In 1858, in his “Housed Divided” speech Abraham Lincoln complained about what he saw as a conspiracy between Stephen Douglass, Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan to force upon the Nation slavery.
“When we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in — in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.”
We live in similar times where we are seeing a lot of framed timbers by different workmen being constructed to the particular end of forcing upon the Nation a new slavery. As Biblical Christians we view the current social order and see any number of social ills present. What we don’t tend to see, I think, is the fact that these social ills are all serving a unified purpose, end, and goal. That purpose, end and goal is the complete unraveling of what small residue of a Christian Worldview that remains among us as a people. The goal in this piece is to look at the timber of sexual perversion as one of many means of destroying the little remaining residue of the Christian West. In successive articles I hope to look at other timbers that have been cut and shaped as a new house to replace Biblical Christianity.
An overview of these cut timbers, beyond the issue of perverted sex and the reduction of marriage which I will consider here, are the erasure of borders as seen in the constant push for amnesty, Obamacare, overturning of the second amendment, common core curriculum, Agenda 21, and the co-conspiratorial role of the “Evangelical” and “Reformed” contemporary confessional and conservative Churches and its ministers in the destruction of Biblical Christianity. All of these are agreed in the purpose, goal, and end of overthrowing the shards of a Biblical Christian social order.
The bulwark of any Christian social order is the Trustee Family. In order to successfully overthrow a Christian worldview and social order the Trustee and even Domestic family must be attacked and overthrown in favor of the Atomistic family. Of course this attack has been undergoing since Women’s suffrage movement with the diluting of male leadership by the extension of the vote to women and then with WW I and II with the thrusting of women out of the home and into the heretofore prominently male work force (i.e. — Rosie the Riveter). It continued on with Margaret Sanger’s campaign of Birth control and on through as the revolution successfully unleashed the Birth control pill. Later we had the ugly Feminism as championed by the likes of Bette Friedan and Gloria Steinem. The destruction of the family in the West continued with the advent of No fault divorce and then with the push for gender destruction and sodomite marriage we have seen the extension of these earlier expressions of the constant Revolution of Modernity. Along the way we have seen the burning of the bras and women being set free from the putative drudgery of being a housewife and Mother.
Along the way we have redefined love, sex, and marriage and the relationship of each with the other. This rearrangement has served to largely destroy the idea of Biblical family. Whereas in a Biblical social order Marriage is the proper context where romantic love and sex are pursued and so find legitimacy, with the onslaught of Modernity and its Revolution against the family what we have now is Romantic love as the proper context where sex and possibly marriage are pursued and so find legitimacy. What this means is that “falling and being in love” now serves as the proper justification for sexual relations and then possibly marriage and “falling out of love,” or, “not loving you anymore” is all the justification needed for pursuing new sexual liaisons and divorce where marriage is in place. In other words in the social order of Modernity, sex and marriage are justified and given moral status by the nebulous and fleeting emotion of “romantic love.” This is in contrast to a Biblical social order where romantic love and sex are justified and given moral status by marriage.
Since romantic love is the sine qua non for the existence of sex and marriage, sex and marriage proliferate as the ephemeral idea of romantic love waxes and wanes. The commitment expressed in Marriage, before God and man, as found in a Christian social order, which gave stability to marriage, children, and the broader culture is now eclipsed in Revolutionary Modernity where commitment is to the sovereign self and its transitory sense of “romantic love.” The first consequence of this is instability and the proliferation of unbalanced “homes,” and “families” that are comprised of all kinds of weird and creative combinations of children from successive marriages which were derivative of “romantic love.” In Modernity, under one roof one can find half siblings in one direction, half siblings in a different direction, step siblings, full siblings and who knows what else. In a Christian social order this kind of thing might be seen but would be understood as not the norm. In our culture it is seen with great frequency.
Now, the next successive consequence that has come out of this is the push for sodomite “marriage.” (I use the word “Marriage” only as a means to communicate to the modern mind. In all actuality it is an impossible absurdity to use the word “marriage” as related to any other arrangement than a man and a woman.) With the removal of marriage as the legitimate context where sex and romantic love were to be legitimized and pursued in favor of romantic love being the proper context where marriage and sex can be pursued it was only a matter of time before the participants in this perverted arrangement would themselves be perverts. If Romantic love is the context wherein marriage and sex is to be pursued who is to say that two men or two women (or three women and one man, or one woman and three men, etc.) can’t be officially “married?” In Revolutionary modernity, Romantic love is what gives marriage and sex its meaning and if that is granted then the coupling of perverts is bound to eventually occur in this new perverted plausibility structure.
What is interesting about Romantic love, being required as the atmosphere wherein sex and marriage derive their meaning, is that what happens over the course of time is that the quotient of necessary Romantic love present for men to lose their integrity and for women to love their chastity continues to decrease. A sexual tryst between the unmarried two generations ago might have found Romantic love demanding a certain amount of time “dating,” certain gifts exchanged, certain promises given, meeting the parents etc. A sexual tryst between the unmarried today in what is popularly called “hooking up,” looks more like two random dogs coming together after a good sniff.
