Author: Jonathon Van Maren

“You’re making me feel bad,” she said. “I went along with two of my friends when they had their abortions because I wanted to support their choice. One of them was my brother’s girlfriend too.” I expressed my sympathy. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I didn’t come here to make you feel bad, yet I’m glad you now know what happened during the abortion. The truth often hurts but also sets free.” I offered her information about post-abortion help, which she eagerly accepted, then looked at the pictures again. “That would’ve been my niece or nephew, but I didn’t know.”

She had no idea. She didn’t know that her friend’s “choice” tore apart the tiny body of a pre-born child. She didn’t know that supporting such a choice allowed her brother’s baby to be decapitated, dismembered and disembowelled. She now knows the ugly truth because a graphic image of abortion conveyed just that. Had she seen the pictures a few weeks or months earlier, this young woman would have done everything in her power to prevent the abortions from taking place. Instead, two babies are now dead.

Another young woman we spoke with was opposed to abortion with the exception of pregnancies resulting from rape. Needless to say, she also wouldn’t impose her beliefs upon anyone else, not upon her friend scheduled for an abortion next week either. I pointed to my baby and asked whether she would have the responsibility to take action if I was planning to kill him next week. “Of course,” she exclaimed. “That would be terrible.” Pointing to a picture of a first-trimester aborted fetus I gently asked, “Do you think it’s any different with your friend’s child who, if you don’t do anything, will soon look like that?”

She had no idea either. She believed that being pro-life was merely a personal preference, not an objective truth that compels us to respect the lives of all people, including the pre-born. The abortion images changed it all. Instantly aware of her responsibility she asked for pamphlets and contact information for her friend. Perhaps, because pro-lifers showed her the truth, a small child will live. Many others have certainly survived for that very reason.

Far too often we’ve heard pro-lifers object to showing graphic abortion images. We agree that they are disturbing. They keep us from sleeping soundly, as they should, but more importantly, they change minds and save lives. Postcards, posters, signs, and trucks with graphic abortion images continually convict and convince of the pro-life truth, and the aforementioned are only two of many instances that prove this. But the converse is true as well. Babies die when we censor the truth, preventing women from knowing what abortion does and allowing pre-born children to be killed in their mother’s womb. Every child that is killed due to the mother’s ignorance is an indictment upon Christians and pro-lifers who have the knowledge and means necessary to save those lives.

Each of us has a responsibility to speak truth and show compassion, especially to the very least (Matthew 25:40). Additionally, the Bible makes it clear that the sins of our nation are our own (e.g. Proverbs 29:12) and that no one can wash their hands of innocent blood. What makes it worse, however, is when Christians without any Biblical reason whatsoever and in contravention of our Reformed heritage actively oppose a pro-life strategy that is truthful and hugely effective in saving lives, simply because it makes them uncomfortable. Our hands already drip with the blood of pre-born children by virtue of the fact that our tax dollars pay for every single abortion. And yet, even conservative church leaders who take it upon themselves to speak out on behalf of the voiceless and support the actions of those who seek to stop abortion are slandered and mocked by some in an extremely unbiblical way.

There are those in the Christian communities in North America who feel that it is a positive thing that they can sleep well at night, unburdened by the blood of thousands of children who were butchered during the day, bought and paid for by the tax dollars of our labour. There are those in the Christian community who seem to be more passionate about opposing the efforts of the largest pro-life educational movement in Canada than they are in ending the killing.

Ask yourselves a question: If you are at peace with a culture that murders its own children, is that staying true to Christianity and as close to our Reformed background as possible?

If you can consider yourself “personally pro-life” (much like Pontius Pilate was) but pass the blame for abortion onto others and do not fight it, are you not also to blame?

If you are fighting pro-life activists more actively then abortion, how much does abortion actually concern you? Have you written more letters complaining about graphic images, or abortion?

The EndtheKilling youth movement swells by the week, with Reformed people of all denominations flocking to get involved, make a difference, and save the lives of Canadian children. If you cannot support their efforts, at the very least do not oppose it. We have met too many women who had abortions because we were too late in exposing it to them. Dozens have told us they would not have had abortions if we had gotten to them earlier. For the sake of their children and thousands who are being “drawn unto death” every day, we ask for your support. We fully and completely respect all those who seek to fight abortion in their own ways, and are uncomfortable with the activism we have chosen. But let us not condemn each other’s efforts.

