During August, leading news sources covered with a great deal of interest the twists and turns of a business based on pornography. Maybe it was a complete hoax, a publicity stunt, but first OnlyFans banned "adult content" from the platform but quickly went on to announce a reprieve. Given its prevalence, sympathetic publicity of the impact on sex workers' income may have been behind the policy reversal.
So, during the month we observed normal business news item being interspersed with the affairs of "sex workers" and conjecture about how customers might be affected by a service breakdown in the provision of pornographic "products"!
What's odd about this type of "news" is how it fits into the commonplace pattern of acceptance of immorality. A perspective that the behaviour involved is undermining society is lacking completely. The issue is also how this amoral mindset is, day by day, being absorbed by society at large through such influences.
Another example of Western societies' loss of their moral compass and its likely impact is highlighted by a sports fan who followed the Summer Olympics intently. He writes about his family watching the American TV coverage:
Every day we were taught to celebrate men weightlifting as women or to smile as a male diver talked about his husband. Every commercial break was sure to feature a same-sex couple, a man putting on makeup, or a generic ode to expressive individualism. And of course, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird were nearly ubiquitous. If America used to be about motherhood and apple pie, it’s now about birthing persons and lesbian soccer stars hawking Subway sandwiches.
Then he puts those comments into a broader context:
Some will object at this point that the last paragraph is filled with a toxic mix of homophobia, heteronormativity, cisgender privilege and a host of other terms that were virtually unknown until five minutes ago. But those labels are not arguments against biblical sexual morality so much as they represent powerful assumptions that no decent person could possibly believe that homosexuality is sinful behavior, that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that switching genders is a sign of confusion more than courage.
What NBC presented as heroic and wonderful was considered wrong and troublesome by almost everyone in the Christian West for 2,000 years. Is it possible that instead of deconstructing the beliefs that have marked Christianity for two millennia, we might want to deconstruct the academic jargon our culture has only come to affirm within my lifetime? Remember, it was only in 2008—hardly the dark days of the Middle Ages—that Barack Obama said he did not support marriage for same-sex couples.
This blog has many times addressed the concern that certain lines of thought have shaped the way we think so that, for many of us, rationalism, consumerism, and individualism are like the air we breathe. This blog regularly points out the lapses in science, where practitioners are so blinkered by a series of assumptions about the nature of the human person, and of the cosmos, that they fail to see the rich vein of research possibilities that an openness to spiritual reality offers. Check out this blog's archive for many relevant posts.
Our featured writer, Kevin DeYoung, gets down to the nitty-gritty:
The Christian family, Christian church, and Christian school must not assume that the next generations will accept the conclusions that seem so obvious to older generations. We must talk about the things our kids are already talking about among themselves. We must disciple. We must be countercultural. We must prepare them to love and teach them what biblical love really means. We must pass on the right beliefs and the right reasons for those beliefs.
We must prepare our children—and be prepared ourselves—that following Christ comes with a cost (Luke 9:23). The Jesus who affirmed marriage as between a man a woman (Matt. 19:4-6), the Jesus who warned of the porneia [disordered desires] within (Mark 7:20-23), the Jesus who warned against living to be liked by others (John 12:43), this Jesus demands our total allegiance (Matt. 28:20).
The world is already busy promoting its catechism. The only question is whether we will get busy promoting ours.
We promote our Christian beliefs within our family first. Therefore, parents must be strong themselves in order to pass on a rich legacy. That parents can resist the invitations from neighbours or colleagues to betray their Christian instincts, will provide children with a life lesson in how to withstand the powerful pressure of peers.
Read The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation and Live Not By Lies, both by concerned American parent, journalist Rod Dreher. He has powerful insights into the way the sexual revolution has created a true transformation of the moral foundation of society. This bombshell has now been coupled with Critical Justice Theory, launching all kinds of "rights" into the midst of an population ignorant of where the basis for human rights came from, namely, the revelation that we are made in the image of God.
In addition, parents must limit their own use of social media, other devices and TV, and thereby provide a model for their children.
Another point made on this blog has been that couples should be generous in planning the size of their family. That decision will guide parents in many other important areas of decision-making, such as how to create a work-life balance, and in the need to rein-in ambitions that those enamoured by the world pursue.
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