And with this new perverted plausibility structure Christianity is undermined in favor of some kind of Gnostic religion. I offer Gnosticism (in a weird combination with Cultural Marxism) as the religion of Revolutionary Modernity because Romantic love is a Gnostic reality. Unlike Christian marriage where you have corporeal legal covenantal and juridical categories and documents creating and sustaining marriage, in the new plausibility structure of Romantic love you have nothing but ephemeral feelings and any marriage documents that do exist, have no real substantive meaning.
A third consequence of Revolutionary Modernity against marriage and the family is the displacing of the command control structures inherent in Biblical Christian marriage and family. As the Romantic love plausibility structure for sex and marriage places its death grip upon the West the result is that the family no longer has the stability necessary to do anything but survive (and even that is questionable). The command and control, historically associated with Christian families in a Christian social order, does not disappear but rather is seized by some other social order institution. In our social order the institution that is absorbing for itself the command and control historically belonging to the family is the State (FEDS). Whereas in a Christian social order families leave an inheritance, businesses, and reputation legacy for subsequent generations to live up to. In Revolutionary Modernity the FEDS gobble up inheritance, cripple the ability of small family businesses to survive and by the FEDS policy regarding morality they themselves attack any possible trans-generational reputation legacy. Command and control, in Revolutionary Modernity, where Romantic love is the new plausibility structure for marriage and sex, works over the course of time to strengthen the God-State (FEDS) over against God’s design of the Trustee family as the foundation for Christian social order.
A fourth consequence of Revolutionary Modernity where Romantic love is the necessary context wherein sex and marriage find meaning is the diminution of individual character and moral fiber. Once sex and marriage are set free to find meaning in the fields of Gnostic Romantic love the result is a unwillingness of people who have embraced such a plausibility structure to stand against any immorality at all. Perverted, and uninhibited sex (and all sex outside of marriage is perverted and uninhibited) always works to diminish people as perverted sex tears at their moral fiber to resist all other immorality. If and when people are giving into their personal immorality the consequence is that they will have little morality left to stand against any other social order injustice. Being enslaved to their lusts they find no ability to resist the varied lusts of anybody else. This moral anarchy eventually leads to social order implosion which in turn leads to some kind of Tyrant coming to the fore.
Finally, as consequence, where Revolutionary Modernity leads where Romantic love is the necessary context wherein sex and marriage find meaning is the complete and final destruction of Biblical Christian marriage. If sex and marriage are merely the outgrowth of Romantic love then sex and marriage can exist anywhere and anyplace that any romantic love exists. As long as Romantic love exists all the components of sex and marriage are negotiable. Whether gender roles, the means by which children are secured (in-vitro with Lesbians?, surrogate Mother for sodomites?, dinner setting adoptions [get the whole set]?, natural children?, etc.) who takes who’s last name, or who pays for what, once marriage and sex is merely the creature of Romantic love Biblical Christian Marriage is dead dead dead. Similarly, once the legitimacy of sex is merely the creature of Romantic love then sex and gender are open game to any definition and arrangement.
The cure for all this of course is understanding and embracing that God alone is the one who gives meaning and definition to all reality. Once that is admitted then repentance must follow for our insisting that reality is a social construct that we can determine apart from God. Repentance is not just a turning from our sin of vain imaginations but a turning to Jesus Chris who is both God’s forgiveness and His Word reality.
The hour is late. To be honest I believe that the hour is too late. It is too late to turn back on a societal National basis. We are no longer on the precipice so that turning back might be possible. We have already fallen off the cliff and now we are merely waiting to hit bottom. Yet, for all my pessimism, I know with God all things are possible and that in Wrath God might even yet remember mercy.
I keep raising my voice in hopes that God might grant mercy to some.
Great post! The totality of your perspective reminded me of the following personal story:
When I was a little boy, I recall watching a large building being built around a a much smaller one.
It dwarfed the quaint little structure. I had never seen any thing like it before. I asked someone about it, and I recall an adult telling me that it had to be done that way in order to avoid some tertiary issue. A superstructure being incrementally erected over an existing shelter. It seemed to take so long, or perhaps it just seemed that way. Time seemed to pass slower back then. It seemed so artificial, like the project would never be completed. The little structure was still substantial and the surrounding superstructure without walls and roof looked superfluous. I have no recollection of the finished project at all, but a clear memory of the little building, how it’s simple, aged, block, and layers of paint contrasted with large steel posts and beams, how it seemed to age quicker and quicker as newer materials arrived on site, and finally how it became a memory and curiosity, closed off from street view, and how to this day I don’t know whatever happened to that little building.
Jeffery
That is the perfect analogy. Mind if I used that in subsequent posts?
Go right ahead! I’d be honored.
Here’s a poem I wrote a while back with similar theme to my story above:
HOCUS FOCUS
Focus on the positive, to rid the world of sin.
Focus on the light up tight, while we brick you in.
Focus on the half full plate, not the empty pie.
Focus on the half-a-truth, don’t mind that it’s a lie.