Western culture was built upon Biblical foundations.  The latest reviews of social attitudes reveal that the foundation has been deeply undermined under the onslaught of the sexual rebellion by the Baby-Boomer generation, its start symbolized by Woodstock in August 1969.

The forthcoming Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage will determine whether the levees and dikes in place since the dawn of human history, erected to protect marriage and the family, will be breeched and swept away with the flood.  But that is not the only concern.  The most recent Gallup social issues survey tells how vast the change in belief and values has become.  And how quickly it has taken place.

Approval of unwed parenthood has climbed from 45 percent in 2001 to an alarming 61 percent today.  Divorce was approved by 59 percent fourteen years ago, but by 71 percent now.  Acceptance of premarital sex has risen from 53 percent to 68 percent.  Approval of polygamy has doubled, although for the present it stands at only 16 percent.

 In a further decay of moral restraint and the value of human life, support for physician assisted suicide is up seven points, and support for research that destroys human embryos in the name of medical science is up twelve points, propelling these attitudes into the realm of near consensus. 

The only exception to these trends is abortion.  A majority of Americans presently believe abortion is wrong, at least in the latter months of pregnancy.  And restrictions imposed on abortion by state legislatures across the country are slowly increasing.  The reason behind this surprising resistance is that a small minority of dedicated Christians has aggressively battled abortion for several decades.  The evidence has piled up that what abortion kills, as if we didn’t intuitively know it, is actually a baby.  In contrast, as pro-abortion forces lose ground, the screeching pitch of the left rises as they demand our right to self-destruct.

But the picture overall, however, reveals that roughly two-thirds of Americans no longer see much dignity or value in being human.  The goal of raising healthy and whole children who will become responsible and productive citizens has withered under the fevered desire for unfettered sexual expression.  If our sexual attitudes and practice could be captured by a photograph, it might look very similar to the images of the citizens of Baltimore burning and looting their city.  Two thirds of us seem not to care that that unrestrained behavior is destructive.  Pity the innocent third who must bear the consequences of their neighbors’ dissipation.    

That third now find themselves as the remaining defenders of civilization.  The question is, how much farther will the erosion of traditional morality reach, given the speed of the advance to date.  It takes no great stretch to see that by throwing away the sexual moral standards that have defined civilized people for generations, the profligate majority has propelled us to the edge of collapse.

What are the righteous to do?  The answer lies in the Word of God, as it always does.  The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians living in Ephesus, a pagan and immoral city if ever one existed.  He said, “I say…that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.  But you did not learn Christ in this way.” (Ephesians 4:17-20)

Indeed, the only avenue left for us to pursue, is that we consciously determine that we will live and behave according to the commands of God, no matter how out of step with the culture we may seem.   Paul goes on, “In reference to your former manner of life”—or the way your neighbors live—“you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.  Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor.” (v 22-25)

Two generations ago Christians lived like this.  Many thought them rigid and not very “with-it.”  To a certain extent they were outcasts.  They did not drink alcohol, dressed modestly, refrained from dancing, playing cards, and going to movies.  They did not commit adultery, cut themselves off from sexual temptations, and stayed married.  They went to church each Sunday and on Wednesdays as well, and they kept the Sabbath Day holy. 

In the sixty years since, Christians have drifted from these old patterns.  We justified it by saying, “Those things exhibited a kind of legalism.  The Bible does not command such restricted behavior.  We are free and we will live by grace!”  And there is a good deal of truth in that.  But the unintended consequence is that Christians have become merely pale images of the world around us.  The result is that we have failed to influence the culture, and the unopposed advance of godlessness is the result.  Until we arrive at where we are today.

I am not saying that we must go back to those old standards.  The culture today is different from what it was before World War II.  And therefore our application of the Biblical standards of righteousness will be somewhat different.  However, it seems to me that we ought to recapture something of that old mindset.  Christians two generations ago knew that they were first of all followers of Jesus Christ.  It mattered not to them what their neighbors thought.  I suggest that we must do the same.

Maybe it is time to get serious about making Sunday a holy day—the Lord’s Day—and to cease doing our own pleasures.  Perhaps it is time that we set up clear boundaries for modesty and sexual morality, and not step over them.  Maybe we ought to decide again that we will with free conscience stop drinking alcohol, not because there is something inherently wrong about it, but because—as our grandparents understood—we determine not to set an example that may lead others into errant behaviors—alcoholism or drug abuse, with all the attendant next steps that diminished control induces.  It is time for we who are the righteous to get tough.  And ignore the consequences.

Yes, it will make us seem “uncool.”  And yes, some will say that this will diminish our ability to relate to those we wish to lead to Christ.  I suggest that it will do the opposite.  It will make us an unmovable force for righteousness that will bring the destructive plunge of our culture up short, and perhaps, if God grants grace, enable us to reverse the tide.

Dr. Rick Perrin is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship.  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..