For as Abraham Lincoln once said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

One of the favorite atheist rebuttals” during arguments concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,and  among other issues of historicity confirming Christian record, is the flippant statement that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This is generally followed by a triumphant look on the part of the atheist, who is quite positive that his or her extensive reading of the Wiki-Quotes of Christopher Hitchens handily trump any examination of historiography or philosophical consistency.”

But let’s take a closer look at that statement. Does the statement extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” actually hold true, or for that matter, really mean anything?

That statement can be broken up into three sections, which should be examined individually before examined in conjunction with each other:

1. Extraordinary Claims
2. Requires
3. Extraordinary Evidence

Let’s first unpackage the beginning of the sentence. When, for example, Christians give the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ or for His miracles, atheists call this an extraordinary claim. A “claim,” of course, could be defined as a proposition of some sort. But what is extraordinary? Which claims are defined as extraordinary, which claims are mundane, and which claims are, let’s say, completely extraordinary? Is there some sort of scale that grades claims on how extraordinary they are? An objective ranking from one to ten?

This even applies on a very basic cultural level. Let us give you a very basic example:

EG. “Buddhist and Hindu belief systems formed in India and Tibet teach that the body is governed by many chakras, or energy centres. There are seven major chakras: six are aligned in an ascending column from the base of the spine to the tip of the head and one hovers outside the body, between the genitals and the knees.“

Anne Rooney, The Story of Medicine, Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2011, pg, 15

To people who have grown up in Western culture, this would be a more extraordinary claim. People living in India might not find it so extraordinary. This makes the concepts of extraordinary completely subjective. How can an objective value be placed upon a word such as extraordinary? The idea that certain claims, such as the resurrection of Jesus or biblical miracles in general are extraordinary, is completely the subjective opinion of the person stating this. We could point out that for over a millenia it would be the atheist’s denial of Jesus’ life as described in the Gospels which would be an extraordinary claim. This irony just goes to further prove the point that calling a claim extraordinary, while a clever rhetorical device, is essentially meaningless.

Before examining the second point, let’s briefly unpackage the third while we’re discussing the concept of extraordinary claims.

3. Extraordinary Evidence.

In order to really see what the questioner is demanding here, both words must be examined. We`ve looked at extraordinary, and determined that it is both subjective and ambiguous. So what of “evidence?”

Evidence is a very slippery word. What does evidence mean–and who gets to decide? The idea of evidence looks very different from person to person. A Yogi’s idea of evidence might seem very different then what a scientist considers to be evidence.

For example:

“There is something which speaks within us in the language of eternity, not merely in the language of transitoriness. The consciousness of the transitoriness of things is an indication of the presence of a non-transitory eternity. This is a subtle voice that speaks within us, but it gets stifled, smothered by the mud that is thrown over it and the dust that is kicked up by the activity of the senses which blinds our eyes until we cannot see what is hidden behind this profundity within our own selves.”
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/epist/epistemology_06.html

The Yogi believes that “senses… blind our eyes until we cannot see what is hidden behind this profundity within our own selves,” whereas a scientist uses the senses to find evidence. The scientist will go through the rigours of the scientific method to find evidence and the Yogi will go through the rigors of meditation to find the “profundity within our own selves.”

Thus, even the word “evidence” itself must be clarified if it is to be deemed objective instead of subjective. The person who is making the claim must be able to demonstrate what they call evidence is actually valid evidence. A search of human philosophy will demonstrate that this is harder to do then what most people first think.^[1]

The final word in this sentence is “requires.”

2. Requires.

Even if one could show that “extraordinary claims” and “extraordinary evidence” are indeed objective, which looks extremely unlikely, it is hard to see why one “requires” them to correlate to each other. What if a claim is indeed true, but there is little evidence for it? Under this approach the person would fall into error because of this completely unproven approach. He would deny the claim because of this word. At one time there was little evidence that the earth was round, so the scientific community thought the earth was flat. There was plenty of evidence for that, just look at the ocean. It looks flat. There doesn’t seem to be a necessary connection between an Extraordinary Claim and Extraordinary Evidence. Rather, it appears that this approach could lead one into error.

