My own private Lawrence Welk, concluded

...So, if my parent's generation was escaping from the cultural meltdown raging around them, from what am I escaping?

I'll have to go back to what Welk was offering to my parent's generation. I'm painting with a pretty broad, gooey brush here, but I think it is fundamentally true.

Jesus said you are either for Him or against Him. The truth of this statement is more obvious in the America of today than it was, say, 50 years ago. Back then, America had ceased to be for Him, either officially or, in large, personally. But it was still a country soaked in Christian sensibilities and customs. Everyone's notion of morality was basically Christian, even if they themselves weren't. They might not know it, but their ethics still largely came from Protestant Christianity. The glue hadn't soaked through yet, and things were holding together on their own strength.

So it seemed possible to avoid being FOR Christ without actually being against Him. We could all just be nice and kind, and get along, without any of that narrow, restrictive, vaguely uncomfortable Christian stuff gumming things up. The Lawrence Welk show embodied this perfectly. Meanwhile, out on the streets, the real result of not being for Christ was rapidly becoming evident as the culture spiraled down into greater coarseness and violence.

Well, I'm doing the same thing. The exact same thing. Maybe all the fresh-faced movie teens in their snappy clothing will be OK just as they are. Maybe they can continue to live their lives according to their own whims, just fall in love and be nice and happy and funny, and it will all be fine. I look away from the abortion stats, the drug stats, the divorce stats, the suicide stats, the crime stats, the locks on the toilet paper rolls for crying out loud, the culture of death thats engulfing the next generation. I look instead at all the funny, happy movie teens who can get along without God, take drugs without bad trips, sleep around without pregnancy or disease, blow off school without remaining ignorant, and so on.

But really, they can't do any of that. They are not for Christ. The movie shows them in some imaginary middle-ground, but that's make-believe. They are against Him. In real life, we, our culture, our nation, are not for Christ. So actually, we are against Him. The result of that is even more horrifying than it presently appears to be, and I dont even want to look at the present appearance. So I watch a movie where they are not for Christ, but it doesn't matter.

As time passes and as our culture passes, it becomes increasingly clear that the only things that are good, and the only things that can last, are the things that are explicitly given to Christ and washed in His blood. Yeah, yuck.

Consider the alternative.

Or come over to my place tonight. I'm watching "What a Girl Wants is to Get Over Shes All That Brings it on, Part 3."