With an eerie charm, a token glows from the perspiring palm of a man at dusk. He gently tilts his wrist. Towards his fingers, the token slides. He pinches it with careful precision, not willing to obscure its radiance. Then he reaches out. With his arm lovingly wrapped around his friend, he raises the token. They behold its form. Their hearts race. Captivated by its charm, time overtakes them. Darkness intrudes on their affair and cloaks their surroundings. And though the token is losing its mesmeric glow, they have not perceived it yet.
Nations in an idolatry-induced stupor have fallen away. The Western hemisphere hardly bears any semblance to its quasi-Judeo-Christian heritage. The prized token of neo-paganism has nations entranced. It beckons people now. It demands that all remnants of godly principles be shunned. All the thoughts and practices emanating from it have swayed populations. As the enchantment continues, how can we demystify the current trend?
It starts with God and the revelation of who He is. God looks at humanity. He sees people who vehemently deny His existence. They perceive that the world necessitates the existence of God, yet they stifle such thoughts. They sense His inexhaustible power and the divine nature which He alone has. But refusal to follow through with their actions is the tragic outcome. They withhold from God what is owed to Him as God. With hearts of ingratitude, souls turn to worship created things. God is exchanged.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Romans 1:22-23
This is paganism. Thoughts rise no higher than the creation here below. It is the desperate state of societies before the gospel reaches them. As surely as the LORD lives, it is also the state of societies afterward. Beliefs become centered on humanity and the surrounding world. And what does God do? Rather than idly sit looking on (as many think), God acts. He hands people over to the perversity of their own hearts. This is not a one-off occurrence. The incorruptible God, in His sovereignty, continues to give people up to greater degrees of degradation.
Here in the United Kingdom, as with other Western nations, we can trace a Christian heritage along the long tapestry of history. There was a time of great Christian influence. During times of outward consent to Christian ethics or rarer times of spiritual revival, there was an obvious influence. What God has to say mattered. But then came a turning away and God gave people up. With hindsight, we see key moments in history that served as signposts. Each signaled society’s willingness to accept increasingly sinful practices. Each was an instance of a larger measure of God’s wrath being poured out.
A people abandoned by God and left to pursue the depraved desires of their hearts. Heterosexual promiscuity was the first checkpoint. However, there seems to be an overlap in the onset of judgment. As early as 1957, the government-funded Wolfenden Report recommended the decriminalization of homosexual acts in private settings, a decade before full legalization under the Sexual Offences Act (1967). There was still a preoccupation with heterosexuality among the general populace. Only later, in the Swinging Sixties, would new ethics be widely applied in opposition to Christian tradition. Then the acceptable context for sexual relations expanded beyond marriage. Though the starting pistol had been fired, the race toward a new ideal was yet to pick up pace in the UK during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the race had started.
Meanwhile, ripples in public thought were still being felt across the Atlantic. The findings of Alfred Kinsey, an American sexologist, provided content that led to two bestselling books. “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” published in 1948, was the first. “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” was later published in 1953. Kinsey’s sampling methods were shady. Even his most avid fans concede that his samples were not representative of the entire population. It didn’t matter. He successfully challenged traditional views on sex. Sexuality was now being discussed in a way that elevated so-called scientific research and excluded God’s word. As the focus tipped toward lies, God’s people were handed over. People began to revel in worldviews devoid of God and His design. The contagion of so-called sexual liberation would soon spread.
The introduction and fast-growing availability of contraceptive pills during the 1960s marks another checkpoint in the UK. Better described as abortive pills, these gave women so-called sexual freedom. When faced with the consequence of pregnancy, a pill was used to end a child’s life. Toward the latter end of the 1960s, abortion was legalized. Following the Abortion Act (1967), the Divorce Reform Act (1969) soon followed. With the permanence of God-given marriage now undermined and the consequences of sexual activity outside of marriage suppressed, the principles passed down from a Christian culture were fast eroding.
Admittedly, traditional attitudes toward sex persisted after these key moments. Yet, in this small sample of key events, we see the groundwork for today’s attitudes. People consented to the government decisions. And God gave them up. The sexual practices of a society are an indicator of its degradation. It shows how much of God’s restraint has been withdrawn from a nation. People who forsake their Creator are soon left alone. God leaves His image-bearers to the crude devaluing of their being.
