OPINION:
America was built on Judeo-Christian principles, steered into existence by Founding Fathers who believed — yes, even the less religious ones — that this republic could not survive absent a moral, virtuous people.
My, how wise the founders.
That was then.
This is now: Roy Moore. Al Franken. Staffers on Capitol Hill. Oklahoma’s Republican former state Sen. Ralph Shortey. Florida’s Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel. The list goes on. And it reaches into other avenues of American life as well, from Hollywood’s high-powered to the sports’ world’s best-known to the media field’s most notable.
What is it? Sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual-tied scandals in all their varying forms, both alleged and confirmed, suspected and admitted, prosecuted and pending.
The daily inundations are getting tough to stomach, yes? And that’s leaving many to question, what’s going on here — how did America get here?
Well, the answer’s not tough to figure. Fact is, we as a nation have moved away from God.
We’ve turned aside His biblical teachings, mocked His value-based guidance, sneered His warnings and despised His commandments — and then, facing the consequences of the blinders we put on our eyes, wondered why our culture is rotten, our politics, defiled.
Well, news flash: God won’t be mocked.
If we tolerate and even support, say, our teens having sex as recreation, then it’s no small surprise the consequence for this ungodliness is a political world filled with leaders who think nothing of having sex as recreation.
If we embrace, say, movies and television shows that paint adultery in glowing, fun-filled lights, then it’s not really a shocker when the consequence for this unbiblical culture leads to — once again — a political world filled with leaders who think nothing of using sex for their own selfish designs.
If we set as the standard for femininity the near-naked woman, and put as the example of masculinity the skirt-chasing guy, then it’s hardly unexpected that male-female relations would seem frequently to stray outside the biblical box of what’s appropriate.
If we accept that men and women are little more than flesh and blood, and deny the spirit, and that humankind’s highest calling is to do what feels good at the moment, then it’s not really astonishing when society devolves into a cesspool of depravity.
See where this is going? The culture influences the politics — the politics, the culture — and so on and so on.
But there’s a flip side of this equation, and it goes like this: Children who are raised with morals and values based on godly principles will then become the moral and virtuous leaders of the next generation.
They won’t be so prone to, say, chase little girls for sex, or have affairs while in political office, because their morals and values — the ones based on biblical teachings in their youth — won’t allow them to cross those lines. They’ll be constrained in their actions by the moral compasses instilled in their youth.
And this is good for the nation at-large.
As the individual obeys God, so God blesses the individual.
As the nation obeys God, so God blesses the nation.
If we want a nation with fewer instances of sexual harassment, sexual assaults, sexual-tied scandals in general, then we need to turn back, as individuals and as a nation, to God.
He is, after all, the one who determines right and wrong — the one who defines moral and immoral — the one who can give discernment to determine right versus wrong and good versus evil, both in ourselves and in others. It seems only common sense, then, that He would be the one who could properly teach us in the ways we should go.
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