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My God and My Neighbor is a “Bible talk show” that looks at religious issues, Christian living and world events in light of the Word of God to give hope. This podcast is a ministry of Tennessee Bible College. TBC offers a bachelor's in Bible studies, a master of theology, and a doctorate of theology in apologetics and Christian evidences. TBC also provides Christian books, audio recordings on the Bible, and free Bible courses in English and Spanish. Tune in to My God and My Neighbor to experience the educational content that TBC has been delivering for nearly five decades!
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Kerry Duke: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired word to strengthen your faith and to share what you've learned with others.
The 100-year period of moral decline in America that we're surveying began in the 1920s. We've seen the devil's war against decency in these decades of the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. We've noted the rebellion against God in these periods. And we've remembered the damage that was done to marriage and the family.
Some of the sinful things in those years were like explosions on the moral landscape of America. But if those changes were like obscene blasts from the past, they were nothing compared to the atomic bomb that Satan dropped in the 1960s. How can we describe what happened in that decade? [00:01:00] What words come to mind?
Rebellion? Disrespect? Division? Me? The body over the soul? Sex, drugs, and rock and roll? However we describe it, this was a time when the moral foundation of America began to crumble. We might say that the dam broke and a flood of irreverence flooded the land. Maybe we should quote passages like Galatians 6 verse 7: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; because whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.”
Better still, Hosea chapter 8, verse 7 fits the situation. Hosea 8, verse 7 says, “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” So does Judges chapter 21, verse 25. That passage, which we have cited several times, says, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” And of course, we could add Isaiah chapter [00:02:00] 5, verse 20: “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.”
But however you choose to label it, the 1960s was a moral disaster. And we've never really recovered from it. The children that were born just after World War II, the beginning of the baby boomer generation, reached adulthood in the mid-1960s. Their attitude was different. Their priorities and values were not the same.
They didn't regard traditions. Many of them didn't know the meaning of loyalty. They were angry and they were resentful for no reason. They had enjoyed a higher standard of living than their parents, but they hadn't fought the battles and made the sacrifices and put in the work that their parents did. They’d never felt the anxiety of war or the helplessness of the Great Depression.
This new generation was like the one that is mentioned in Judges chapter 2. “Another generation arose after [00:03:00] them who did not know the Lord.” This, of course, doesn't mean that every person who was born in that baby boomer generation was like these people in Judges 2 verse 10, but there was a dramatic difference.
A new generation arose in America in the 1960s. And they marched across the land like a foreign army, desecrating all that was held dear, burning flags, mocking authority, and ravaging the country like animals. The youth of the 1960s, in too many cases, were like their parents. They resented authority anywhere of any kind.
These spoiled kids whined, and complained and protested. They expected everything while they contributed nothing. Wives rebelled against their husbands. Children rebelled against their parents and fathers against the police. Divorce rates soared. Crime increased. Drugs like marijuana and cocaine and LSD became common entertainment. What happened? The same thing that [00:04:00] happened in the Old Testament. They forgot God.
Now, when we compare these two generations, the World War II generation and then the Baby Boomers, several words come to mind. In the World War II generation, we have a group of people who were characterized by respect, but the Baby Boomers were characterized by rebellion. The World War II generation thought about other people. The Baby Boomers thought about me. The World War II generation was sacrificial. The Boomer generation became very selfish and self-centered. The World War II generation was not afraid of work. The Baby Boomer generation wanted to play. The World War II generation thought about God, but the Baby Boomer generation centered their attention to nature. The World War II generation tended to be more thankful. But the baby boomer [00:05:00] generation was very ungrateful and very demanding.
And as in any generation or any decade, there were events in the 1960s that made headlines that shocked the nation. A few of you can remember them. Most of you have either heard or read about them. Things like the Vietnam war. Now that war actually started in 1955, but the U S got involved in 1960 when it sent 3,500 soldiers into Vietnam. By the end of that war in the early 70s, 58,000 Americans had died.
And then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 in the midst of all this turmoil about the Vietnam War. That's when Russia tried to place missiles carrying nuclear warheads in Cuba. And many thought that this would be the end of the Cold War and the beginning of World War II. Many thought that this would be the end of [00:06:00] mankind.
And then, in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The nation mourned in silence for days. We made it through World War II against Japan and Nazi Germany. But now, our own President is shot to death in one of our own streets.
And, of course, in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. People today talk about hate crimes. Well, that murder was truly motivated by hatred. Racial hatred. The 1960s was a time of great civil unrest. Black people in America had been mistreated for years. They were not allowed to eat in some restaurants or to use public restrooms or go to school with white children. Public demonstrations got attention. Laws against discrimination were passed, but racism continued.
