Verbalizing morality

It's not news to anyone that modern culture has undergone a dramatic shift in the area of sexual morals; not just in behavior but more fundamentally in the philosophy of how we determine what is or is not immoral in the expression of sexual desires. It appears to me that this shift has been most pronounced wherever cultures have been influenced by democratic politics and, ironically, Protestant Christianity. The combination of these philosophies of polity in government and religion has produced a culture of morality where the decisions of individual choice are assumed as a "God-given" right. To suggest otherwise is to sound like a jihadist or fanatical fundamentalist.

When I was in high school, girls who "slept around" might have been preferred by some young men for a secret adventure, but they were still subject to the general disapproval of the public. Such a girl would have been treated to glances and whispers in the school halls. Now, if not yet in the majority everywhere, she would at least be accepted as "typical". Unmarried couples who were living together were excluded from full public acceptance and, in some cases, from their own families. Now, unmarried celebrity couples have their children together and most don't even think twice about it.

And how did this happen so quickly? You could blame Hugh Hefner and his envelope-pushing magazine. Or you put it all on the "Sexual Revolution" of the 60's, which spread its own version of "love" to millions previously under the sway of the older model of morality. But one of the most effective means of re-inventing the terms of sexual behavior was simply to verbalize a new way of looking at sexual relations outside of marriage. The whole subject of sex has been re-cast in language that throws the balance in favor of acceptance of things that were once regarded as immoral.

Those who were formerly "promiscuous" are now merely "sexually active." Couples who were "shacking up" are just "co-habiting". We may still hear of some teens or college kids engaging in "risky behavior", but that's just in terms of the risks of acquiring a disease of some kind, not in regard to any kind of moral risk. Anyone who would stand up and call unmarried sexual relations a "sin" would be immediately branded as a "prude" or "judgmental".

The suggestion that abstinence might be the best ways to prevent teen pregnancies is called "unrealistic" because no one thinks it can actually work. There are some in the Christian community who have more recently taken a stand on abstinence before marriage, but it appears to me that those voices are generally regarded by the larger society like people regard the Amish - quaint and out of step with the times.

Is all this just a cultural shift, like those in the world of clothing or language that make human society in a free nation a very fluid thing? Or is there something deeper going on in the spiritual realm. The Bible warns of times when people won't tolerate the speaking of truth any longer, when people will be "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." There's nothing especially new about such shifts in morality, except perhaps to the degree that we have seen it become not merely permitted by society, but now almost totally approved by those with the power to move our society in new directions.