If you’re unaware of Kim Kardashian’s most
recent exhibitionism, count your blessings. That she’s famous at all is an indictment
of our dumpster diving culture, yet, it’s not a real surprise. Her “career” has
been built on manipulating the media to garner attention for the salacious and
perverse.
Personally, I feel tremendous pity for her.
When her 15 minutes are finally up, she’ll be discarded by a heartless world
like innumerable sexpots before her. The countdown has started. Kim is already
34. Even the beautiful people can’t escape the ramifications of a sin cursed world.
They, too, must submit to physical atrophy. Exercise gurus, diets and plastic
surgeons can only postpone it, yet all wave the white flag in the end. That’s
not even considering the potentiality of a debilitating disease. Her father,
Robert, succumbed at 59 to cancer. A few cells amiss and it’s game over.
Kim Kardashian’s super star status is but another
example of the bipolar values of contemporary culture. She’s now on husband #3
and is the fodder of late night TV comedians, ridiculed for her wanton
lifestyle. But the Duggars and the Robertsons of Duck Dynasty are
also mocked for their morality. While I’m not suggesting the Duggars or
Robertsons are models of normalcy, it’d be more edifying to watch their reality
shows rather than Keeping up with the Kardashians. It reveals our
bipolar values that Kim Kardashian is somehow famous and yet disdained for her
lack of morals, yet the Robertsons and Duggars are also famous yet scorned because
they do have morals. It’s moral bipolarism.
Our irrational world fails to connect the
dots – you can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s commonly known that our
culture has a problem with obesity. Can you imagine how much worse it would be
if there was no discouragement to overeating? What if there was a Krispy Kreme
on every corner? Not only that, every time that you turned on the TV, a half
dozen glazed donuts popped out on the coffee table next to you. You turn on your
computer, start surfing the Net and Hershey’s Kisses, Mounds Bars and Reese’s
Peanut Butter cups magically appear. Every song on the radio is about steak, lobster,
pasta, beer and brats. Everywhere you went you’re ambushed with tantalizing
free food. If that were the case, Butterball wouldn’t just be a brand of
turkey. It’d be descriptive of nearly everyone, with a few exceptions.
So where do you not find porn and
graphic sex today? The sad reality is that Kim Kardashian’s escapades are what’s
labeled “soft porn” in an insanely eroticized world. Consider though the
bipolar rational of all this. When sex is everywhere, should we really be shocked
that there are sex addicts? Please understand, I’m not rationalizing or
justifying sex crimes. Yet, isn’t it hypocritical to have graphic, sexualized
images everywhere, available 24/7 but then feign surprise that some have no
control. There are so many cases today of child porn and/or molestation, we’re
becoming desensitized to it. Do you want a registered sex criminal in your
neighborhood or near your child’s school? Go online. You’ll be appalled at how
many are in your neighborhood. If the trend continues, (there’s no reason to
think it won’t), where are we going to put them all? In light of that problem
and our cultures increasing acceptance of deviant behavior, it’s not shocking
that there’s a growing movement to decriminalize sex crimes with minors. Incest
is now legal in Switzerland.
Another example of bipolar values is that
natural marriage is constantly belittled while cohabitation is increasingly valued
and consequently, is on the rise. Yet, it’s rare that anyone talks about the
increase of child molestation and abuse in cohabitation relationships. Social
workers who monitor America’s
families see the abusive-boyfriend syndrome as part of a broader, deeply
worrisome trend. As more children grow up in homes without both biological
parents, the risk of crimes against children is markedly higher in these nontraditional
family structures. University
of Virginia sociologist,
Brad Wilcox, says, “This is the dark underbelly of cohabitation…Most people
think, 'What's the harm?' The harm is we're increasing a pattern of
relationships that's not good for children.”
One more example – this coming Valentine’s
Day, the film version of 50 Shades of Grey is to be released. That in
itself is nauseating. The book has nothing to do with either romance or love. Personally,
I thought April 1st would be more apropos. Someone is probably
asking, “Have you read it?” No, but I’ve never sipped Draino either but I
know it’s deadly. This book and now film, are just another example of our bipolar
values.
There’s continual rhetoric about the glass
ceiling, that women are underpaid and don’t have opportunities of advancement
that men do. Yet, some of the same women who’d rightfully decry this double
standard, think that 50 Shades is a wonderful love story. If you’re a
feminist, how can you rationalize that a wealthy pervert physically dominating
a woman is somehow considered acceptable? In a world concerned about the rights
of women, how can trash like 50 Shades even be published, much less
become a bestseller? Only a morally vacuous person could think it’s somehow
acceptable for a woman to be manhandled and abused by an emotionally stunted perverse
playboy.
Space keeps me from pointing out the bipolar
values of a nation obsessed with health care, yet will set few limits on
pornography. How can there even be a debate about teaching teens abstinence and
to wait until marriage because such teaching is somehow “religious”? The eroticization
of a culture carries a steep healthcare price – teenage pregnancies and an
increase in STDs that’s astronomical. Just a few years ago do you think anyone
thought that there would be commercials about medications to counter the
effects of genital herpes on primetime television?
Let me end though with hope. When it comes to
sex, a biblical worldview is the only place of safety and sanity. That means we
must know what the Bible teaches about sexuality. It means that we must love
and be committed to natural marriage and our spouses. It means we must teach and
model for our own children a healthy view of sexual intimacy from a biblical grid.
We’re not the human animal driven by bestial drives; we’re image bearers of
God. Sex is a wonderful gift from God that’s to be celebrated in a committed,
natural marriage. It’s an act of love, an act of giving, to be shared after
vows of lifelong commitment have been made before a loving God. Sexual
temptation, like all temptation, is to be resisted and can be defeated by the
power of God’s grace. And wonderfully, no sin or failure is beyond the healing
power and restoration of the Cross.
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