The Skankification of Our Civilization

Today while driving home there was a bit on the radio with the announcer opening the discussion on a trend he said he has been noticing in Halloween costumes. The trend being the lack of clothing in costumes, particularly where the female is concerned. He said some of them were close to being “pornographic”. Gone are the days when Halloween costumes were designed to be scary. Now it seems that costumes for females are designed to be “sexy”. Or, lets call a spade a spade, slutty. I mean, when I worked in the homeless shelters I had contact with prostitutes and I can honestly say that none of them were dressed quite the way some girls dress today. I should clarify this: I have walked through the malls in Calgary viewing the attire of many females. If I were to compare these to the prostitutes some of the “higher-classed” prostitutes would pass for normal, or be over-dressed.

I like that term - “sexy” - when it is used to describe this kind of stuff these days. It's so broad. Not only does it hold a meaning of something along the lines of, say, a good looking person. Now it also includes things having to do with straight-up sex, sex acts, etc. The kind of stuff deemed “sexy” today used to be called “porn” when I was a young-un, and “soft-porn” when I hit the teen years. It's just “sexy” now. I wonder what it will be called when I'm in my fifties - “boring”?

I have seen this trend in our society (I'm sure it's in other societies as well but I only have experience with my own, so this is my reference point) towards everything being geared towards sex in some form or other. Everything, from ads about air freshener (Glade) that does a close up on a lit candle positioned – strategically? - between two breasts, to an ad for some kind of male body wash from Axe Cologne that has two tightly clothed and “sexy” females discussing how this product is good for washing your balls – they're holding golf balls. There is also a nifty little ad for some investment company (the name escapes me at this point) that starts out with a close-up shot of a woman's shirt that has a little diamond-shaped hole so you can see her cleavage. The camera spins in a circle and pans outwards and as it moves outwards the viewing audience is treated to an ever widening shot of her breasts. Sex is used to sell, advertise, promote – you name it – everything!!!

Try to go shopping at any supermarket these days and avoid the reams of magazines at the check-out counter. Covers with scantily-clad women with articles ranging from how to get a man's pants off and give him what he wants, to ideas for various locations for having sex outside of the home. I went to a 7-11 one day with my girls to buy them slurpees and right at eye level for them at the counter are racks of these same magazines with others, like Maxim. Scantily-clad is an understatement when describing how the woman are clothed on Maxim covers! My daughter went into a flower shop with her grandmother the other day and a TV was on. My daughter told my wife that evening that there was a show on the TV that had a man with no shirt on taking off a woman's bra. This shit was on a TV in a FLOWER SHOP!!! and my little girl saw this!

What really hit me about this is when my wife was looking for clothing for my little girls for the summer. Now my girls will not be hitting their teens for a few more years. It was near to impossible for my wife to find any kind of shirt for them that was not low-cut, and I mean low-cut! What the hell is wrong with clothing companies when they make clothes for little girls that are like this? My wife tried to find a pair of shorts for them to wear outside. Well, the kinds of shorts she found were sick! If my little girl was wearing a pair of these and bent down to tie her shoe or do up a sandal a person could pretty much catch a view of what would only be appropriate to see in a peep-show (don't get me started on peep-shows!). This is today's clothing for LITTLE GIRLS!!!

Then it hit me! There's a “conspiracy”. It HAS to be a conspiracy of some sort because nothing could be this far-reaching and huge, nothing of this magnitude, nothing so widespread and it all be just a coincidence. Although I am not a good planner by any stretch of the imagination, by all accounts, there is some sort of planning taking place here. I see a correlation here between how loose more and more women today are becoming with how much more sexualized everything seems to be getting. I don't think that companies out there are working closely with one another to make this all happen. But it is kind of strange that all these companies and organizations seem to all be doing the same things with their advertising and marketing. If one steps back and views the larger societal picture one can almost see, based on the changes that have taken place regarding sexuality, that some greater coordinating force is at work here working at changing the way we view sexuality. It's like the more and more something like this is out there and in your face the more accepted it eventually becomes! Start young. Get everyone when they're young to think this stuff is okay. The more perversion that gets accepted as normal the more perversion that can FURTHER be accepted as normal! Will what we consider shameful and perverse today be thought prudish and ancient when my daughters have children? There is definitely not a trend towards change in the other direction – purity, chastity, virginity. Pfft! I don't think I need to do a diatribe on how these virtues are viewed in today's culture!

