My Quaker grandmother and her mother were “suffragettes” who were early 20th century “feminists” The feminist movement at that time believed in the “uniqueness” of femininity and the unique perspective that a women could give to the civic discourse. It was very much appreciated back then that women were different than men. The needs of “family and children” were underrepresented in the world of politics and government until women were given their voices. A small faction of feminists led by Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood embraced progressive ideas and aligned themselves in socialistic-fascist causes including eugenics. One of her Board Members at the Harlem Women’s Reproductive Clinic was W.E. B. Dubois who embraced Marxist ideologies and became a force for socialism against the Black Christian Theology of Booker T. Washington in the civil rights movement.
Both Dubois and Sanger would see their ideologies come to fruition in the mid-nineteen sixties in our country with Civil Rights ACT of 1965 and the introduction of birth control pills in 1966. Nothing has hurt families—the bedrock of American Culture, more than the social and political turmoil caused by the feminist and civil rights movements that were founded on Christian principles and today are following a progressive-Marxist ideology. The original Suffragettes and abolitionists would not recognize these movements and what they represent today.
In the sixties in some circles a man was held to a different standard when it came to matters of sex outside of marriage. One didn’t talk about “promiscuous men”, but a woman was held to a different standard for the same behavior. Ideas about sexuality and sexual norms for both sexes changed in the mid-sixties. Liberation meant being free to make both good and bad decisions. Sometimes a bad decision had devastating consequences, but just as devastating was the lie that both men and women would tell themselves to justify their bad decisions. When a culture evolves to justify bad decisions, it becomes easier to make those decisions and then excuse yourself “everybody else is doing it” a study in mass confirmation bias. I was part of that culture for a time in my life. Here are some of the lies that we told to ourselves:
- Not only is loveless sex fun—it is empowering to both men and women.
- No longer were only men led to erroneously believe that it was OK to “bed” a woman, women were led to believe that they were empowered when they seduced and “bedded” a man
- For a woman, being held in high esteem by a man and other women was confused with being desired
- Fun was just as important as intimacy
- Careers for men and women became more important than marriage and family
- Motherhood and mothers were no longer respected or venerated
- Sex became a means to an end; power—for both men and women
I am ashamed to say that I fell for several of these arguments. When the spiritual road crosses the road of materialism, you know that you have reached rock bottom. It doesn’t take waking up in jail, on the street. or in a rehab center. Filling the “holes in our hearts” with the wrong spirits and not admitting our sins and not asking for God to fill the one big hole that only He can fill, will lead to emptiness. Complete emptiness is rock bottom and there are many roads to get there. The good news is that God will forgive us if we admit our own individual sins.
Here is what I am concerned about. Families are important and everything we do should be to support our own families and spouses and then those in our communities.
The lies we have succumbed to in our own hearts are now becoming even more destructive than the acts the lies rationalized. Small lies like small corruptions always grow into bigger lies and bigger corruptions. I know both for a fact. Governments and corporations and even churches have bought into many of the lies that we see destroying the moral fabric of our society. Yesterday St. Luke’s announced they were going to be a center for transgender therapies including pharmacological and surgical treatments of transgender conditions in adolescents. It is easy to support a lie when there is money to be made in the process.
We have gone from celebrating God’s creation as told in Genesis 1-2—The sexual difference is the one difference within humanity that is prominent within the creation narrative. Not so with ethnic or racial differences. What does it mean when one says, “I’d rather be a man” or does it really mean” I would rather not be a woman” Who made you? If God made man and women in His image, what right do we have to unmake ourselves? Have we become our own gods. How arrogant.
Maybe the forces of evil have evolved and are now telling us a different story that is just as false. The lies that loveless sex doesn’t matter is now being retold:
“BIOLOGY DOES NOT MATTER!?”
In all of God’s creation, only man lying to himself could believe such a proposition. Denial and rationalization in all the animal kingdom are unique only to Man (and Woman)
When making arguments that may be so offensive to many people it should be stated that God loves you. You were made in his image and are perfect. Never forget that single fact. As I used to say to my kids when they complained that they weren’t made in the image of an NFL quarterback. “God doesn’t make junk”. You have talents and abilities that are unique to you and that only you can deploy. Taking a scalpel or a drug and rearranging those gifts like parts in an automobile engine leaves little opportunity or margin for a good outcome.