This entire article might seem to some a flippant response to a reasonable demand. But is the demand reasonable? From a philosophical perspective, the recent tomes being churned out by the self-labelled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are exceptionally shallow books. Do they ask good questions? Yes. Do they bring up some good points? Absolutely. Are they in any way philosophically consistent to the point that their thesis of anti-theism can be accepted? Absolutely not. And thus, the rhetorical devices of the anti-theist crowd must be held to the same high standards they disingenuously claim to hold religion to.

The stark reality is that the witty statement “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” is one that in every sense that matters is semantically meaningless. It is actually an attempt to demand the evidence that the asker would require to believe in something without explaining why that is necessary. When the polemical anti-God, anti-Christian rhetoric of someone like Christopher Hitchens is examined, it becomes quite clear that no matter what evidence is presented, he never would have decided to believe in God’s existence because the idea itself was reprehensible to him.

And thus, this statement should be abandoned as a rhetorical device, rather then a valid argument, due to its lack of meaning and philosophical function.

“

There is probably no more sought after title among writers, activists and idealistic university students than that of “contrarian”—the martyr-like defender of a righteous cause. Many even attempt to become contrarians by wittily opposing the mainstream as much as possible, in spite of the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to appear the martyr by opposing global warming. I find the desire to be a contrarian to be extremely self contradictory—if a contrarian is indeed one who defends a righteous cause, than while the contrarian may in fact be a voice crying in the wilderness, he should not enjoy being so. Instead, a contrarian by definition should long for his views—if indeed he actually believes them to be true—to be main stream.

And what true contrarians are left in today’s washed-out culture? It often seems as if the era of youthful rage against injustice is over, simply because the great causes of today are more or less agreed upon. Environmentalism is trendy, even to some extent among conservatives. No one is advocating for any sort of racist apartheid or devaluing of any ethnic group. Every one pretty much agrees (albeit with much apathy) that the genocides in Darfur, Congo and elsewhere are horrific and should be put to an end (just not by us.) For the most part, what passes for controversy today are manufactured tempests in teacups, with greedy journalists eagerly waiting for someone, anyone to say anything that resembles racism, or sexism, or some other “ism.”

Ironically, I think that the last real contrarians are the Christians.

Christians do not want to be contrarians. They want to be main stream, simply because Christianity is a religion that makes universalist claims. If Christians actually do believe their own faith, they must believe that the entire world would be better off following biblical truth. Of course, much of this truth is quite uncomfortable to today’s culture of instant gratification and moral relativism.

We believe abortion, based on embryology, biology, and moral philosophy is the wilful destruction of a human life that we have no right to take.

We believe that gay marriage should not be permitted, based on both religious truth and the societal implications that reflect that truth.

We believe that promiscuity is not only immoral, but damaging to society.

We believe that Christianity is the only true faith.

These views, while once prevalent, are not very popular now, although I would argue that all but the last of these statements is self-evident. If you challenge our culture on abortion, you get called “anti-choice,” or “misogynist,” or some other creative slur. If you challenge the idea that gay marriage is a valid concept, you get compared to George Wallace or some equally distasteful racist. And if you point out the ill effects of promiscuity, you get called a prude, or sexually repressed, or worse.

Yet, Christians do not wallow in the idea that we are “contrarians,” hugging this epithet to ourselves as a badge of honour. Because, as any genuine contrarian, we would prefer that others would recognize the truth in what we say and change their minds. We genuinely believe that if people would comport themselves in a Christian fashion, society would be better off.

Now, I realize that it may be hard to believe that country that lacked a sky-rocketing STD rate, plunging demographics, and broken homes could be better. But we actually believe it.

Even if everyone else thinks something to the contrary.

A few years ago, a professor named Chap Clark decided to do a study of adolescent high school students to find out what they thought about sex. Since close to half of high school students are reportedly sexually active, Chap Clark wanted to find out what the stories behind the statistics were. What he found shocked him.

“I was surprised to realize that for most mid-adolescents the issue of sex had lost its mystique and has become almost commonplace. They have been conditioned to expect so much from sex and have been so tainted by overexposure… as one student told me, ‘sex is a game and a toy, nothing more.'”

Because of how our culture treats sex, this attitude has become a reality across North America.