How would this verse be viewed in everyone's eyes today: “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” - 1 Timothy 2:9,10. Here's another verse: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.” 1 Peter 3:3-5a. The principles here for Christian women fly in the face of our culture today. I have known many women who had beautiful bodies and painted themselves up with make up and they were HOT! However, it didn't take very long to see that all this beauty was a white-wash – they were UBER-BITCHES!!! Who they were and their personality made their outward beauty fade quickly. “Whitewashed walls” very accurately describes them. Nice on the outside, but on the inside....and it's the inside that is of greater worth to God. How backward is this world-view when compared to the culture we live in?

Here are some examples about this change in society I have been talking about: In the age that my parents grew up in it was a shameful thing for a girl to be pregnant and not be married. Sometimes the parents would send her away so the whole family would be spared the shame. She would then come back after the baby was born. Not so today. The point I am trying to make is the complete change in how pregnancy outside of marriage is viewed today as opposed to a few decades ago. As an aside, I always wonder what happened to the guy that got her pregnant? Was there any shame put on him, or was there a nice slap on the shoulder after some scolding for what he had done?

Another example: Homosexuality never used to be as accepted when I was a kid compared to how it is today. You see homosexuality promoted as okay and normal in almost every TV show, news cast and article today whereas when I was growing up rarely was this seen nor discussed, and if it was there was definitely not a positive spin attached to it like there is now. Nowadays, if a person steps up and says the act of homosexuality is wrong they're immediately labeled as hate-mongers and put on the same level as racists. When I was growing up this was rarely discussed at all and when it was there was nothing positive. Change.

Briefly, here's one more: Day Care in High Schools for the students. Nothing more needs to be said.

What was looked upon only a few decades ago as perverse and immoral is now looked upon as normal and fine. A complete 180, accomplished slowly, over many years! So slowly, in fact, that today people see nothing wrong with how sexuality is portrayed in our culture. It's like everything out there is designed to make girls dress as loosely and slutty as possible and to believe that it's okay to act how you dress so that guys view them as nothing more than sexual objects, toys to play with for awhile, and then move on to some other new toy. In one interview I heard Lady Gaga say something to the effect of this: her image and who she is is associated with what she wears. Any cursory viewing of one of her videos does not take a genius to decipher what she is telling everyone about who she is! The latest Katy Perry video, Teenage Dream, is all about getting a room and screwing the guy you're with. “Let's go all the way tonight. No regrets, just love.” A catchy little tune that has one humming it all day long. Helped along, of course, by hearing it played 5 or 6 times on the radio wherever one seems to find oneself in the course of the day's activities. Being constantly bombarded by the message of beautiful people who have sex with everyone else, even persons of the opposite sex, and there are no apparent consequences to this behavior has to have some kind of affect on a person. And from what I am seeing in this lovely little plan/conspiracy is that there is a real push to get this message to the youngest. Change happens with the young.

I do not think I need to go into any kind of lengthy discussion on the ease with which any person can access pornography these days. And, the amount of pornography that is available is staggering compared to when I was growing up. The internet is HUGE for porn!, whereas when I was growing up I had to content myself with whatever my friends could steal from their dad's collection of magazines. To my own shame I have accessed porn on numerous occasions.

I am the other side of the coin when it comes to the Skankification of our Civilization. I am a guy. I am fueled by what I see and what I like to see is the very thing that I can view anywhere and everywhere – all this shit that I've been describing, and more! This constant bombardment makes me want to see more and the world that I live in is right there to give me more of what I want. My own lust fuels my desire for more of this. The more I get the more my lust is fueled. “The eye never has enough of seeing”, it is written in the Bible. To my shame I admit this. I have a CD from John MacArthur where he was talking to an old, Christian man on his deathbed. The guy told John that his one regret was that he never had victory over pornography. Never! How powerful is this sex thing that is in humanity where a man on his deathbed confesses he had not been able to stop going after it in his lifetime? I know how powerful it is in me and that statement scared me.

The end result of this little conspiracy is bondage. To those who say this is good, and humanity is becoming more free are deceived. Try and stop it, try and stop doing it and see how free you are!

Tell me humanity doesn't need a Saviour!

Have mercy on me, Lord, a sinner.

A good laugh is needed today.

Poverty

The poor you will always have with you. But you will not always have me.” Matt 26:11

I thought about this in Church the other morning and wondered - “Does poverty exist so that the Body of Christ, the Church, will do something about it?”

In Matt 25:31-46 Jesus finished telling how people are separated at the judgment (the sheep and the goats) and they are separated based on what they did for the poor, the hurting, the “least of these.” Those who are hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, a stranger, a person in prison...and the least of these. When God's people do something for these people – Jesus says, “...whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

So, it made me wonder the question I posed earlier.

