We’re in the midst of the
fastest and widest reaching revolution in all of human history and you're a victim of it without even knowing. When you laugh at Monica and Chandler sneaking around to sleep together on "FRIENDS," read Fifty Shades of Grey to find out what all the fuss is about, or roll your eyes at yet another overly provocative Victoria Secret commercial, you're experiencing the outcome of a revolution that ushered in a very radically new understanding of sexuality. Historians and sociologists have called this cultural wave that we're all caught up in "The Sexual Revolution." There is no life that has been untouched by this, regardless
of whether you are a Boomer, Gen X, Millennial or generation Z. (My girls are in
Z.) This is the air we breathe and what we consider normal.
The Sexual Revolution started with my parents' generation in the Sixties with the Free Love hippie movement, the advent of no-fault divorce, and the availability of a new invention called birth control. The Sexual Revolution was going to liberate humanity from outdated sexual taboos and bring us into a new age of human flourishing.
The cultural landscape has shifted so dramatically in the last 50 years that historians say we still can even begin to calculate or understand the full impact of the Sexual Revolution for at least another 100 to 200 years because we’re still in the middle of the wave and it hasn't even crested yet. It very well may be that the Sexual Revolution will have more significant impact on our world than the French Revolution of the 1700s or the Communist Revolutions of the 1900s.
Charles Taylor summarizes the Sexual Revolution well in his
book A Secular Age. Taylor coined the term the “Age of Authenticity.” Authenticity
is defined as being unique as opposed to conforming. So now the purpose of life is NOT to know God and enjoy him
forever but rather to “self-actualize,” which is a fancy way of saying make up
your own meaning. You decide who you are and what works for you instead of conforming to whatever your authority, society, parents, etc, say.
All you have to do is watch a movie to see that this really is the dominate narrative of our culture. We love the idea of casting off the
restrains of society so that we can finally express ourselves. As Trevin Wax makes very clear in his excellent lecture at the 2015 TGC Conference, in the Age of Authenticity everything else must bow to our individual self-expression.
The essence of self-expression is seen foremost in how we understand our sexuality. So now the gender of our bodies doesn’t matter much and our sexual activity doesn’t matter much; the only thing that matters is our self-actualization and happiness, so Viva La Revolution.
So now old Christian virtues like chastity, purity and self-control aren’t just old fashioned or out-dated but they're now seen as repressive, psychologically and physiologically
harmful, and inhumane. Couples are ridiculed for not moving in together, singles are humiliated for not having sex, and porn is so prevalent that we have to buy blockers, filters, and apps to not see it. The Christian view of sexuality is seen as regressive and harmful because telling someone to not act on a sexual feeling is to deny their
self-expression – which cuts at the root of the modern "purpose of life": to express
yourself and be authentic to yourself.
The Sexual Revolution is heralded as progressive, enlightened, and freeing but there are disastrous results and we shouldn’t be ashamed to say
so. Let me give you an example.
Marilyn Monroe
When you think of Marilyn Monroe you
think classic Americana: glamorous, beautiful, young, playful. Marilyn Monroe was the original Hollywood sex
symbol. Yet what most younger people don't know was how tragic her life actually was. According to her biographer, Marilyn had 12 abortions
before she was 29 years old. She was married three times, all ending in divorce, and she tragically committed suicide by overdose at 34.
A sexuality without
limits, consequences or taboos will
collapse under the weight of its own self-centeredness.
I'm millennial according to sociologists, and I've seen personally and experienced tragically the enormous consequences and fallout of this revolution both in my life, my family, and my community.
- Pornography started gaining widespread acceptance with the launch of Playboy Magazine in 1953 and now makes $14 Billion dollars a year. Statistically most kids are exposed at age 8 and the greatest consumers of online porn are 12-17 year old boys. Imagine that the primary shaping influence of the entire next generation of young men's understanding of women and sex and sexuality is coming from perverted, unquenchable, lustful, and profoundly greedy pornographers. The editor of Esquire Magazine said recently in an interview: "The women we feature in the magazine are ornamental. I could lie to you if you want and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified." Sex makes money and because lust, by definition, is never satisfied, the porn industry dances on the wreckage of sexual innocence, sexual purity, and sexual self-control with 14 billion dollars in hand!
- Molestation - The numbers are heartbreaking but every number is a person, every person has a story, and every story matters. Statistically and tragically 1 and 3 girls and 1 and 6 boys have been sexually assaulted, molested and abused.
- Fornication – This Old-English word refers to sex before marriage. The fact that almost nobody even uses this word anymore shows the complete transition of our culture's moral framework. Now only 1 in 30 college students stay sexually pure before marriage and only for religious reasons. The ideas of sexual purity, self-control, and honoring your future spouse are seen as foolish, backwards, and regressive and not noble, beautiful, and exemplary.
- Abortion – Over 56 million children have been killed in abortions since 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade. A whole generation of future scientists, teachers, writers, inventors, doctors, film-makers and engineers murdered before doing anything! These babies did nothing wrong; they are innocent victims. They violated no law except by their very existence they threatened the parents' "right" to continued sexual self-expression and in the Age of Authenticity everything else must bow to our individual self-expression.
- Cohabitation – This has quickly become the new normal in my life time with over 54% of couples now cohabiting before marriage. Asking a girl to move in with you use to be the next big step before marriage. Cohabiting was the test drive stage, but it is now actually becoming the replacement for marriage. Statistically, cohabitation isn’t practice for marriage but practice for divorce.
- Divorce – With the introduction of "No Fault" divorce in 1970 now 50% of all marriages end in divorce. That means that statistically marriage has about much a chance as a coin toss, so it's no wonder that many millennials think the institution of marriage itself is dead. Below is a figure on the rates of divorce.
- Adultery – According to one survey 35% husbands and 30% of wives cheat on their spouse. But the idea of cheating is also becoming obsolete with open-marriages, swingers, and wife-swapping. Marriage is no longer seen as a sexually exclusive relationship between a husband and wife but perhaps a partnership in which each individual can be "free" to venture out on sexual conquest for more adventurous sexual encounters with multiple partners.
This list doesn't even begin to mention gender confusion, sexually transmitted diseases, sex trafficking, sex-slavery and on and on. The Sexual Revolution was praised as liberation, enlightenment, and freedom but statistically, historically, and personally I believe the Sexual Revolution has shows itself to be a Pandora's box of anarchy, unquenchable lust, and profound brokenness.
The idea the Sexual Revolution has brought about human flourishing is false!
You can learn about God's good design for human sexuality in my sermon Proverbs: Wise Sexuality
You can learn about God's good design for human sexuality in my sermon Proverbs: Wise Sexuality