And it's still here today. And this shows that governments and laws can't change the real [00:07:00] problem, because racism is in the hearts of people. And the only real way to cure it is to obey the teaching of the Bible, which says that all men are created equal. All men are created in God's image and we are to love one another as we love ourselves.
But there were other events in the 1960s that either indicated that major changes in moral thinking had already occurred, or, which caused further changes. Now here are some years to think about.
In 1962, the United States Supreme Court declared school prayer a violation of the First Amendment. How did this happen? Well, it took place in the state of New York. The State Board of Regents authorized a prayer to be recited at the beginning of each school day. That prayer was, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”
It [00:08:00] was considered a non denominational prayer, and from what I've read, Jesus’ name was not even in it. But still, a group of parents sued the school board on the grounds that it was unconstitutional in a public school and it was a public school sponsorship of religion. Sadly, the high court of the nation agreed.
And even sadder is the fact that That only one of the justices disagreed, Justice Potter Stewart. He said that the school board had not “interfered with the free exercise of anybody's religion” because it was voluntary and he added, “I cannot see how an official religion is established by letting those who want to say a prayer, say it.”
And then in his dissenting opinion, Justice Stewart showed how hypocritical that decision was by pointing out several inconsistencies. First of all, he [00:09:00] said the U. S. Supreme Court opens each session with the words “God save the United States and this honorable court” and yet they prohibit prayer in the public schools.
Number two, both the Senate, he said, and the House of Representatives opened their daily sessions with prayer. Number three, he said, our Presidents are sworn into office with the help of God. Number four, he said the words under God were added to the pledge in 1954. And number five, he pointed out that the government pays money to chaplains in the military. And he asked, is that a violation of the First Amendment?
So, obviously, something was at work besides logic in this decision. And it was the anti-Christian forces that were using and actually abusing the First Amendment which was designed to protect religious liberty, not to deny it. They, like some today, were using the [00:10:00] principles of freedom to deny freedom.
And then in 1963 the United States Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional. A Pennsylvania law had stated, “At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading or attending such Bible reading upon the written request of his parent or guardian.”
A man named Edward Shemp filed a lawsuit over this practice. He claimed that it violated his children's constitutional rights. Shemp and his family were Unitarians. Now this case before the Supreme Court actually combined another case in Maryland. The infamous and outspoken atheist Madeline Murray O'Hare had [00:11:00] filed a lawsuit in 1962 on the same complaint.
Her son William was in public school at that time. Interestingly, he was a student. William later renounced that atheism, which his mother had taught him, and founded an organization in Washington dedicated to defending religious liberty. So it's no surprise that the Shemp case was backed by the ACLU. The high court struck down that Pennsylvania law on the grounds that it violated the Constitution by promoting the establishment of religion.
Do you remember the old Blueback Speller that was used in American public schools for over 100 years? It's strange that no one thought that it violated the Constitution with all of the Bible verses in it. It's also interesting that our country had far less crime, far less divorce, and far less disrespect and immorality than it developed in [00:12:00] the 1960s.
And in that 1963 decision, Justice Potter Stewart again, wrote the dissenting opinion. He again gave the case of army chaplains. They are paid by the government to pray with soldiers and even read the Bible to them. But the majority of the justices in that decision voted against Bible reading in public schools.
So, in just two years, prayers and Bible readings disappeared from public schools, at least with government approval.
Then, in April 1966, another sign of spiritual decay in America appeared. It was the cover of Time magazine. The title was in big, bold, red letters: Is God Dead? Some saw it and thought that the title meant that God had lived all those years and then died, but that wasn't what the people behind this movement meant at all.
[00:13:00] Philosophers and theologians had been saying this blasphemy for years before the 1960s. When they said God is dead, they meant the idea of God, in the traditional sense, is dead. They said that belief in an all-powerful, all loving, Supreme Being is dead, useless, that it doesn't work in the modern world. That kind of religious belief is dead, they claimed.
Now some of those who said that God is dead never believed in God to start with. They were atheists. They were happy to see people turning away from the God of the Bible. So they used the infamous words “God is dead” to describe how that the influence of faith in the Creator seemed to be dying.
The first and most notorious of those unbelieving philosophers was Friedrich Nietzsche. Now, Nietzsche was a full-blown [00:14:00] atheist. He hated the idea of God. He hated the Bible. He hated Christianity. And when he said God is dead, it was both wishful thinking and good riddance to him. Nietzsche was an extremely arrogant and rebellious man. He wanted faith in God to die.
