Is the Younger Generation Wiser?

On Sunday’s commentary page of the Kansas City Star, Mary Sanchez has a column entitled “In time, view on same-sex marriage will shift.”  In the article she weighs in on the recent controversy caused by Chick-fil-A CEO, Dan Cathy, regarding traditional marriage.  But the thrust of her observations center around the reaction, attitude and values of college age young people.  She closes her article by saying  “But it’s a younger, wiser generation that will lead.”  My question is where will they lead us?

She says “today’s college students will push this debate where it needs to go — packed up as a relic from a less enlightened era”.  Really?  So, the entire Western World has been wrong about marriage for centuries?  The Christian value system of one man for one woman is a relic?  The words of Jesus have now been relegated to a “less enlightened era”?

“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,‘   and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?   So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”  (Matt 19:4-6).

Yes, according to Sanchez, “Younger generations tend to think the views of Cathy are head-scratchingly irrelevant.”  She says, “The quaking tomes portraying Sodom and Gomorrah don’t play well with them. They know better by personal experience.”  She also writes that today’s youth think it is unfair that gay people can’t marry just because of some people’s religious views!

The entire article is representative of the attitude and values of many Americans today.  It is the product of several decades of humanistic philosophy.  We have been sold the notion that there is no standard of right and wrong.  Values are determined by each individual. I can decide what’s right for me and you decide what’s right for you.   People “know better by personal experience”instead of divine revelation.

Values are relative.  We are told there are “no absolutes.”  Which, of course, kinda sounds like an absolute!  Truth is not regarded as absolute.  Certainly not moral or religious truth.  It changes with the times.  It’s in a state of flux.  What our culture does value is tolerance.  Of course, as we’ve seen in the Chick-fil-A outcry, tolerance is something of a one way street.  Those who believe in same-sex marriage won’t tolerate those who don’t!

All of this results from a secularized culture that says, “God is unnecessary.”  We’ve removed Him from public life–schools, government, media and in some cases even churches!  The Bible describes the consequence of secularism in Romans 1:18-32.  And the picture isn’t very pretty.   But it is summed up in this attitude: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…”

So where will the younger generation lead us?  It depends on their values.

I’ve been blessed to worked with some really fine Christian young people through the years.  Good.  Godly.  Virtuous.  Young people who love God, and care about others and are not ashamed of the gospel.  They speak the Truth.  And do so in love.

Yes, it will be a younger generation that will lead.  Will they be wiser?  It depends on the wisdom they embrace.  The wisdom of this world is humanistic, sensual and based on subjective experience.  The wisdom that comes from above is Godly, spiritual and based on objective Truth.

And by the way, if the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah could speak from their Hadean realm, they might offer some more sobering advice for today’s youth!

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman