Thoughts on this day —

By: American Decency Staff

By Bill Johnson 'We paid the price for free love': The flip side of the sexual revolution My son referred me to the article above entitled ‘We paid the price for free love’:  The flip side of the sexual revolution. Yes, I came through the so-called sexual revolution.  God was gracious. I could have become much more confused and rebellious than what I became for that  period of my life. Quoting the writer of the  article:  “Whenever I reveal I was young in the 1960s, people’s eyes grow round with envy. ‘Lucky you!’ they say. Then they add, saucily: ‘But of course they say that if you can remember the 60s you weren’t there!’ Well, I was there and I can, unfortunately, remember the 60s all too well. And although I’ve no doubt it was a fantastic – or ‘fab’ as we used to say – time for men, for women (or young girls as we were then) it was absolutely grisly….â€Â You’ll want to read the article for yourself. But here’s my account. I was raised by the parents who were part of the greatest generation.  Born in 1946, I remember the very early years of television:  black and white tv only, with limited hours of programming because television was in its infancy.  Right always prevailed.  The bad guy was always clearly bad.  The good guy was always clearly good.  There weren’t mixed messages sent.  For the most part, people wanted to be like the good guys not the bad. There was no sexual innuendo.  There were positive role models all about. It truly was a great time to be raised up in the fifties and early sixties.  There was a great sense yet of community, shared values of right and wrong, good and evil, love of country, modesty, decency, civility.  The Lord’s Day was even honored as very, very few places of business were open.   Even for someone like me who was largely unchurched, I noted that Sunday was a quiet day where people stayed home with their families. Things still seemed pretty calm into the early sixties. I graduated from high school in 1965 and still saw very little signs of the sexual revolution that was about to unfold. I was a freshman at Michigan State University in the fall of 1965. Some of the early signs of change for me (in retrospect) were seen as network television began to push against the early controls that kept television from pressing sexual innuendo upon its viewers.  Early shows that began to press sex talk ever so slightly and humorously were the “Rowan and Martin Laugh Inâ€Â and the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hourâ€Â (a summer series). Then little by little it became programs like “All in the Familyâ€Â, “Maudeâ€Â (where the old taboos were subtley attacked,  and many, many other shows that became far worse than those.  Movies, too, began to aggressively attack basic standards of civility. AFA founder Donald E. Wildmon often would ask the question “Who is America’s most influential evangelist in our day?â€ÂÂ  His answer was Norman Lear the producer of the sitcoms mentioned above (All in the Family, Maude, etc..)  because millions were attuned to these attacks upon family values and, indeed, they were unwittingly being shaped. This all seemed to get ramped up by the growing cynicism rooted on college campuses like Michigan State University  further fueled by the growing anti-war, anti-establishment world view that was propagated both formally and informally and by a growing distaste for the Vietnam War.  Protests marches became a regular thing on college campuses.   Rebellion, disrespect for leadership, the Presidency, for God, for authority figures of any kind. Being a college student on a campus of 40,000 during these days was one of the great tests of my young life.  I wasn’t faith-based.  I was vulnerable to the shifting sands of time, to the shifting morality.  I just found out a few days ago that my very best university friend died of AIDS in 2001.  I had had concerns about him many years ago. It was during these years that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.  This news was broken to us in a college night class.  It cut deeply.  What kind of country are we becoming?  Many of us were already hurting.  War, protests, increasing incivility, the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, etc., increasing cynicism and attacks upon decency, goodness, honor. Here are a few things that I took away from those years in being in such an acidic atmosphere: 1)  You can never have enough spiritual moral leadership at any and all levels. Leadership ultimately collapses under a lack of integrity, honor, truth, righteousness and humility. 2) We are impacted by what we watch and view.  When our airwaves are filled with dirty things, it doesn’t take long for it to work its way into homes, parents and children. 3) Without God leading us personally, in our homes, churches, schools and communities, we will not have God leading us in our nation. 4) As God, the Ten Commandments, and Biblical principles of living and life are dishonored, trampled upon and replaced by whatever is more convenient, or decided upon by a man or by the majority, we lose and we will ultimately lose God’s blessing, and our liberty. 5)  The love of my parents and the goodness that they showed to me was always there in the background even when I was doing some really foolish things.    Because of their love for me and because I didn’t want them to be ashamed of me, I only went so far and no further. 6) I truly believe that God used this awful period of time at Michigan State University to set me up to ask a couple of simple questions:  a. Is this what it’s all about?  b.  Is this the best I can do? 7) I became a Christian at the age of 23.  I began to see that there is a world view that takes all of the discord, angst, sorrow, degradation, injustice, failure, hypocrisy of man and makes sense out of it all. For forty-one years, I have tested that worldview,  my  Christian faith, day in and day out in parenting (which hasn’t always gone as I would have liked), at the workplace (as once upon a teacher in the public schools for 18 years), in the church (which also is imperfect because Christians aren’t perfect but are in the process of being perfected).  The anchor has held. Now we are in the midst of great discord once again.  Will it ever end? The answer is sadly, no. Not this side of Heaven. Now that I’m a parent and a grandparent, a spiritual leader of a ministry that I love, I hope to finish well as my Dad did.  Help me Lord to be what you want me to be. Your support is important to our ability to make a difference. Donate online at: https://secure4.afo.net/ada/donate.php American Decency Association is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. American Decency Association Bill Johnson, President P.O. Box 202 Fremont, MI 49412 ph: 231-924-4050 www.americandecency.org http://www.twitter.com/billwjohnson

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