Biblical Logos Blog

For many Bible believing faithful, the current state of our culture and the leadership being voted into our governmental positions continues to disappoint us. Recently, I find myself asking God more about putting godly people into office than asking for godly leadership from the people who get in (1 Timothy 2:1-4). I don’t feel hopeful often, that our President, Vice-President or Congress will do what is right according to God’s Word.

Preachers and teachers of the Bible often point to prayer and faith being taken out of school as the start of the slide to our sinful culture. In 1962 Engel vs. Vitale decision ended school sponsored prayer. In 1980, this was followed with Stone vs. Graham decision by the Supreme Court to disallow the public display of the 10 commandments in school. It seems that once a sinful decision is made, it metastasizes into further sinful decisions and leads to dragging our society down further, away from God.

The last several decades each seem to have a cultural theme of sinful behavior being added to what is deemed normal and acceptable. Once sinful behavior is socialized, special interest groups begin pushing for legislative change to protect or normalize that sinful behavior as a “right” established by law. Let’s look at some of the more prominent trends.

• 70’s Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out” was coined by Timothy Leary in 1966. The phrase was reflected in our culture as normal behavior all throughout the 70’s. The sexual revolution in particular was marked by the rise of gay pride and the acceptance of homosexual behavior. Most devastatingly, abortion was legalized in the Roe vs. Wade decision in the 70’s as well.
• The 80’s was no better in this ungodly departure from what God desires for us. The culture seemed to be obsessed with “making it big”. The post WWII generation in particular embraced consumerism. The US social norms of keeping up with the Jones caught fire in the 80’s. It was marked by the phrase “Greed is good” which likely came from the movie Wallstreet in 1987. Now our pop culture idolizes Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos etc.. and the divide between rich and poor continues.
• In the 90’s, the US culture took another turn for the worse. The 90’s was marked by the rise of “hip-hop” and the spread of the grunge culture. Both of these movements were anti-society, rebellion movements. Hip-hop’s messaging was about gang life. Violence was honored and gangs committed more and more violence and earned “street cred” through murders, drug running and prostitution.  Women in particular were marginalized to sex objects through music and media. Gaming also took off in the 90’s which lead to people pulling back from social interaction and isolating into their imaginary worlds. The 90’s closed with the Columbine school shooting, where two “gamers” first imagined and then acted on their fantasies of going on a murder spree like they saw in their games. Now gangster life and hip-hop has been normalized with it’s biggest music hero’s being mainstream stars. Pop chart videos and pop star shows all are themed with objectified women being the trend leaders and people like Snoop Dogg becoming a commercial success stories.
• In the 2000’s, the Internet had spread to most of the US population. With this, the rise of social media platforms took center stage. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other platforms emerged. With the rise of social media, came the rise of a narcissistic focus on self and image. Selfies became a common way to communicate through these platforms. YouTube and self media publishing exploded. Because these were also personal opinion platforms, what was considered true became more and more relative to what was true for an individual vs objective truth. Facebook in particular has led to a cultural decline where an artificial depiction of ones life is curated online to present an image of how a person wants to be seen vs the reality of what they are really like. Psychiatric issues emerged from this trend including suicide as many feel personally lacking when they see they don’t match up to the portrayal of their friends online. Because the Internet has no boundaries, these cultural trends now easily spread to the whole world.
• The 2010’s now seemed to have been the decade that embraced all of the sins of the past and took them to new levels. Gay culture has turned into alphabet soup trying to characterize the gender and sexual preferences of our current day. Facebook allows 58 gender options and transgender book readings to children in libraries are no longer shocking. Porn addiction online became a common psychological phenomenon. People report this issue with the same social acceptance as alcoholism. Social platforms make self focused obsessions a way of life. Social apps like Snapchat and Instagram have hooked many both young and old into obsessive levels of social interaction many times leading to hurtful comments, jealousy and even suicide.

Push or Pull?

Do our political leaders push these sinful trends on their people, or do the people push, by election, putting leaders with these beliefs into office? It may be a “chicken or egg” argument. It seems to start with an incident in society to someone that holds a desire for a specific sinful behavior. The incident draws attention to that person who is now a “victim” of prejudice. The event and person’s plight is then amplified by special interest groups, social media and mass media, becoming a global concern for those that hold their view. Finally political leaders see a benefit for championing the cause of this minority, because it gains votes for them and possibly large donations to their foundation or campaign. Recent examples would include:

• Roe vs. Wade in 1973 which has now lead to both laws and acceptance to the point of countries considering even post-birth abortion
• Aides / HIV leading to “gay pride” and even to the President of the United States projecting rainbow lights on the White House
• The niche cultural music trends of Hip Hop and grunge becoming nationalized through events like the shooting of Tupac Shakur and the seemingly endless suicides in the grunge movement starting with Kurt Cobain from the group Nirvana
• More recently was the death of George Floyd in a Minneapolis police arrest leading to the “defund the cops movement” and the dramatic increase in violent crimes, especially in our nation’s largest cities.

From a Biblical worldview, all of these trends are against what God wants for us. Pick any trend above or even those not mentioned, and we can see how this cycle repeats across a range of sinful behaviors. Paul talks about the progressive decline of those who engage in sin:

Rom 6:15-21  What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!  Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.  For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 

What is our way out of this global decline? Reconnecting to God both individually and governmentally. Turning individually to Christ will pull us each out of this social decline into decadence. Voting in Godly people will help to turn the tide nationally and even globally on the culture of sin. Godly leadership leads to peace:

Pro 29:2  When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.