Sex sells and pop culture sells sex

In today’s culture, it is extremely difficult for a Christian to adhere to Christian values. Our popular culture is working against us – the music industry, Hollywood and television all use sex and extremely explicit material to sell their products.

Music genres such as hip hop and rock glorify sex as something that everyone should be doing, a casual activity to be pursued and celebrated. There’s a reason rock music accompanied the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s with the symptomatic tagline “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” The message is simple: do whatever makes you feel good. The world is full of pleasures. Go out and get your share. The title of a song by the Canadian band Nickelback sums it all up: Sex is always the Answer.

Hollywood and television sell the same message, with movies increasingly showing sex as glamorous, casual – and most importantly – something that doesn’t have any consequences. In fact, when I was attending Simon Fraser University, one classmate said to me, “Guys these days don’t have any excuse for not having sex. Music and TV have done half the job for us.”

Is sex worth protecting?

For many young Christians, that is the essential question. Is sex actually a big deal?

Christian young people are some times inclined to look at extramarital sex as yet one more thing we are not allowed to do in a long list of demands given to us by God in the Bible. So yes, we know that technically we are not allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But, we can rationalize, we’re not allowed to lie, be lazy, disobey our parents, or be disrespectful of authority either. So extramarital sex is wrong, sure, but is it any bigger deal than any other sin?

That answer is, yes. And in many ways.

Having sex outside of marriage can impact our entire lives in ways we don’t even comprehend.

What Christians often do not realize about the laws given to us by God in the Bible is that He did not give us these rules purely to restrict us. We might sometimes think these rules are simply a long, seemingly arbitrary list, that limits are possibilities for fun. But the truth is, in many cases, God gave us these rules to protect us from ourselves. Because God created human beings in His image, God also knows infinitely better than we do what lifestyle is best for us, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.

Just to give you a quick example to illustrate what I mean, the dietary laws God gave in the Old Testament included a number of prohibitions about certain foods. We now know that many of these restrictions were also quite helpful from a health perspective. With the limited cooking technology of that day, including the lack of refrigeration, and lack of knowledge concerning bacteria, many of the foods on the prohibited list would have poisoned the eaters. In essence, God gave His people the first health codes.

The same concept applies to sex. Sex in and of itself is not a bad thing—in fact, it is quite the opposite. It is a beautiful creation of God given to mankind in the Garden of Eden. Sex was one of God’s great gifts to men and women, and one that He gave for them to enjoy and cherish. However, if sex is used outside of the context in which God created it, it can have devastating and poisonous consequences.

The consequences of sex outside of marriage can be placed into three categories: physical consequences, psychological consequences, and spiritual consequences.

1. Physical consequences

Before 1960, there were only two Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) that were widespread enough for people to worry about: syphilis and gonorrhea. Only two diseases! However, when people started to ignore the limits that God had placed on sex, the consequences were not just spiritual. Because humans ignored the natural order that God created, the consequences were very physical.

Today, there are twenty-five categories of STDs. Not twenty-five new STD’s, twenty-five new categories.

For example, you may have heard of herpes. Herpes is an incurable sexual disease. You can get herpes from one sexual encounter, and you will have it for the rest of your life. One in five Americans over the age of twelve has this disease. Herpes comes in eight different strains, and you can contract anywhere between one and all eight strains at the same time. You also may have heard of the STD hepatitis. Well, there isn’t just hepatitis B, the one you most likely have heard of. Hepatitis comes in strains A through G.

Approximately one in four high school students will graduate with an STD. Most of them have no idea that they have contracted one. In fact, one half of sexually active single adults has, or will have, at least one STD. Four out of ten girls will contract an STD the very first time they have sex.

Let me put the enormity of this problem in perspective for you.

Every day in the United States, 1,500 people die from cancer. Another 2,600 die from a heart-related illness like a heart attack or a stroke. And every day, more than 50,000 people will contract a sexually transmitted disease. That’s 19 million people every year! There are only 300 million people in the entire United States. From an economic perspective, direct medical costs associated with sexually transmitted diseases in the United States are estimated to be thirteen billion dollars annually. There truly is no such thing as a free lunch – or “free love.”

Some of you would immediately point to the fact that there’s medication to control even the incurable STDs.

Yes, you can control diseases like herpes with medication. But if a woman has a herpes outbreak during childbirth, there is a significant chance that her child will die.

