“As for
my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my
people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy
paths.” (Isaiah 3:12)
“My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected
knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing
thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
(Hosea 4:6)
"And
he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
(Malachi 4:6. Note the word “fathers” can refer to both parents; when a noun is
pluralized, its gender can be neutral.)
What
happened to young adults, and what led to the Generation Gap and the youth
culture of rebellion and decadence that continues today? There was a time in
America and Europe when a teenager was normally considered ready for normal adult
work and responsibility, teenage marriage did not involve a high divorce rate,
and juvenile crime was not considered normal behaviour. In Bible times a person
was considered a young adult at the age of thirteen, but today we have a person
called an adolescent, someone who is not physically a child but is not
considered a young adult. What happened? Let us look at some of the societal
and cultural trends that led to this:
For much
of American history families and society in general were patriarchal, and
adults had moral, religious, and social responsibilities to provide for,
discipline, and train their children, and care for their elderly parents, and
parents normally raised up their children to succeed them, and not to merely
succeed. Over time government expansion and the Industrial Revolution were
allowed to interfere with family relationships and responsibilities. With the Industrial
Revolution came Child Labor Laws, some of which made sense while others were
absurd. For example, laws originally intended to keep a child whose age is
still a single digit from working sixteen hours a day in a sweatshop or coal
mine under unhealthy conditions are now used to keep healthy teenagers from
doing light work for eight hours or less in air-conditioned buildings. The idea
that children should not be taught to work and be responsible and teenagers
cannot or should not be expected to handle work and responsibility has become
popular and accepted. Free public education became compulsory continued
education, thus encouraging artificially extended childhood and further
enabling indoctrination in secularism and humanism. If movements and
legislation to coerce teenagers into staying in school were ultimately based on
concern for the interests and welfare of youths, then intelligent and knowledgeable
students would be encouraged to get a GED and seek employment or go on to
college or vocational school; the real issue is continued government
indoctrination and the expansion of government power. We even have children's
courts, or juvenile courts, to impress upon young minds that they are not fully
accountable or completely responsible for their own behaviour.
Secular
humanism has been invading and dominating public schools, colleges, the media, politics,
churches, and religious institutions for over a century.
Humanism
replaced integrity, self-respect, and other gentlemanly (or genteel) and
feminine characteristics with self-esteem, replaced personal responsibility and
accountability with self-esteem and blamed all sorts of sins, personal
problems, and social maladies on lack of self-esteem. Humanism has produced a
generation where academic and work ethics often suffer because of replacing proficiency
with self-confidence, and civility and hospitality are often sacrificed on the
altar of self.
Secularism
replaced Bible principles with secular philosophy and denies the need to look
to Scripture for direction in human interactions and relationships.
Women
became masculine and men became effeminate or adopted a macho facade, these
extremes being contrary to God's design for the male as the Lord's
representative, and women became masculine and adopted male roles contrary to God’s
design of the woman as an help meet. Feminism encourages women to reject their
complementary role and mimic the sexual attitudes, behaviour, and
aggressiveness of men and thus relinquish their natural power; this merely
fulfills male fantasies and accommodates the baser instincts of men while
lowering the respect of men for women instead of encouraging women to be the
civilising and stabilising influence on men that they are designed to be. The rise
of feminism has been destructive to chivalry and femininity, and role reversals
anathematized the need for respect between the sexes. The need for true
gentlemen and ladies was replaced by “equality;” equals do not complement each
other, they compete. God's design for communities, organizations, and the
family is hierarchy with a balance between equality of being and functional
subordination.
Widespread
materialism has produced a society of ungrateful, indulgent, and overbearing people
without a sense of thankfulness and appreciation, a generation of selfish
expectations where an attitude that we deserve everything prevails.
Widespread
lack of parental presence, training, supervision, and participation in the
lives of children had negative effects.
Movies
and TV shows often portray Middle School and High School students as small
children in the bodies of youths and present this either as typical and
expected of every teenager or as an example to emulate. Encouraging extended childhood
and discouraging emotional and intellectual growth jeopardizes future
relationships, makes people more easily persuaded to reject the influence and
values of family and church, and makes people more easily indoctrinated in
secularism, humanism, and statism.
For
decades education and entertainment media have encouraged youths to limit their
associations to young and immature people and avoid the influence of mature
people who are older and wiser than themselves. (Consider Proverbs 13:20)
In the
twentieth century, especially the latter half of the twentieth century, and the
twenty-first century some misleading myths and theories have been widely
accepted even in Christian circles, such as:
·
The theory of evolution is compatible with
Christianity and Bible truth.
