The sixties revolution

I recently finished reading The Things that Matter Most by Cal Thomas. I'm a sucker for library book sales, and I found this book at a local sale about a month ago.

Thomas wrote this book shortly after Bill Clinton came to office. What I found so interesting was how the author described Clinton as a child of his times, the epitome of the 60s revolution. This would prove even more true than Thomas realized, as Clinton would later be impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice after his sexual promiscuity and disgracing of the Oval Office.

At any rate, I think Thomas does an excellent job of capturing what really went on in the 1960s. When I read David Well's The Courage to Be Protestant, he said that the private spirituality and rejection of all authority that we see today are deeply rooted in the 1960s. But having not lived during the 60s, I always felt like Wells assumed I knew what he was talking about. Thomas, on the other hand, walks you through that infamous decade and lists some of the distinguishing marks of those times.

Thomas says on p. 3, "To understand why the promises [Baby Boomers] are making to us today won't work, it is crucial that we examine the promises they made before, which they broke." These failed promises then set the agenda for the rest of Thomas' book, as he gives one example after another of how these promises were flawed and have done nothing but wreak havoc in society. Here's the list:

• The Promise of Liberation from the Traditional Family
• The Promise of Unrestrained Expression
• The Promise of Pharmaceutical Enlightenment
• The Promise of Sexual Freedom
• The Promise of God's Death
• The Promise to End Poverty
• The Promise of Preferential Treatment for the Young and Strong
• The Promise of Progressive Education
• The Promise that Bigger Government will do it all for You
  

Sound familiar? These promises of the sixties revolution are still alive and well today, and are still producing the same empty results. They are tied to a worldview that is essentially humanistic and hedonistic, denying the existence of a just, jealous, merciful, and sovereign God who has revealed His nature and His will in the Bible.

Just as Adam and Eve discovered, when we pursue the promises of happiness apart from God, we are eventually in for a rude awakening.