And there are STDs that are lethal. I’m sure you’ve all heard of AIDS. While AIDS does happen more often in homosexuals (once again an example of contravening God’s natural order) it is increasingly common in heterosexuals as well. Men and women have been arrested and put in jail for sleeping with people and not first informing them that they were HIV positive – the reason this is a crime is because, as a result, their “casual sex partners” may die of AIDS.

Incidentally, condoms rarely prevent STDs. This is according to a man known as the “Condom King,” Dr. Thomas Fitch of the Center for Disease Control.

Sexually transmitted diseases, even the curable ones, are no picnic either. Here is how abstinence speaker Lakita Garth describes a very common STD, genital warts:

“If you get genital warts, you’re going to start growing warts in your genital area. They grow on top of each other, and they’ll begin to form nodules and clusters that look like broccoli. They’re called condyloma. They make it painful to sit and painful to walk. And they’re most painful when they’re being removed.”

Now if someone thinks that an STD is unlikely because they are only having sex with one person, Dr. Everette Koop, the former U.S. Surgeon General warns otherwise:

“When you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the last ten years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last ten years.”

The bedroom could end up pretty crowded.

The final physical consequence of casual sex is one that should seem so obvious that I shouldn’t even have to point out, but many in today’s culture seem to have forgotten it: pregnancy. For some strange reason, when people decided that sex could be “recreational,” they forgot the very simple fact that sex creates babies. It’s why your genitalia are called “reproductive organs,” not “recreational organs.”

Anyone having sex outside of marriage is clearly not ready for a child – children need responsible committed parents. So sex before marriage has, in our culture, led to two devastating circumstances.

One, the baby gets raised without the benefit of having a father around.

Two, the baby is not raised at all; it is aborted. Every year in Canada, over 100,000 unborn children are brutally destroyed. In the United States, it is over a million.

When people around you are casually talking about their sexual conquests, remember that millions of tiny children are being horrifically destroyed so that our culture can engage in “recreational sex.” Millions of babies have been sacrificed on the altar of our lust and ultimate selfishness. Phrases such as “casual sex” and “recreational sex” are merely a flimsy facade attempting to shield a mass grave containing millions of dismembered pre-born corpses: our very own sacrifice to the Molech.

2. Psychological and Emotional Consequences

Aside from physical consequences, there are also psychological and emotional consequences to having sex outside of marriage. Many people today think that they can have casual sex with a number of different people, especially during their college years, and then settle down and marry their dream partner without any real impact on the relationship they hope will last a lifetime.

The fact actually is that since God created humans to be monogamous – one man and one woman, just as God created Adam and Eve – sex outside of marriage has a huge impact on future relationships.

Many readers have probably heard of the concept of “never being able to forget your first love.” This is a common theme in both literature and poetry, where everyone seems to agree that forgetting your first love is always the hardest, if even possible.

There is actually a biological and psychological explanation behind this phenomenon. Sexual contact releases powerful chemicals into the brain called neurotransmitters. These chemicals trigger immediate sensations – but they do far more. In their book Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children, authors Dr. Joe McIlhaney Jr. and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush write:

“When two people touch each other in a warm, meaningful and intimate way, oxytocin is released into the woman’s brain. The oxytocin then does two things: increases a woman’s desire for more touch and causes bonding of the woman to the man she has been spending time in physical contact with.”

The bonding agent most active in the male brain is called vasopressin. As McIlhaney and Bush explain:

“Vasopressin seems to have two primary functions related to relationships – bonding of the man to his mate and attachment to his offspring… vasopressin seems to be the primary cause of men attaching to women with whom they have close and intimate physical contact.”

However, when men and women decide to have sex with multiple partners, they begin to lose their ability to bond with a partner, which is why promiscuous people have a far harder time staying in a long-term relationship. There is a simple example to illustrate this: try putting masking tape on your arm. The first time you pull it off, it will be painful. The second time you pull it off, it will hurt less. If you keep doing it, there will be no bonding between the adhesive and your skin at all.

God created men and women to be monogamous, and when He told us in the Bible to avoid sex outside of marriage, He wasn’t simply giving us a restriction — He was informing us how our biology and psychology function, and telling us what would lead to the healthiest, most fulfilling relationships.