·
Humans are naturally good. (Man can choose
to do right, but sin comes naturally because humans are natural-born sinners.
How many parents ever had to teach a child how to be bad?)
·
Satan rules the Earth. (Satan rules in the
hearts of unbelievers, "the wicked world system," but God is the
present ruler of the Earth and nothing in the Bible ever indicates that God
abdicated his throne and turned rulership over to Satan.)
·
The Bible is only for Christians. (The
Bible is God's message to all mankind and provides guidance on every area of
human existence and applying Bible teachings benefits both believers and
unbelievers. The important difference is that for the unbeliever the word of God
is convicting and for the believer the word of God is cleansing.)
·
Bible truths and standards only apply to
the church-related part of our lives and do not apply to our secular
lives.
·
It is wrong for a Christian (especially a
preacher) to hold a public office, to address, influence, or be a part of the
school board, or otherwise try to influence society for righteousness. (Genesis
41:37-44; Daniel 2:48-49; Matthew 5:13-16; Acts 17:6-7; 2 Corinthians 10:4-6; 1
Timothy 2:1-2; 1 John 5:4; etc.)
·
For a long time it has been normal or even
typical for Christians in America to blame the displacement of the Christian
worldview, the erosion of traditional family values, and alarming increases in
divorce, unwed pregnancy, venereal disease, youth rebellion, and other social
maladies on everything but the decline in Christian influence and subsequent
increase in rejection of the Bible and Christian values instead of recognising
the responsibility of Christians to influence culture and community for righteousness.
·
After WWII there arose a trend of giving
teenagers a separate identity and segregating teenagers into a different class
of people, and it has become commonplace for churches to segregate teenagers
from mature influences, thus making it common for youths to be peer-dependent
instead of elder-dependent and replacing respect for elders with respect for
youth and immaturity. (Consider Proverbs 13:20; Isaiah 3:4-5; Malachi 4:6)
·
In the 1940s some psychologists and other so-called
"experts" began teaching that it is harmful and abusive to use
corporal punishment to discipline children and you should not teach your
children about religion and morality until they are much older, and along with
this the idea that children should have everything their parents did not has
become popular. Reality is that corporal punishment of children as discipline
helps children develop character, conscience, and self-discipline, and the
religious education of children should start early. (Consider Proverbs 22:6,
15; 29:15, 17; Isaiah 28:9; 2 Timothy 3:15) It should be noted that these were
not parents or grandparents sharing wisdom gained through experience, they were
“experts” pushing unproved theories, and as years and decades passed these
theories kept gaining popularity so that we now have a large segment of the
"adult" population that were undisciplined and spoiled to the point
of replacing reality and critical thinking with delusions and wishful thinking
and behaving like spoiled children in pursuit of utopian dreams. The Generation
Gap and the youth culture of rebellion and decadence that characterized the
1960s and continue today were inevitable results of multitudes of spoiled brats
coming of age and influencing other youths. For decades it has been common for
folks to wonder what happened to the younger generations, but this is not a
mystery. What is amazing is that so many parents never use corporal punishment
to correct bad behaviour, do not teach their children social conduct and
respect for elders, do not give their children responsibilities (chores), do
not provide religious and moral guidance at home, and encourage their children
to limit their associations to immature people, and then do not understand why
the resulting teenagers act like small children in larger bodies. (Consider
Proverbs 22:6 & 29:15)
·
Teenagers are children. This idea was used
to keep teenagers out of the industrial work force and support continued compulsory
indoctrination. Most teenagers, or most modern teenagers, act that way because
the media and well-meaning adults encourage this directly and indirectly. Have you
ever observed that news, education, and entertainment media encourage, both
subtly and overtly, youths to segregate themselves from mature influences and
limit their associations to immature people, and modern movies and TV shows
often portray teenagers as small children in the bodies of youths and present
this as expected and acceptable? Encouraging extended childhood and
discouraging emotional and intellectual growth jeopardizes future
relationships, makes people more easily persuaded to reject the influence and
values of family and church, and makes people more easily indoctrinated in
secularism, humanism, and statism.
·
The Age Gap in the Prefrontal Cortex
Theory. Please note that "an intelligent person with a big college degree
believes the human brain is not developed till the mid-twenties" is not hard
evidence that proves anything. Was this conclusion reached because of the
weight of evidence or merely because someone wanted it to be true? (I am hoping
to encourage you to research and analyze the data on this and look for hard
evidence.)
