By: Nancy Clyatt
When I was growing up my mother taught me to, “Always do what’s right.” However, sometimes the power of self and the ilk of a less than perfect world would briefly dull my conscience that had been so carefully crafted by my Christian mother. My conscience was one of the most important gifts my mother gave me. It has served me well over my lifetime. Fortunately, because I was a girl of the fifties, living in a world offering fewer amoral choices, it was tested less than it would be today.
During my adolescence, TV shows were censored by “The Greatest Generation” that still believed in the virtues of faith in God, societal standards, and morality. Unlike today, being a person of faith was, "politically correct." My mother’s generation was well aware of the power of the media. Therefore, they did not allow us, by way of censorship, to view or hear the cesspool of situational ethics and tawdry behavior that we are fed in such copious abundance by the present day entertainment industry.
Those in power would never have permitted the social engineering of today that confounds faith and glorifies perdition. Freedom of speech protected us FROM profanity and graphic sex and violence, instituted by a society that’s motto was, “In God We Trust.” My mother’s world was framed by a constitution that granted them freedom OF religion not freedom FROM religion.
Another lessons taught by my mother was that silence gives consent. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that the virtue of my mother’s words would ring in my ears as her words became mine. I watched as parents were silent to their children’s tirades and disrespectful voices. I witnessed parents leaving their childhood virtues behind as they put on the self indulgent mantle of the nineties........ just to keep peace.
I observed as skirts got shorter, tops got tighter and, "Been there done that!" became the mantra of a lost generation who believed in situational ethics and that everything made available by a hedonistic world was their right of passage. And it all was made possible because our silence gave consent.
Churches, of every denomination, are reeling with the permissive climate that the present generation struggles daily with. Pop Stars like Brittany Spears, an acclaimed Christian, are setting the fashions for many of today’s young woman who find no issue with wearing tight micro skirts and midriff revealing blouses to Gods house. Since when did modest attire become optional for young Christian women? These young women know what to wear to the prom or to a wedding but not what is appropriate attire to worship God in, more or less being modestly appareled on a daily basis. Why? Because our silence has given consent.
Public dancing, which was considered lewd and lascivious behavior by most churches of the fifties and sixties, is now sanctioned by many Christian parents. The dances of yesterday don’t compare with the booty dancing done by today’s teens. It’s physically sexual content is inappropriate for any Christian and yet many of our young teens attend dances regularly. If teen retort is that they don’t do that kind of dancing, I must ask, are they not guilty by association? Our silence as Christian parents, church elders, and preachers has surely given our consent.
While taking an ethics class in college, my professor was my beacon in the issue of silence. He led the class in a lengthy discourse on which kind of individual proved worst for society. He moved us toward the conclusion that it was not the protagonist or villain, but rather the person who set idly by and did nothing that was the plague of society. It is a plague that can strike Christians as well.
In Revelation 3:16, John quotes God as saying, “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot or cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.” When it comes to the word of God and the judgment of right and wrong, by his standards, silence gives consent. Being lukewarm or idly doing nothing, on matters of faith, won’t help us or anyone else get to heaven.
It was silence that allowed millions to die in concentration camps in World War 2. It is silence that has allowed millions more to die before they could be born. It is silence that allowed God to be stricken from American schools. It is silence that has allowed music, TV, and movies to denigrate all that is pure and holy as innocence is lost to a Godless world. It is our silence that is allowing the world to slowly creep into our churches desensitizing us to issues like modest dress and right and wrong.
If Christians are not part of the solution, them we must ask ourselves if are silence is not part of the problem. Are we becoming spiritually bankrupt in our quest to not offend inappropriate behaviors? Is there no end to what we will tolerate to keep the peace? So far, the silent answers.....have been deafening!
The adage, “What one generation tolerates the next will embrace.” has become an immutable truth. Unless we change our pattern of acceptance, I fear the future we may be creating and the condemnation that will surely follow with it.
If Christians are to not be of this world, then why should we allow the world to set fashion or moral codes or any aspect of our Christian lives? If we are to be an outward showing of an inner faith, then how we present ourselves by way of our dress or demeanor or moral attitudes may ultimately be the thing that decides whether or not God spews us out of heaven.