Raised by the Culture

During my recent trip to Israel and Rome, I heard the comment several times, "You Americans are just too busy!"  At first, our tour group found it difficult to sit down and enjoy a meal lasting at least two hours - that didn't start till nearly 8 p.m. The first evening, we thought the plentiful display of appetizers was the main course.  We were full and finished.  Then the servers brought out several meats, then came the pasta dish, then, the desserts!  One night we even met the ancient cook who had handmade the pasta!  We were not used to the slower, more genteel way of life.  (Please see my travel blog account of this trip, October 21 through November 3, 2013 at www.rockingthruworld.blogspot.com.

Our extreme busyness in our quest to "do it all" or "be all you can be" may be a partial explanation for our downright neglect of our young people's moral upbringing. Now, in this dire economy, some may be working harder just to make ends meet; you do what you have to do.

Our young people - all the ones in school and the young adults - have more clothes and toys than ever before, so much so, many of them are bored.  Yet they spend an inordinate amount of time watching TV, surfing on the internet, texting with their I-phones, and listening to what they call 'music.'  This is the influence of "the Culture."

Who is teaching them morals?  Not parents, most are too busy.  What kind of morals do children have if they're raised by the TV?  The morals that an old granny like me would call too liberal and too loose.  They are extremely tolerant - of everything short of murder, if you don't mention abortion.  Then they're tolerant of everything. Mind you, most young people know abortion involves killing an unborn baby, but they don't want to 'impose their morality on anyone else.'  What about the baby?

Many young people go with the popular culture and have very low standards of sexual behavior.  The highest feeling is that sex is OK anytime, any place, with the person of your choice, just one person at a time.  There is no right and no wrong.  This is called Relativism.  Relativism ignores all the tragedies that occur because of that loose behavior: the S.T.D.s, the sterility, the abuse, the pornography, etc.

And where are our churches in all this?  Recent church attendance statistics show only 17% to 24% of Americans attend church regularly.  If the parents expect the church to teach their children morals, the church can't attempt to do this if the family does not come at least on Sundays.

Youngsters under 40 years of age have no memory of the time in America where every adult 'protected' children from knowledge of evil, until they were almost adults.  The culture of the day said that children deserved a good childhood.  Movies weren't rated, but, if they were, the ratings would all be "G."  Curse words were not permitted on television.  In ads for every media, women were modestly dressed.  Girls were not permitted (and none of us cared about it anyway) to use make-up until they were in 9th grade.  We were protected but still told what was right and what was wrong.

What happened?  The combination of courts inventing rights of privacy, allowing rampant pornography, the "Playboy" culture that valued women and girls as sex objects, the extreme feminist agenda, Vietnam and the drug availability, quick and easy no-fault divorces and, probably the most important, good people just watching it happen.

Is this all Gloom and Doom and Hopelessness?  Hardly.  I see more and more young people looking for moral behavior for the right reasons.  While my generation didn't have sex before marriage because we were terrified of embarrassing ourselves and our parents by getting pregnant and not married, many young people today are remaining virgins and dressing modestly because it is the right thing to do. We need to do our part to encourage this, whether it is voting for politicians with high family values, modeling that staunch good moral behavior ourselves, and being a witness at church.  God loves us and will help us in everything, if we but ask.