This is the second of a two part series about the Sexual Revolution. Read Part 1 here.
After analyzing the Sexual Revolution from many angles, we turn now to a question of practical application. How can Christians respond to the legacy of the Sexual Revolution today?
Many have already internalized the arguments by thinkers like Eberstadt, Trueman, and others and offered their own solutions. One popular answer is fighting the specter of individualism in our churches. Pastors and theologians lament the idols of consumerism and expressive individualism in their congregations and look for ways to replace them with a covenantal framework. These efforts are noble and should be commended. They are also deeply rooted in the Bible and its vision of God’s people as a covenant community with attendant duties vertically, to God, and horizontally, among each other.
Still, there are other factors which even the best thinkers on this subject ignore.
For example, as much as individualism is an issue, there is little attention given to the culture’s equal (and paradoxical) emphasis on conformity. Why does a culture of expressive individualism steer so many individuals to the same place? 1 in 5 Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ. That number was 4.2% just two generations ago.1 The number of Fortune 500 companies who defy the Pride Lobby is next to none. Nearly all of them are filling their HR departments with “Diversity & Inclusion” representatives and embrace marketing strategies platforming gay and trans spokesmen.2 Even voting patterns suggest younger generations, for all their claims of tolerance and diversity, are consolidating on what constitutes permissible political views.
It is no secret that churches feel similar pressures to conform to the world’s standards on a whole array of issues like sex and gender but also race and social justice. Certainly, there have been necessary moments of reform, such as the PCA’s 2016 decision to publicly repent of racism during the Civil Rights era. But, importantly, these efforts were motivated by the fear of God, not of man. That the latter is now a more pressing concern–especially on issues of sex and gender–is evident throughout American evangelicalism.
In fact, it reveals a far more dangerous idol for the church: the fear of “being on the wrong side of history.” The Sexual Revolution has thoroughly replaced biblical sexual ethics with libertinism. In a world where evil is good, the church's defense of good becomes evil. How do we hold firm in the hostile culture birthed from the Sexual Revolution?
First, we must continue to affirm the authority of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant Word. Indeed, the culture war is largely about authority: Who says? So in one way, the battles we fight are entirely unoriginal. They go all the way back to the Garden (Genesis 3:1). Testing our inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions which can lie against the words of God who cannot lie must be our starting point.
Secondly, we must bring our actions into accord with the Bible’s vision of the good, true, and beautiful. “All of Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” says the Apostle Paul (2 Timothy 3:16). That includes uncomfortable passages like Genesis 38 and Onan’s sin. Now is the time for Christians to examine their own practices against the Bible’s proscriptions and be honest about the need for reformation.3 It might surprise us how quick ecclesial conflicts over sexual and gender identity would be resolved if we committed ourselves to strengthening our views on marriage and procreation.
Finally, we must be prepared to extend the grace of God to victims of the Sexual Revolution and hold its perpetrators to account. Already, there is a growing number of transgender men and women who regret transitioning. Even those who support sex-change operations and gender hormone therapy admit the suicide rate among transgender teens is shocking.4 Just as churches and religious clinics have stepped up to provide grief counseling for women who obtained abortions, so should the next generation prepare to do the same with de-transitoners.
But mercy does not negate the demand for justice. There are a number of different policy initiatives combating the Pride Lobby on the local, state, and federal level. As far as their conscience allows, Christians should support efforts that not only protect their own religious freedom but reinvigorates our appreciation for the natural law. We ought not forget what is historically called the didactic use of the law, guiding people to God’s sacred order over creation. The law is a teacher as much as it is a curb.5 Consider the fact that as late as 2008, California voted to ban same-sex marriage, but support for gay marriage jumped ten percentage points after Obergefell.6 If changes in law can lead people one way there is no reason to think it can’t do so in another.
Conclusion
In the fall of 2018, America witnessed a normally uneventful Senate hearing spiral into a contentious battle about political power and sexual abuse. Brett Kavanuagh, President Trump’s pick to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court, was accused of sexual misconduct by a high school classmate, Christine Blasey Ford. Those who watched could not help but notice groups of women in bright scarlet seated in the hearing room. The uniform, donned by female characters in The Handmaid’s Tale, became a recurring sight throughout the #MeToo saga as women identified their plight with those set in the fictional, dystopian world where ultraconservative men force women into the role of surrogates.
Just five years later, the masses applaud viral videos of gay couples holding adopted children for the first time. It is rarely mentioned, however, that these children are products of a loosely regulated surrogacy industry which disproportionately serves wealthier and culturally powerful clients by harnessing the generative powers of poorer and more vulnerable women. It is a far more disturbing example of dystopian fiction coming to life, only possible because of ripples set in motion by the Sexual Revolution.7
In the early days of the apostles, Christians were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6). Today, new orthodoxies born of the Sexual Revolution are the unquestionable assumptions of our world: we can divorce procreation from pleasure; the right to actualize one’s inner truth; the malleable quality of humanity itself. The culture’s opposition to God’s sacred order commissions Christians into the same world-turning enterprise today.
The opinions expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Ministry to State.
Erin Doherty, “The number of LGBTQ-identifyng adults is soaring,” Axios, February 19, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/02/17/lgbtq-generation-z-gallup.
Sheryl Estrada, “D&I roles have more than doubled since 2015, report says,” HR Dive, July 9, 2020, https://www.hrdive.com/news/di-roles-have-more-than-doubled-since-2015-report-says/581309/#:~:text=ZoomInfo%27s%20analysis%20of%2060%20million,title%2C%20according%20to%20the%20report..
The case against artificial contraception that I have presented is predominately philosophical, but there are scientific reasons for Christians to oppose artificial contraceptives like the pill. See Focus on the Family’s position statement, “Birth Control Pills and and Other Hormonal Contraception,” https://media.focusonthefamily.com/topicinfo/position_statement-birth_control_pills_and_other_hormonal_contraception.pdf as well as Brian Clowes’s, “Abortifacient Brief: The Birth Control Pill,” Human Life International, April 14, 2021, https://www.hli.org/resources/abortifacient-brief-birth-control-pill/.
“New Study Reveals Shocking Rates of Attempted Suicide Among Trans Adolescents,” Human Rights Campaign, September 12, 2018, https://www.hrc.org/news/new-study-reveals-shocking-rates-of-attempted-suicide-among-trans-adolescen.
See E.J. Hutchinson, “Law and the Christian” in Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction, 1-21.
Justin McCarthy, “Record-high 70% in U.S. Support Same-Sex Marriage,” Gallup, June 8, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same-sex-marriage.aspx.
For more on surrogacy, see The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network’s “Three Things You Should Know About Third Party Assisted Reproduction,” https://cbc-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/3_Things_You_Should_Know_About_Third_Party_Reproduction-Center_for_Bioethics_and_Culture.pdf.