I then thought about my time working at the homeless shelter in Calgary. We did lots of stuff for the homeless and sometimes we shared the gospel with the people. We seemed intent on helping them with the “issues” that had them on the street – addictions, mental illness, anger, abuse, etc. We also presented ways they could deal with these issues – AA, AADAC, medication for mental disorders, Anger Management, counseling, etc. I wonder if this was a worldly way of doing Matt 25:31-46? We were giving them ways to deal with this stuff without giving them Jesus Christ, without presenting the gospel. We were having them deal with this stuff on their own, without Christ. But, sometimes these people would discover Christ through these things as they realized that they could not make it through this stuff on their own, that they needed Someone or something. Like I said, sometimes people would discover Jesus Christ through what they were doing to deal with their “issues”.

I wonder if we fulfill Matt 25 by meeting these needs...and if the opportunity arises, present the Gospel to these people? Let Jesus take care of them. Sure, we offer to help support them through what they're going through but it is always to point the person to Jesus, not some program or fad or method or...etc. I guess I mean that Jesus will take care of the person, we help meet the need. An example: Say the person has no food to eat but, for whatever reason, isn't looking for work or has not found a job. We don't work about the reason's we meet the need. We buy him some food, get him a meal...something to help. Out of this the opportunity comes to tell that person why we're doing what we're doing. What do you think? Comments, please.

Is poverty in the world so God's people will have opportunity to serve Christ, to show His love, by serving the poor? A look at Revelation when it talks about Heaven – there is no mention of poverty there. So maybe it's down here for the people of Jesus to do something about? Maybe we will "always" have the poor so the Church can do something to help them, to serve Christ by serving them? An opportunity to lend action to our faith. If so then the “War Against Poverty” is one that will be lost. It will never be eliminated because Jesus said, “The poor you will ALWAYS have with you...” It's always going to be here...and if it's always going to be here then there will always be opportunity for the Body of Christ to do something about it.

These are some things I've been "chewing" on lately. Please leave your comments because I would like to know what you think about what I've said. Am I way off base? Do I have something here? I find when I get to thinking about stuff like this I get into a tunnel vision and can't seem to see outside the box as it were. Anyway, I'm done.

Forgiveness

I sat in the hot tub tonight pondering my life and the lives of others. It is easier to look at the failings of others while being blinded to my own. Truly, there is a plank in my eye.

My mind wandered, as it always seems to do these days (wander, that is) to all the people and places and things and stuff that have wronged me in my life. How I hold on to the hurt and the pain of those times, events, places and people. How I let all of that infect me and darken how I view it all. Because they did such and such to me I have every right to feel about them the way I do.

I asked God, "Who do I need to forgive?". Before that thought even finished, one person and one organization in particular came to mind. It was like, "Lord, who do I....", and there it was. It is amazing how just their very names dredge up the hurt, the anger, the pain that these two have caused. And not just to me, but to others that I've cared about. And I sat there for a few moments feeling justified in my feelings towards them.

I then remembered that Jesus Christ was wronged (and continues to be wronged by me) more that I have ever been wronged or hurt by others. He gave his life in my place to satisfy the judgment of God that was rightfully placed on me. He forgave the ones who hurt him, caused him pain, and wronged him. He is my example of how far I need to go in order to forgive. I hear his voice from the Scriptures as he's being nailed to the cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I hear Stephen, the first Christian martyr, echo the same words in Scripture as the religious leaders stone him to death for his testimony to them about Jesus Christ. In their examples my justification for holding on to my complete lack of forgiveness melts away. There is no room for anger, bitterness, hurt, etc., in the life of a Christian. How can I pray the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us(me) our trespasses, as we(I) forgive those who trespass against us." Lets throw the religious veneer off and say it like it really is in my life: "Please forgive me the multitude of sins that I wallow in daily and commit against You, while I hold onto every scrap of wrongdoing others do to me, that I may justify my anger and bitterness towards them."

I found myself finally being willing to forgive these two, and others. "I forgive them what they did to me. Please help me to not go back on this." What gain is there in holding onto this? Surely this life is temporary, and Jesus Christ will deal with all wrongs committed. Do I really need to help Him in this? Can I REALLY do the right thing here? Can I REALLY be GOD? Better to leave judgment to Him, and Him alone.


Okay, I'm done. Now, I'm going to change directions here and add this nifty little video that has absolutely nothing to do with what I've just written here. It's a new kung fu movie starring Donnie Yen playing Ip Man, the Wing Chun Grandmaster who taught Bruce Lee. Enjoy!!!

The things they do with rope these days.