The title of one of his books says it all. That title was Beyond Good and Evil. He said we just need to get over all this talk about right and wrong and good and bad. To him, there is no right or wrong, and if God is dead, then all the rules about good and bad are nonsense. Man just is what he is. Now, this man was so twisted in his heart that he even said that causing injury to other people is not wrong.
And we would stop and say, I wonder what he would have said if somebody had hurt him? Now, these philosophers are not [00:15:00] honest. They are liars. They, like all atheists, deny the obvious signs of God right in front of them every day of their lives. And every night, Psalm 19 verse 1 begins by saying, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard” [Psalm 19, verses 1 through 3]. In Romans 1, verse 20, Paul said that “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”
And Psalm 14 verse 1 again says, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, Nietzsche was so full of spite and rebellion [00:16:00] that he wrote these infamous words in the book, Beyond Good and Evil. “I regard Christianity as the most fatal, and seductive lie that has ever yet existed as the greatest and most impious lie. I can discern the last sprouts and branches of its ideal beneath every form of disguise. I urge people to declare open war with it,” that is, against Christianity.
Now you might ask, who would listen to a man like this? Well, his words went farther than you might think. A friend of mine who attended a well-known U.S. university said that one of his professors absolutely loved to read Nietzsche's books. But to really see how dangerous, dangerous this man's “God is dead thinking” was, [00:17:00] let's go back a few generations. You see, Nietzsche had said that we need to move on and go past the idea of right and wrong. He said that compassion toward others, for instance, is what he called “sentimental weakness” that should be resisted.
Instead, he said, we need to face reality, and reality is essentially “injury, conquest of the strange and the weak, suppression and severity.” According to Nietzsche, human beings are nothing but wild animals, so why pretend to be anything else? Just face it.
Now let's stop for a question. Do you know what evil leader was a fan of Friedrich Nietzsche? That's right, Adolf Hitler. Now a later [00:18:00] version of this God is dead theology or thought came in 1963 when an Emory professor named Thomas Altizer wrote a book called Radical Theology and the Death of God. Altizer said he believed in God.
But his God was not the God of the Bible. He said that God changed when he, that is God, came to the earth as Jesus Christ. When that happened, Altizer said, God ceased to be the transcendent God who is above and beyond the world. And in that sense, God is dead, Altizer said. Now all of that is just plain foolishness.
God doesn't change. Malachi 3. 6 says, “I am the Lord, I change not.” But the reason Time Magazine put these words on the cover of that issue is because they sensed that there were people in America who were tired of this traditional view of God and they wanted to change it or get [00:19:00] rid of it altogether.
So the time was right for this kind of blasphemy to be circulated. America had changed. The teaching of evolution and the rebellion of the 1960s had weakened people's faith in God to the point that, for all practical purposes, God did not exist in the minds of some people. These people didn't want God in their thoughts, especially a God they had to answer to, a God who was a moral lawgiver with the power to punish people in hell.
The ungodly element in society wanted to kill that idea. They were exactly like the Gentiles mentioned, and that we have discussed, in Romans chapter 1. They tested the idea of a morally perfect God who holds them accountable and they rejected it. Romans 1 verse 28: “And even as they did not like to [00:20:00] retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.”
And worse than that, they became haters of God [Romans 1, verse 31]. Altizer died at the age of 91 in the year 2018, but faith in God lives on. The blasphemous God is dead theology didn't become popular. The majority of people were disgusted by it, but it has survived and still lives this day. There are people who want to make God into an abstract force, an impersonal idea, rather than a loving and especially a just God who holds them responsible for what they do.
But still, God is the same. That same year, 1966, brought another blow to the Judeo-Christian values of America. It was a book that offered a different way of looking at right and [00:21:00] wrong, and the title says it all: “Situation Ethics: The New Morality.” Fletcher taught that nothing is absolutely right or wrong. It just depends on the person and the circumstances. He said that statements like “One should tell the truth” or “One should respect life” are at best general maxims but not absolute laws. He said, “For the situationist, there are no rules, none at all.” But isn't that a rule? Isn't he making his theory an absolute law?
Isn't there an inconsistency in what he's saying? Well, Fletcher says that morals are relative. Right and wrong depend on the who and the when and the why and the where of the situation. So he says if lying serves a good purpose, then it's right to lie. If stealing is for a good cause, then steal. If murder or idolatry are for a [00:22:00] good reason, then they're right.
It all depends on the person, place, and time. So he says, “If a lie is told unlovingly, it is wrong. If it is told in love, it is good, right.” Now that is ridiculous and ungodly. Lying is always wrong, period. It is never right to lie. The Bible condemns lying from beginning to end. In the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20, verse 16, the Bible says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
In Proverbs 6, verse 17, the Bible says that God hates a lying tongue. In Revelation chapter 21, verse 8, the Bible says that “all liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” Now, here's another example. Fletcher says, “If people do not believe it is wrong to have sex relations outside marriage, [00:23:00] it isn't, unless they hurt themselves, their partners, or others.”