When people withhold the honor and thanksgiving owed to God, God withholds His restraining grace. Then whole civilizations are left to their shaky foundations. As an axe-wielding man hacks away at a tree, he makes steady progress. The tree begins to lean in a particular direction. It will soon be severed from its roots and fall in the direction it leans. In the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. And be assured of this: the direction in which a society leans, it will fall. The previously mentioned events were some indicators of where society was leaning. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, we can confirm where society was leaning by where we have fallen.
This article here fails to catalogue to exact sequence of events and their relation to one another. Nevertheless, we can try to estimate how we arrived at our current state. We run risk of placing too much importance on specific events while overlooking the accumulative impact on a society. The best of estimates is an estimate at best. But God perfectly explains the motions of godless society, as seen towards the beginning of the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the church in Rome. In trajectory outlined there clear indicates a progressive sequence subject to the sovereignty of God. The expressions of sinful hearts grow more depraved and widespread, culminating in the endorsement of shameful and destructive practices.
Sexual deviance is now proudly worn as a badge of honor and touted as a virtue by nations today. It is the outworking of a pagan society refusing to submit to (or even acknowledge) the God of the Bible. How did we arrive here? Several stages are widely applicable.
Sympathize
People begin to understand and pity those impacted by the sinful behavior being criminalized. For example, the aforementioned Wolfenden Report (1957) was triggered by trials involving high-profile people charged with homosexual offenses. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a British aristocrat and Conservative politician, was convicted. Peter Wildeblood, a novelist and playwright, was also convicted. He would go on to give his account of the famous “Montagu Case” in a self-authored book. Unnatural acts performed on the country estate of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu caught the nation’s eye. The personal story later counteracted the media portrayal. It personalized the practice and appealed for understanding from the general public.
Rationalize
The committee that issued the Wolfenden Report recommended that homosexual behavior should be decriminalized. Two conditions were given. Firstly, the participants must be consenting adults. Secondly, the behavior must be in private. The Church of England narrowly approved this recommendation in the same year. It served as a basis for the idea of private immorality. If something is done behind closed doors, then it is only the concern of those behind the closed doors. The report clearly showed indifference, stating, ‘It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behavior.’ Live and let live. The behavior was found to be compatible with full mental health. From the very top, a nation was given over to a depraved mind to then question the harmfulness of sin and the effectiveness of punishment.
Decriminalize / Legalize
Homosexuality was later decriminalized. The same year saw the legalization of abortion, which also had precursors of sympathizing and rationalizing that continue to this day. National law beckoned people to follow its twisted principles. It justifies people in their behavior. However, laws permitting behavior do not appease movements. Opposing these newfound morals must be outlawed in the last stage to reinforce widespread indoctrination.
Normalize
Perhaps the most arduous and prolonged stage is that of normalizing sinful behavior. This happens on many fronts and reuses methods of sympathizing and rationalizing. However, now recent history can be used to urge further change. A tide of societal change is pointed to, warning, ‘Don’t be on the wrong side of history.’ Media programming is used to popularize so-called norms. Public figures who partake in the sin are esteemed, and their lived experiences are promoted.
Inevitably, attention then shifts to education in efforts to affect the coming generations. Past errors are said to be rooted in bigotry and result from poor education. Therefore, current understanding must inform the learning of children. Key events serve as landmarks along the timeline to be memorialized in classrooms. Curriculums include the struggles of a minority who only desired acceptance of their sexual expression.
Efforts to normalize do not only aim for acceptance. The desire is to have the sinful behavior practiced by more and more people, adults and children alike. Sigmund Freud, whose findings laid the groundwork for modern psychology, reasoned that children are sexual from birth. So why not target children? If education is the issue, then it is ignorance resulting from inadequate schooling that leads to the rejection of sexual deviance. Many think that the United Nations is justified in having the Free & Equal Campaign, which targets developing nations. Such are the attempts to globalize preferred forms of sexual immorality through so-called education programs.
In recent years, with the legalization of so-called same-sex marriage, change has picked up pace. The intentions are not so thinly veiled as before. The notorious TEDx talk suggesting that the perverse behavior of so-called minor-attracted individuals is deserving of sympathy has now been removed. However, there still remain videos on the same educational channel that express a more subtle form of sympathy toward such offenders. Old talks can be found elsewhere such as one done by an ex-offender. While presenting themselves as well-meaning, they push the boundaries of acceptable living by retelling tragic tales of hurt and misunderstanding. Punishment is scolded and perpetrators are cast as victims. As long as people insist on ignoring the Creator, God is under no obligation to maintain His restraints. The slippery slope continues toward more debased practices that are entirely void of natural affection.
Recount the journey of the past few decades. With the aid of contraceptives and abortive pills, sex outside of marriage was widely entertained. Government reports and later legislation gave way to same-sex relationships in privacy. Divorce was then made more accessible, and marriage was undermined. Legalizing so-called same-sex marriage defiantly redefined in the legislature what God intends to be a building block for society. Further destruction to marriage was rendered by so-called ‘no fault’ divorces. Gender confusion then struck like lightning and caused a frenzy from which we are yet to escape.
God, by His common grace, allows common sense among some. Wickedness is restrained in select individuals to permit them to see through the façade of social movements. Movements that leverage media and entertainment in all its forms to further their agenda. They gain traction, day by day. Reportedly done tongue-in-cheek, a gay choir based in San Francisco released a song. In another bid to normalize their sexual misconduct, they sought to make fun of people’s suspicions about them. They made fun of the allegations and stereotypes, singing:
You think we’re sinful
You fight against our rights
You say we all lead lives you can’t respect
But you’re just frightened
You think that we’ll corrupt your kids
If our agenda goes unchecked
Fine, just this once, you’re correctWe’ll convert your children
Happens bit by bit
Quietly and subtly
And you will barely notice it …San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (2021)
This anthem of one-way tolerance goes to make clear their present stance. The chorus later erupts, proclaiming, “We’re coming for them, we’re coming for your children.” If you are inclined to believe this is all done in jest, then I wish to remind you of history in California. Perhaps they too overlooked the crimes of men who infiltrated the gay rights movement. The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was founded in 1978 by gay rights activist David Thorstad. He desired a scenario reminiscent of ancient Greece and all the pederasty that went along with it. The association advocated for the visibility and acceptance of minor-attracted men. What’s more, they aimed to offer these men opportunities to fulfill their debased desires.
NAMBLA advocated for the removal of age-of-consent laws. They strongly believed in their cause. The association was formed to defend men they felt were falsely accused of running a child prostitution ring in Boston, Massachusetts. These operations involved boys aged eight to fifteen. Media coverage of the case and the interests of NAMBLA did not hinder the growth of the association to over 1,000 people. They considered themselves “part of the gay movement and central to gay history and culture.” It was an ambitious imitation of traditions in sexual behavior. It is maintained here that these vile practices litter the timeline of human history. For such abhorrent behavior, God put an end to entire cultures and civilizations. Why would the case be any different for us?
Reader, I hope you realize that we are living in times where approval is given to a wide variety of sinful practices. I also hope you realize that there is no neutral stance taken by God, nor is He passive. That which was on the fringe of acceptance a few decades ago has now taken center stage. Practices that were once concealed behind closed doors are now openly endorsed and advertised on city streets. The righteous judgment of God weighs heavy on their consciences, so they use substances to numb the guilt and find safety in numbers. Knowing such practices incur fatal consequences for body and soul, they carry on. And they give approval to those who do likewise.
What waters are left to test? Why not lie with minors? Why stop at the theoretical and edge into the practical? Why only lie with humans? The question has already been asked in academia. During his tenure, Peter Singer was the seventh most prominent professor at Princeton University. He specialized in bioethics and alluded to the validity of a pro-bestiality study during 2023. This was the same study that claimed, ‘[sex with animals] is not an inherently problematic sexual practice.’ Yes, God’s restraining grace is being withdrawn from academia to the ultimate degree. If these evil people train the leaders of tomorrow, then what will tomorrow bring?
Unless God mercifully intervenes, we are helpless. And unless God faithfully keeps those who trust in His Son, they too would be deceived and joined to a hive mind of sexual hysteria. Societal collapse is lurking around the corner. We are reaching the full measure of sin. God’s patience does expire, and He does remove entire nations. What will the United Kingdom do among those enthralled by increasingly perverse practices? No nation is too big for removal.
World Unyielding 
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