Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision 45 years ago, the pro-life (or anti-abortion) side of the debate has focused on the ethical issue that the baby growing in its mother?s womb deserves to be protected as any other human being having rights under the US Constitution.  Increasingly sophisticated technology is changing the nature of the debate.  Indeed, Emma Green in a recent issue of The Atlantic has argued that ?science is giving the pro-life movement a boost.?  In addition, columnist Michael Gerson suggests that the way the Court framed its 1973 decision created a tension between autonomy and inclusion, producing a conflict that ?will only be managed, not settled.?  Let me explain both of these observations.

Late in year 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries selected ?post-truth? as the 2016 international word of the year. The dictionary defined ?post-truth? as ?relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.?

As we begin 2018, I believe it is appropriate to give focus to a critical cultural issue that is destroying men, marriages and contributing in no small way to the denigration of women and children in our society. Several years ago, a local church in Omaha, Nebraska, where I live, asked me to do a presentation on pornography. I called the presentation ?Pornography: Adultery of the Heart.? I believe that the pornography crisis in our country has much more to do with what it means to be a man than simply an issue of lust and gross immorality. It is a result of the disastrous lies that our culture promotes about manhood. Joe Ehrmann has summarized those three lies:

In this Postmodern, Post-Christian age where a secular skepticism reigns supreme, one often hears the question, where is God; if He exists, why doesn?t He show Himself? Or, where is God in the carnage of the civil wars in Syria and Yemen? Where is God in the devastation of the summer hurricanes that ravaged the Caribbean, Texas and Florida? Where is God in the death of a relative or a close friend? Where is God in that universal equalizer of all humanity?death? Where was God in that backwater town 2,000 years ago where a poor, pregnant woman was denied lodging, in the smell of hay and manure, in the pain of childbirth, in the escape to Egypt?

American civilization in 2017 is living with the results of the sexual revolution of the 20th century. Few would disagree with the conclusion that we live in a sex-saturated culture with few boundaries. Pornography abounds and is institutionalized on the Internet and in all forms of entertainment.

Gender Dysphoria is generally explained as distress caused by a mismatch between felt and perceived gender identity?between the sex on the birth certificate and how one feels. The Williams Institute, a Los Angeles think-tank, estimates that 1.4 million Americans (0.06% of those aged 16-65) are transgender. According to The Economist, ?young people say that gender matters less than it used to, which sits oddly with the spreading belief that gender dysphoria can be severe enough to justify the upheaval and risks of transitioning.? Furthermore, ?gender identity? in 2017 has come to mean how people feel or present themselves, as distinct from biological sex or sexual orientation.

On 2 November 1917, a letter was delivered to the Jewish community of Great Britain by the British government committing His Majesties Government to the creation of a ?national home? in Palestine for the Jewish people. This ?declaration? changed the course of history. For that reason, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel?s Prime Minister, attended a dinner in London on 2 November 2017 with Theresa May, Britain’s Prime Minister, to celebrate the issuing of this letter 100 years ago. Lord Balfour, a descendant of the man who sent the letter, now called the Balfour Declaration, also attended. The Palestinians regard this Declaration as a ?great betrayal? and Mahmoud Abbas has demanded that Great Britain apologize for this Declaration, not celebrate it.

Few would disagree that American civilization is at a point of confusion, chaos and dysfunction. We are a polarized nation where it is virtually impossible to have reasoned discussions, healthy debates or exercise civility. The family as the center of our civilization is clearly in crisis. Our national government is thoroughly dysfunctional and is more divided than it has been in generations. The threats to our national security are real and there is no consensus on how to handle these real threats. Even the broad American evangelical church?s view of God is what Christian sociologist Christian Smith calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. . . How did we get into this mess?

Over 3,000 years ago, King Solomon wrote poignantly about his life and about the purpose and meaning of life in general ?under the sun.? His observations could be an appropriate epitaph for Hugh Hefner, the founder of the Playboy empire:

It is time in American civilization to recognize the self-destructive nature of both public policy and private behavior when it comes to the institution of marriage, the first institution God created (see Genesis 2:18-25). It is without question an institution in trouble. In this Perspective, I hope to address the institution itself in terms of history and then suggest a biblical theology of marriage.