Notice that they tend to throw in the qualification “unless.” But that's the whole point. Sin does hurt people, and sex outside of marriage is wrong, period. Hebrews 13 verse 4 says, “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Galatians 5 verses 19 through 21 teaches that sinners like fornicators and adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God, and that is, of course, unless they're forgiven by the blood of Christ. But he's talking about impenitent sinners in that passage.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9 Paul says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” He mentions among them fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals. So this new morality says that the only rule in right and [00:24:00] wrong is love. You can do whatever you want as long as it's done in love.
But that begs the question: whose definition of love are we talking about? Man's idea of love varies from person to person. What one person calls love, another might call hate. So who decides which one is right? And think about it in this way. How could we have any system of justice with situation ethics?
Because a criminal could always excuse himself by claiming that he broke the law out of love and of course, for a good reason. Now, this is nonsense. But there are people that accept it because it tends to justify their behavior.
Love in the Bible means obeying God because God is the one who defines love and gives us love. Love in the Bible doesn't give a person permission to sin. It corrects the way that we live when we're doing wrong. [00:25:00] Revelation 3 verse 19 is where Jesus said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” In Hebrews 12, 5 through 11, the Bible says that God corrects, He disciplines every son that He receives. So all this talk about the loving thing to do means nothing because in the end, it is nothing but human opinion.
God's moral law is absolute because it is for all people, in all places, at all times. In Matthew 24:35, Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Now, if you want to see how far a man like this will go, consider what Fletcher later wrote about the value of human life.
He published an article in which he set forth criteria to determine whether a person was actually a human being. Now, the Bible is clear about this. The Bible shows that we are human beings [00:26:00] because we are made in the image of God. We are people. We are persons because we have a soul. Genesis 1 verse 27 says, “So then God made man in his own image; in the image of God made he him: male and female created he them.” But Fletcher said that there are people whose intelligence is below a certain level and that they don't deserve the label human. Now, when you think about a man being that arrogant, it raises the question, how was he any different, how was he any better than the Nazis?
In Situation Ethics, Fletcher said that the end justifies the mean. That means that anything goes. Let me read to you what he said in that article. He set forth these criteria for determining personhood, and the first of these was what he called “minimal intelligence.” “Any individual of the species Homo [00:27:00] sapiens who falls below the IQ 40 mark in a Stanford Binet test, amplified, if you like, by other tests, is questionably a person. Below the 20 mark, not a person, mere biological life. Before minimal intelligence is achieved, or after it is lost irretrievably, it is without personal status.”
How cold and how brutal could a man be in his soul to write things like that? Fletcher sets himself up as a judge as to who is and who is not a human being. And let me mention one more quote from the book Situation Ethics. He said, “The new morality, situation Ethics, declares that anything and everything is right or wrong according to the situation.” Now, this kind of teaching only poured gasoline on the fire of the moral rebellion that was [00:28:00] already there in the 1960s.
Then in 1968, another moral barrier collapsed. The Hays Code for Motion Pictures was abandoned. No longer did producers agree to respect certain lines of decency. No longer would they avoid offending the public with profanity and nudity and obscenity. Now the floodgates were open. Now, of course, the pressure had been there for years.
And the dam finally broke. Some movies, especially in the 1960s, had already disregarded that code because the public evidently wanted more shocking images on the screen. And that's what they got. So the Hays Code was replaced by the rating system now in use, the MPAA code. That code originally began with G for general audiences, M for mature content, R for restricted, that is, no one under 17 and X for [00:29:00] sexually explicit content. Then in 1972, the M category was relabeled to PG. In 1984, the PG 13 class was created, and then in 1990, the X rating was dropped and replaced by NC 17. These labels were directed to parents. Now, obviously if the parents had they done what they were supposed to have done as parents, they would not have watched this ungodly material, and they would not have allowed it in their homes.
Now, some stood their ground, but many gave in. And as a result, every kind of dirty, vile, offensive language and scene has been poured into the minds of Americans ever since. After decades of this brainwashing, is it any wonder that we have the problems that we do? I end with two verses. Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for [00:30:00] out of it are the issues of life,” and Proverbs 23, verse 7: “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Thank you for listening to My God and My Neighbor. Stay connected with our podcast on our website and on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. Tennessee Bible College, providing Christian education since 1975 in Cookeville, Tennessee, offers undergraduate and graduate programs.
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