Image via WikipediaThe decade of the sixties evoked what was perhaps the most far reaching, epochal revolution in American history. The revolution was unbloody in some respects—if bloodiness is perceived strictly in terms of violent revolution carried out in military fashion. Yet this revolution wrought far more changes to the cultural behavior of America than the bloody War of Independence fought against England in the 18th Century. This war of independence was a war fought not against King George but against the King of the Cosmos, God Himself It reflected the passions of the earthly kings in Psalm 2 who declared “Let us cast His bonds from off us.”
The Sixties witnessed the beginning of a cultural war that was framed in the rhetoric of a war of liberation. The cause of freedom that fueled the Revolutionary War was now draped in the flag of free speech, free sex, and freedom from oppression. Not only from civil law did these enemies of democracy demand freedom, but from the oppression of natural law and the eternal law of God as well. It was a culture war drawn by the primordial grasp for moral autonomy, championed first by the archenemy of humanity who promised seductively, “You shall be as gods.”
In the 19th Century, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his doctoral dissertati
Image via Wikipediaon comparing two conflicting models present in ancient Greek culture: the model of Apollo and the model of Dionysus. Apollo was the god of Greek high culture that stressed a teleological motif—a commitment to purpose, harmony, and proportionality. Dionysus symbolized the chaotic and the sensual which was expressed in the orgiastic freedom of the uninhibited eroticism which undergirded a religion of sex dramatized later in the Roman Bacchanalia. After consideration, Nietzsche threw his lot with Dionysus, arguing for a new social conscience that would supplant the herd morality of the masses who were repressed by the decadent weakness of the influence of Judeo-Christianity. In Nietzsche’s eyes, the morality rooted in the Scriptures kept the authentic individual in chains, doomed to sacrifice his most basic human drive, the “will to power.” He awaited the arrival of a “Superman” (der Uebermensch) who would assume the role of the conqueror to set people free from the chains of belief in the existence of God. Nietzsche’s Superman would then fill the vacuum left by the so-called death of God.Adolph Hitler, before his meteoric rise to power in Germany, once sent Christmas presents to his brown-shirted henchmen. The presents were copies of Nietzsche’s most famous work Also Sprache Zarathustra. The Bavarian Corporal sought, in his own distorted way, to implement Nietzsche’s biological heroism by creating a master race. He failed as the nations of the world rose up in opposition to his dementia.
Sadly, what Hitler failed to accomplish with his Blitzkrieg, the unbloody sons of Nietzsche have accomplished in large measure in the West—a liberation from God that rests in the root impetus of “sexual liberation.”
The gay rights movement is only one small aspect of the broader liberation war. This war is fought on several fronts. It includes the abuses of “free-speech,” abortion-on-demand, no-fault divorce and “open-sex.” And what do gay liberation, abortion, pornography, no-fault divorce, and “open-sex” all have in common? The answer is as easy as it is obvious: sex. This human drive is now liberated from all forms of oppression that would deny us our inalienable right to pleasure—and pleasure is seen as necessary to human happiness. The war of liberation has freed us from the tyranny of Queen Victoria, the Puritan Ethic, and above all, from the dehumanizing control of Yahweh, the narrow and primitive God of the Old Testament Hebrews.
I have called this liberation movement “unbloody” in quotes, as though it has been accomplished without military weapons, but it has not been without its casualties. The blood of millions of unborn babies, the blood of AIDS victims, the blood of victims of pornographic violence, and the carnage of the destruction of the American family, together have not scorched the earth, but saturated it. The blood of the victims of this war screams from the ground as millions of modern Abels plead for vindication from the hands of their brother, Cain.
Perhaps the greatest casualty in this war is the casualty of sin itself. Sin has been defeated not by virtue, but by the wholesale rejection of the very categories of virtue and vice. In the context of moral relativism, these categories no longer carry any meaning. The only sin that remains is the evil of being politically incorrect—a traitor to the cause of the New Independence; a collaborator with the so-called wicked forces of Paul, Moses, and God.
Even the church rushes to accept the laurels of the victors—falling all over herself to accommodate the changes wrought by the Revolution. The church craves relevance and acceptance. Like the Bishops who endorsed Stalin and the ministers who sanctioned Hitler, the church rushes to play catch-up with the culture. It pronounces that the Revolution is merely God’s way of declaring to us His favor. He loves us “unconditionally” we are told by the so-called evangelists. We can have reconciliation without repentance, the Kingdom without the Cross, and the Gospel without the Law.
The article on porne, which is Greek for sexual immorality, in Kittle’s Theological Dictionary of The New Testament, though it carries no brief for orthodox Christianity, is at least clear in its exposition of what biblical Christianity avows, though it makes this judgment in a left-handed sort of way. Consider this proposition: … the hard-headed and exclusive separation of the Pharisees Jesus opposes (with) His message of unconditional forgiveness which is for all who turn from their previous way. (p. 591, Vol. VI).
It would seem to me that if a turning from their previous way is requisite for Jesus’ forgiveness then the forgiveness is by no means “unconditional.” The essay is less confusing with respect to the teaching of Paul: As compared with the different judgment of the Greek world and ancient syncretism, the concrete directions of Paul bring to the attention of Gentile Christians the incompatibility of porneia and the kingdom of God. No pornos (sexually immoral person) has any part in this kingdom, (p. 593, Vol. VI).
The New Testament Gospel is about forgiveness—forgiveness for all types of sin. Forgiveness is not needed if sin does not exist (1 John 1:8–10). To the modern liberationist the Gospel is not good news; it is bad news because it still regards sin as sin. Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery. He said to her, “Neither do I condemn you … Go and sin no more.” He clearly recognized adultery as sin, as Paul and Moses also called homosexual practices sin. All kinds of sexual sins are forgivable. But it is one thing to forgive sin; it is quite another to sanction it. To give license to sin is not to free people, but to enslave them.
RC Sproul
