The good news is that this generation isn't more adulterous than the previous

Since when were people born in the 40's supposed to be chaste? Didn't those people grow up to be the hippy generation of the 60's? The slide toward immorality started before that. Tell them to go interview some 80 and 90 year olds and see what they come up with.

 

My father, who passed away in 2005, was born in 1925.

In the later years of his life, he told me quite a bit about his childhood in an uncensored form because he knew I was interested in "the way things used to be."

Couple of bits of information from his experience that undermines a lot of what seems to be assumed in Christian circles:

• The Port Arthur, Texas school district did not have prayer or Bible reading in public school (at least that was true between 1931 and 1953).
• High school students in Port Arthur, Texas were generally as sex-obsessed as contemporary generations, except it was not discussed in polite company. Actual sexual encounters were probably about 20-30% less frequent, but still occured.
• Young women who were raped and/or sexually assaulted by their dates often did not report it (just like, or even more so, than today).
• At his high school, the most frequent place for students to have sexual relations was in and beyond the bullrushes that surrounded the back of the building and seperated the school property from the ship channel. The problem was so bad that the school administration had to assign teachers and staff members to patrol the area during school hours, and before and after the day's classes.
• High school students involved in his local Baptist church were frequently involved in sexual immorality, despite being in a very conservative congregation.
• The use of alcohol among teenagers was very high, although marijuana use was very rare and harder drugs were unknown.
• Teenagers and adults frequently drove drunk, causing a large number of accidents, injuries and deaths.

The "good old days" weren't as good as we often make them out to be.

 

So do we need to go back to before the roaring 20's before we start to see any semblance of morality in our forbears?

 

Did human nature change in the 1920s, or has it been the same since Adam?

And speaking of morality, we didn't even touch on segregation or the mistreatment and marginalizing of minorities in our society...

 

We had another thread on this story. However, this one is mistitled. It isn't about adultery, but rather the incidence of premarital sex.

 

I grew up in the 50's and 60's and I know the percentage of kids having sex back then is way less than now. Also perverted sex was rare back then unlike the fad for perverted sex today. Just about every word that proceeds out of our mouths today carries some sexual connotation today. Practically everything that surrounds us today, all that entertains, advertising, classes being taught in schools, is about sex. It wasn't that way when I grew up. You can present some statistics till the cows come home but there is no way I can be convinced that things are about the same today as back then.
I'm sure there were plenty who had premarital sex back then, but not before they got out of 7th grade like today.

 

I think it carries from the "Make love, not war" era, that as violence is becoming more prolific, most people will use sex to try to saturate bloodshed from their minds since it isn't as deadly, though I think the would would be in better shape if people got AIDS from murder than adultry.

 

Humanity has been sexually corrupt since Adam. We don't need to "go back" to any time. The power of God is just as effective today--most importantly--the power of God to forgive.

 

People have sex because they are self indilgent not because of war. This is just silly.

 

Me too and I agree. I remember while in the 8th grade, a girl in high school was pregnant and it was the shame of the year. Today she'd be just one of many, that participates in toddler care, in school today.

 

I believe you missed the point. Or perhaps I did.

 

Ah yes, nothing like shaming girls who decide to let their child like instead of having a legal (or illegal) abortion. I'm glad our culture is finally getting past that.

I think it is a great idea to have toddler care. It oftens options to those who might otherwise think that they have no other choice than abortion or living under the shame of the self-righteous crowd.

 

And the beat goes on. Go ahead and compromise, your on the winning side.

 

Compromise?

Let's look at this from two angles:

The abortion angle:

People who are not married should not engage in sexual relations. No one should engage in any kind of sin.

Period.

But the problem with the human race is that we are fallen and without Christ's help (and most of the time, even with Christ's help) we do not avoid the opportunities to sin that present themselves.

So simply advocating that people should not sin is wholly ineffective for dealing with social ills. And until Christ makes all things new, there will be enormous numbers of people who will not have the means to resist the temptations of sexual sin.

So, if we truly against abortion, Christians should encourage women who become pregnant to keep their babies until they are born. Then we should help them find a home for their child, or help make it economically and practically possible for these young mothers to care for their children.
Shaming unmarried pregnant women may have some mild effect on behavior for other women, but it only encourages those who are already pregnant to quietly kill their unborn child to save their reputations among those who are willing to shame them. And we have to remember that teenaged boys and men sometimes psychologically and occasionally physically force themselves on young women, and users like that don’t usually stick around to help out with a pregnancy.

And as a personal note, I have had several young women tell me back in the 1980s when I was in high school and college that they had had abortions because they were afraid of the stigma of being unmarried and pregnant. They quietly had abortions (one of them had two) and faced no public shame because it was confidential... but it ate them up inside.

Furthermore, I also have a friend who was essentially raped by her boyfriend when she had a non-convulsive epileptic seizure (she has suffered from epilepsy for the last 25 years) and her boyfriend decided to take advantage of the situation since she had refused to have sexual relations before marriage. She got pregnant and didn't want to abort the child, then got railroaded into quickly marrying the guy by her mother and Baptist pastor ("The baby needs a father") so as not to face the shame of being an unmarried mother while in college. Of course, the guy didn't change... she simply endured an eight-year marriage of emotional abuse and sexual infidelities (he kept giving her VD).

So if you are truly pro-life, you won’t indulge in shaming those who have ready and legal access to abortion.

The moral angle

As Christians, we are called to model the lifestyle, attitude and actions of Christ. The only human who ever walked the earth who was truly and honestly Self-righteous was Christ, yet he did not shame or condemn those who were in need. Christ only condemned those who considered themselves righteous and those who used religion and the things of God to alienate the needy, sinful masses from the ministry and message of God.

Although we do not have a gospel record of Christ dealing with an unmarried pregnant woman, we certainly have a very specific example of Christ dealing with a woman caught in the very act of adultery in the Gospel of John, and several other encounters with women who had been prostitutes until the moment they met Jesus. To the chagrin of the religious people who observed these scenes, Jesus did not condemn (shame) any of them, but instead offered them restoration and a new way to live.

If God Himself did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, why do you think Christians have any business doing it themselves?

---

So let’s consider your accusation again:

I’m not compromising dead, self-righteous religiosity because I had to reject that when I starting following Jesus.

And yes, I’m trying to be on the winning side... the side of Jesus.

 

..........

 

I was responding to James_Newman.

 

But you are, as I said on the winning side.

 

That's an odd statement. Why do you think this?

Have you heard of the bonobo chimpanzees? They supposedly use sex to alleviate anxiety & avoid confrontations - they rarely use violence. Strange cousins.