Marriage, Cartoons, Ice Cream, and Beer

If there was any doubt of the truth that American culture is in a downward freefall toward unfettered debauchery and smut in our society, then May 15th, 2008 was a day that pushed those doubts farther and farther out. I am not a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t think that the three things that I am referring to were orchestrated by any one evil mastermind in a corporate office somewhere. However, I do believe and know that there is a demonic lord of the world whose plan is to further corrupt the world and saturate it with unclean and sinful things. So, in that sense, they are all connected.

Marriage:

SAN FRANCISCO , CA -- California's Supreme Court declared that gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry -- a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.¹

Same-sex Marriage is already legal in Massachusetts, so it was really only a matter of time before this happened again. I’m not surprised that it happened, nor shocked where it happened, but I am upset and concerned that it did happen. The Bible is clear that marriage is between one woman and one man, and this covenant lasts for a lifetime. But when Christians have an equal or higher number of divorces on average as the culture at large, we’ve got a serious marriage problem in our society, but more importantly in our church.

As far as the cultural impact on my society, I am very concerned about this ongoing issue. Leaving aside the fact that homosexuals have the exact right to marry in every state that heterosexuals do; one man can marry one woman. There is no distinction or discrimination on account of your sexual orientation. Leaving aside what this will mean for the raising of children in a same-sex household, the amount of children who will be impacted in homes and schools where this life-situation will necessarily be defended and validated is enormous. But this will definitely speed up the time when it will become illegal hate speech for Christians to declare that homosexuality is a sin condemned by God. It is not the only sin, or the grossest of sins, but it is a vile sin nonetheless. And when it is declared hate speech, it will be prosecutable by law. And this, my friends, is what primarily concerns me. The gospel will begin to be shut-up from the public square under force of law. We will still preach it, but our own families will suffer the retribution of our apostate society.

Cartoons, Ice Cream, and Beer:

Starbucks logo has always had the extremely subtle hint of nudity, I grant you, but their newest version of their logo takes all hints out of it. I find it very concerning that the breasts of a woman are exposed on the logo of a company that is known for its business’s saturation level in our society. I know full well that pornography is more readily accessible to anyone because of the Internet. I also realize that pornography and other lewd activities, like strip clubs and the like, are more accepted in our most tolerant society. This sexual de-sensitivity has gotten to such a point that sex sells everything; from cars to TV, and from coffee to ice cream. And this is just the latest in the over-stimulation and de-sensitization of our society towards sex and nudity.

Our culture is getting so bad, that the flirtatious game of a young girl (grade-school aged) that she plays in the presence of her mother in order to get a free ice cream doesn’t only get aired, but I haven’t heard any outrage over this. In the wake of the Miley Cirus “sex symbol” scandalous photographs, I would have thought that the latest Dairy Queen add would have been more condemned. And for those people who might think that I’m overreacting to this commercial let me ask this: would you want your third-grade daughter playing that sort of sexually charged game to get free ice cream? Would you want your twenty-year old daughter playing that sort of card to get free stuff? Ever wonder where the sexual inhibitions that leads to hooking up and Girls Gone Wild begins? Apparently, it begins at Dairy Queen and Starbucks now.

Not only is the over-tolerance of sexuality and nudity getting ever more pervasive, but so is foul language. A recent commercial for Amstel Light’s prominently used a play-on-words to be catchy for their new add campaign. It goes like this: Amstel Light is apparently made in Amsterdam. “Amsterdam” ends with in “dam” which sounds just like “damn”. Damn is a word that is considered course and has, to the best of my knowledge, not been allowed to be used on TV advertising. But good ‘ol Amstel Light found a way to swear and get it past any censorship. The final line of the commercial is, “One Dam Good Bier”. This, of course, makes no sense if we understand the word “dam” as it is spelled. However, if we understand it in its common usage in our culture as well as the meaning conveyed in this commercial, it makes sense. Its course and foul, and it is on your TV.

Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Amstel Light didn’t come up with their advertising in a vacuum or in a culture that had not been heading in this direction for some time. Still, when you look at the pervasiveness and acceptance of all things sexual and course, how then can the claim be made that we are a mostly Christian nation. We might have been at one time, but we’re not now. I guess that we still might be a Christian nation if you define “Christian” the way that most of the evangelical world does. With the foul mouthed preachers, the sermon series’ on sex that could well be defined as soft-porn, and the increasing amount of alcoholic saturation of churches, whether it be churches in active bars or beer at bible studies or church events, perhaps America is a Christian culture. Its just that the Christianity of our culture is devoid of Christ and His sanctifying power.

May God have mercy on us.

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¹ http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/national_world&id=6144920