Since we have ignored this, statistics tell us that sexually active teens are three times as likely to face depression if they are female, and twice as likely if they are male. They are three times more likely to attempt suicide if they are female and seven times more likely if they are male, and far more likely to divorce if they marry. As Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll puts it, today’s pattern is “hook up, shack up, break up.”

3. Spiritual Consequences

Obviously, all sin has spiritual consequences because it is rebellion against God. Because having sex outside of marriage has such a power to affect lifelong relationships, it is more likely to affect men and women in this area as well.

God created sex to be shared between a husband and a wife. God, by the rules set out in the Bible, warned us of the power of sex and the impact it could have outside the natural order. Sex is extremely powerful, and can enslave those who become obsessed or addicted with it. Unhealthy and sinful obsessions have obvious consequences for one’s church and spiritual life.

For example, pornography is a $60 billion a year industry. One thousand dollars is spent in the United States every second on pornography, and a new porn film is made every hour. Pornography, because people are so visual, actually triggers a chemical reaction in the brain, releasing what are known as “erototoxins.” These erototoxins literally rewire your brain, and the images are often burned into one’s memory, inerasable.

Sex in its true form is one man and one woman, giving themselves to each other. Sex is not intended to be a biological activity to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers; sex, according to the Bible, is two “becoming one flesh.” While today sex is characterized as “getting some,” it is supposed to be about giving yourself to your spouse.

Abstinence speaker Lakita Garth relates an interesting story. When she told her college roommate that she wasn’t having sex, her roommate looked at her aghast. “Don’t you feel like you’re missing out on anything?” she asked.

Lakita replied:

“I have missed out. I have missed out on the thrill of waking up wondering if my early pregnancy test will turn blue. I missed out on not getting to walk into a clinic with my best friend holding my hand because my boyfriend isn’t going with me unless he’s dragging me in. I missed out on sharing the same joy as my ex-roommate, who has pinpointed the day her child would have been born if she had not aborted, and who cries herself to sleep every year because she’s named him and celebrates his birthday. I’m even more saddened that five years from now I’ll miss out on waking up to stare at the ceiling of an AIDS hospice like my cousin Ricky and my friend Rod before they died…You’re right. I’ve missed out… on all the wonderful opportunities you’ve opened yourself up for.”

In a spiritual sense, sex is a powerful action that can take over your mind, destroy your relationships, and ruin your chances to have a healthy church life. Getting involved with sex outside of marriage has the chance of numbing or destroying your conscience. That is not fire we should be playing with.

Conclusion

So, we looked at all the horrible consequences of sex outside of marriage. And we’ve also looked at how God has tried to protect us from these consequences by telling us, in his Word, how sex should be treated. We’ve gone over STDs, abortion, the destruction of emotional bonding, and how porn addiction can change you forever.

But the good news about sex is that the Bible has it one hundred percent right. Even the secular, sex-obsessed culture has noticed that Christians have it right when it comes to sex. Sure, they make fun of us and call us prudes. But statistics everywhere show that married people have the most satisfying sex lives. The statistics even show that married people have far better sex lives than those who just live together, because of the commitment shared by those who have dedicated themselves to each other in marriage. In all polls taken, the simple fact is that married people have more sex, and better sex lives.

Sex is not a negative thing. Sex is an extremely positive thing – when it is enjoyed in the context of God’s plan and the natural order He has created. Christians who wait for sex, unlike many in the outside culture, have something actually fulfilling to look forward to. This is not about Christians demonizing sex – it is about Christians enjoying sex in the way God intended.

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What’sitsname (it isn’t far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do.

–The Aristocrat, 1912

It is clear to all those of a socially conservative bent in today’s society that from a Christian point of view, things are going drastically wrong. Abortion on demand is legal and prevalent. Pornography addiction is at staggering highs. The concept of marriage and family is constantly being twisted and “revised” to include unnatural sexual relationships, which are then publicly celebrated. Promiscuity is rampant and promoted by most of mainstream culture. And news sites straight-facedly publish headlines such as “Amsterdam Decriminalizes Public Sex in Famous Park.”

These problems are often viewed as separate issues, although with more than a few similarities. There are groups dedicated to ending abortion, protecting traditional marriage, fighting pornography and promoting abstinence. But the question remains: besides the fact that these practices and lifestyles are sinful and in opposition to God’s plan for mankind, are there any common denominators between the various public sins creeping—or sprinting—into Western society today?

