Opus 2012-44, On the Street: Shameless

I had a quick glimpse of the side of a bus as it turned onto a side street.  I saw the big title of “Shameless” and had the impression of a bunch of big muscles, long hair and outdoors.  I assume it was advertising some TV program.  Since I don’t watch TV, I am just guessing.  My impression was that those three qualities sum up what the show was about. 

I work with middle school kids and educators.  While most are likable people, young and old, they seem to have no moral foundations.  The kids will let loose a string of words that would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap and seem genuinely surprised when I call it cussing or foul language.  It is what they hear in their “music,” see on their screens and often hear in their homes.  The adults are not much better.

We are already a shameless culture. 

If you are over 50 you made your contribution to this lack of shame.  You have let your kids watch and listen to entertainment that has been on a moral decline for years.  It started with “I Love Lucy” and her constant lies and deceptions, supported by a laugh track.  Now we are accepting “friends with benefits” as a condition that doesn’t even raise eyebrows.  Adultery still gets a little criticism for some reason but fornication is now the default setting.

It may be too late.  In some ways it is.  We may be forced to go through the debauchery and chaos that we have seen in Sodom, the Roman Empire, Pre-Methodist England, Nazi Germany and modern West Hollywood.  Sometimes God can only get people to wake up using pain.

It may not be too late.  The Wesley revival kept England from bloody chaos.  Our country has gone through two Great Awakenings. 

Pray for a third.

homo unius libri