·
Sex education is the job of secular
government-run public schools because all sex is sin, sex is dirty, and
Christians must never talk about it. (Sex is sacred and beautiful, which is the
reason for standards of sexual morality, and the Bible is not prudish about sex. An old and simple method of teaching children
about sex at home is to read the Bible to them every day; as they get older,
various passages will arouse questions or otherwise provide opportunities for
proper instruction at home. -Ruth 4:13; Proverbs 5:18-20; Song of Solomon
1:13; 5:4; 7:6-8; 1 Corinthians 7:2-5; Hebrews 13:4; etc...)
·
The modern theory that teenagers can be
kept from attracting or desiring the opposite sex though legislation, taboo, or
social custom is a fantasy far removed from reality. The Bible does not pretend
or imply that young women can be kept from attracting or desiring men but
established safeguards and moral guidelines. (Consider Song of Solomon 8:8-9)
Teen pregnancy is not a social malady, a dangerous trend, or a modern
phenomenon; throughout history most women married in their teens and most
mothers bore their first child while in their teens. It is ironic that some modern
laws meant to stop sexual abuse give youths opportunities to be sexually
immoral with reduced risk of disclosure or reprisal and thus make them more
vulnerable; consider that statutory rape is the only felony in which an
underage youth can willingly participate, and even initiate the crime, without
reprisal. On the other hand, statutory rape laws and marriage laws that raise
the age of consent and the age at which a teenager can marry (even with parental
consent) do not keep an underage young woman from attracting or desiring the
opposite sex, they simply discourage unmarried gentlemen with honourable
motives from romantic interest for fear of social and legal repercussions.
This, along with frequent misapplication of the word “pedophilia” (sexual
attraction to, or sexual relations with, prepubescent children), also sends out
the wrong message by implying that the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child is
no worse or different than consensual sex with a teenager. In many cases there
are practical reasons to delay marriage until older, and we should be concerned
about protecting young people from abuse and exploitation, but a blanket
condemnation or prohibition against teenage marriage has negative effects.
(Back in 1990 I saw a news report about the alarming number of teenage
pregnancies, and since my mother was a teenager when I was born but was married
before she was pregnant the wording of the report made me wonder why the media
treats this as a social malady. I went to the library to research whether this
really is a growing problem and learned that in decades and centuries past
there was a higher percentage of teenagers having babies but a much lower
percentage of unwed pregnancies. Later I read in a magazine about a then recent
study that revealed that in most unwed teenage pregnancies the illegitimate
father is a married man, and this led to further research. I encourage the
reader to research this yourself and see if you get the impression that the
liberal media has been deliberately working to distort our perspective on this
issue.)
The list of examples could continue but these should
suffice for now.
When I
was a teenager, it annoyed me to hear a teenager use their youth as an excuse
for recklessness or rebellion, or to hear someone older use their youth as a cop
out to excuse the sins of their youth by saying they were a teenager, as though
every teenager does what they did or behaves as badly and that erases any
guilt, and sometimes this still bothers me. When you were a teenager, you did
not sin because you were a teenager, you sinned because you were a sinner, and
if you were an extremely immature teenager, it was because you were extremely
immature.
Please
do not misunderstand what I am saying, I am certainly not arguing that all teenagers
are mature, or that parental consent should not be required for important or
major decisions and choices (e.g., marriage, etc.). (I am also in favour of
raising the voting age. It is ironic when someone who says teenagers should not
be trusted with firearms or adult responsibilities says teenagers should choose
who to entrust with government power, as though government power is not
dangerous, and voting does not involve any risk.) But I do want to share some
food for thought: When we penalize all teenagers because of what some teenagers
do, did, or might do, who is being limited or restricted? Are we really
limiting or restricting the extremely immature little brats in the bodies of
teenagers who do not respect elders or authority, or are we penalizing the
young ladies and young gentlemen who are not the problem? Also consider, how do
you or would you respond to being penalized for the wrongdoing of others? (Besides,
nobody 21 or older ever does anything childish, commits crimes, or behaves
irresponsibly. Right? I could point to people my age who are small children in
adult bodies.)
It is
ironic that in modern times we, as a society, push, promote, and encourage
extended or suspended childhood and then wonder why so many take so much longer
to grow up than previous generations that were not so heavily influenced by
modernists that push, promote, and encourage extended or suspended childhood.
For some
reason there is a common tendency to refuse to learn lessons from the past, as
though we must be superior to our forefathers and cannot acknowledge that
someone else may have possessed more wisdom in some area. I am not trying to
romanticize the past or claim that any human society was ever without wrongs
and imperfections. I am simply asking you to consider the obvious: If certain
problems with youths that are now rampant, and are even considered normal or acceptable
now, were at one time the exceptions and not the rule, it must be that our
forefathers (though human like us) were doing something right and that those
things which they were doing right were discontinued.
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