There is one: The systematic destruction of innocence.

“Innocence” has a number of definitions, all of them meaning more or less the same thing—”freedom from sin or moral wrong,” “guiltlessness,” and “lack of knowledge or understanding.” Innocence was once prized in traditional cultures—fathers protected their children, and for the most part it was agreed that the darker demons of human nature should be kept harnessed and out of sight to avoid the corruption of society at large. The concept of “public indecency” or “public lewdness”—which would now be referred to as “Tuesday in San Francisco” or “the Gay Pride Parade”—was still one that was held in healthy contempt.

Of course, Christians would trace the very concept of sin itself back to the destruction of innocence: when Satan appeared as a serpent in the Garden of Eden, he promised them knowledge and the ability to be like God, knowing right from wrong. Instead, when their innocence was destroyed by their adherence to Satan’s suggestions, they realized that they were naked—and they were ashamed. Instead of being able to discern right from wrong, mankind learned how to do wrong. And humans have been perfecting that skill—if I may be briefly paradoxical—ever since.

Carefully consider each of todays most public and prevalent evils and the destruction of innocence can be found at the very heart of each. Abortion is the brutal decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment of a tiny, helpless child. Pornography wrenches the concept of love and sex away from the institution of commitment and marriage and sells the bodies of girls and women as commodities to be abused for one-sided pleasure. The gay liberation movement flaunts their “pride” in the streets, showing off their bodies and their fantasies and broadcasting their sexual proclivities to the public at large, regardless of age or willingness. And everywhere, the promotion of sex. Dripping from billboards and movie posters, blasting from speakers in malls, stores and vehicles. Taking a child downtown in the city for a day is like setting out into a moral minefield—a full scale frontal assault on what John Bunyan called “the eye-gate.” Satan doesn’t need to disguise himself as a serpent anymore. He can put on a suit and stroll down the street.

This is why the forces of secularism are trying to force the ideals of hedonism and relativism on children first and foremost—destroy innocence at its earliest and purest point, and you will create citizens ready to settle into the brave new world. California dictates that children must learn about “gay heroes.” Quebec forces school children to take a relativistic religion course even if the parents oppose it. New York proposes sex education that details the most vile and deviant sexual practices. “Children’s entertainment” becomes increasingly awash with crude sexual innuendo. And everywhere in our schools—the promotion of sexual promiscuity. No discussion of why preserving sex for a meaningful marriage relationship is genuinely healthiest, but simply a presenting of the various “options,” handing out free condoms and telling them to have fun. Every relationship must have a sexual aspect. There is no such thing as “innocence” in the society that is being created.

This has progressed to the point where even defending the concept of innocence and purity is considered bigoted, intolerant and close-minded. Do you oppose the gay pride parade, especially for its public lewdness? Bigot! Do you want the children in your family to learn about sex at an age-appropriate time and in the context of God’s plan for mankind? Prude! Do you and your family oppose abortion and the sex slave industry of pornography? Intolerant misogynists!

A friend of mine even had to comment in a university class recently on the proposed notion of Anne of Green Gables and her friend Diana in the much-loved classic Canadian series having a lesbian relationship—the rebuttal of which caused the theorist to accuse her critics of being hetero-centrist. However, my friend’s response puts it perfectly: “She fails to understand that perhaps what readers found troubling was not the possibility of a homosexual character, but rather the implication that a perfectly innocent and beautiful friendship between children is being described as sexual. While it is true that homosexuality remains a taboo topic in certain social circles, in Anne’s case, the outrage is directed not at homosexuality, but at the perverse need to make the chaste appear sensual.”

While the forces of hedonism and relativism and the cacophony of their leaders attempt to destroy “the innocence of a child” and whatever innocence the rest of society has left, it is important to fight back against these insidious practices and worldviews. We must fight to stop the destruction of pre-born children. We must fight against access to pornography, which reduces the women of our society to a saleable “item” and rewires the brains of countless youth. We must preserve the Christian institution of marriage, with all its benefits and all its security. And we must not allow the concepts of innocence and purity to be lost forever. We already lost Paradise. Let us not lose the future of our children.