concluded, 

The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.

In essence Unwin, who was not making a religious distinction in his study and actually stated as much, saw that the way a society controlled its sexual urges was a direct indicator of how disciplined it was as a society overall. The breakpoint.org article added this:

Unwin saw a pattern behind societies that unraveled. If three consecutive generations abandoned sexual restraint built around the protections of marriage and fidelity, they collapsed. 

Simply put, sexuality is essential for survival. However, sexuality is such a powerful force, it must be controlled or else it can destroy a future rather than secure it. Wrongly ordered sexuality is devastating for both individuals and entire societies.

Unwin’s conclusions can be boiled down to a single issue. Are people living for the future, with the ability to delay gratification, or are they focusing only on the here and now? When a culture fails to restrain its sexual instincts, people think less about securing the future and instead compromise the stability, productivity, and the well-being of the next generation in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. 

From Prosperous To Promiscuous

That’s essentially what Unwin is telling us here. And it’s not like the examples aren’t there for us to see. It happened to the Greeks, it happened to the Romans. Fortunately historians were able to document what happened for future generations to learn from unless they did what philosopher George Santayana famously told us that Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Are we living in that infamous third generation now? I think we are and it’s not hard to see it if we’re open and intellectually honest about it. Going back to the breakpoint.org article we read this:

According to Pew Research, almost 90% of children lived with two married parents in 1960. By 2008 that number had dropped to just 64%. Over the same period, the percentage of kids born to unmarried women rose from 5% to 41%. There is really no question of how this impacts children. Studies show that teens from single-parent or blended families are 300% more likely to need psychological assistance, twice as likely to drop out of high school, and more likely to commit suicide. They end up with less college education and lower–paying jobs than their parents and are more likely to get divorced themselves. 

Then the authors stated that this is simply an issue of numbers and then backed it up with statistics any of us can find:

This is not because children from non-traditional homes have less potential or less value. Nor do stable two-parent families guarantee outcomes for children. Statistics do not determine the future of an individual, but they can identify the future of a society. On a civilizational level, the future is a matter of math.

The early days of the sexual revolution reframed the morality of sexual behavior, but today it’s gone further, undermining the already fragile identity in the rising generation, fraying it in the various directions of the ever-growing acronym of sexual identities. Anywhere from 1 in 5 to nearly 40% of young people identify as LGBTQ today. Or, in the case of one junior high class in the Northeast I heard of recently, “all of them do.”

A Little Fatalistic

Some people, especially inside the evangelical community are taking the tack that there’s nothing more we can do about things, that we’re well past the tipping point. All we can do now is try and hold on to what little sanity we have and wait until Jesus rescues us in the Rapture. If you know me at all you know how much I bristle at that defeatist, despondent, demeanor. It’s certainly not going to help things change and it’s definitely not found anywhere in the Bible. We are to be the very active partners in the actual restraint of the Antichrist spirit. A healthy dose of the lyrics from the famous hymn Onward Christian Soldiers is in order now:

At the sign of triumph

Satan's host doth flee;

On, then, Christian soldiers,

on to victory!

Hell's foundations quiver

at the shout of praise;

Brothers, lift your voices,

loud your anthems raise!

This is not the time to be like Gideon, cowering in the winepress doing work in the dark that should be done in the light. He was filled with fear and doubt but God told him this:

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” (Judges 6:12, NIV)

Granted, Gideon had good reason to be living in fear as the previous verses attest. The Midianites were being used as an instrument of judgment because the Israelites turned their back on God and were living like the Amorites that God told them to not do. And I might add they were doing the same things that secular America is doing as they practiced divination, sorcery, and child sacrifice (see Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:9-14). But God allowed Gideon to prevail against a gigantic army and He did it with just 300 men.

The Task Is Large – But Winnable

Yes, America is showing all the signs of decline and according to Unwin we are destined to fall. However, just as the Israelites defeated the Amorites and Midianites, we can, too. But it will take perseverance and a strong reliance on God’s wisdom to navigate all the linguistic traps that Satan has developed. Yes, it will most certainly mean we’ll have to break up the demonic spiritual foundation through fasting and intercession, but as my pastor growing up always liked to tell us, we need to put legs on those prayers. I like how the breakpoint.org article summarizes the attitude the Church must take now:

Christian faithfulness in this cultural moment must involve the protection of children and a commitment to the future of society. At the very least, that means speaking up, especially when it is unpopular to do so. Along the way, we will have to reject the “inevitability thesis,” the notion that all is lost and that things will only get worse so nothing we do matters. With courage and unconditional love for our neighbor, we continue to speak the truth. 

They also tell us that we need to soundly reject what we are being told what is ordinary:

And we will need to remind ourselves and each other of something that should be obvious but is not: The ideas and behavior of the late sexual revolution are not normal. Nor is our fascination and focus on sexuality as the central defining factor in human existence and value.

They conclude saying this:

Human sexuality is not some arbitrary construct like a speed limit. It is as much a part of the fabric of life as gravity. We may deny that, but we will not avoid the pain of hitting the ground if we do.

As a society we are hitting the ground but we are somehow carelessly ignoring it. Regardless of the enormity of the task before us, all Goliaths can be felled. I encourage us to find ways to put stones in our slings, stones of ministries fighting sex trafficking and ministries of helping unwed mothers to not abort their pre-born babies. Of course we also need to be doing the most eternally beneficial act which is leading people to Jesus.