In the last forty years the changes in American society amount to no less than a cultural upheaval. In the '40s and '50s people heard songs like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B and Yes We Have No Bananas Today. By the time I was a teenager, rock music, the sexual revolution, and the drug culture were in full bloom. The bad kids were no longer smoking in the boys' room; they were smoking marijuana in the boys' room, and the radio was blaring lyrics like Get Down Tonight and I'll get high with a little help from my friends. Today the lyrics are about free sex, violence, rape, and suicide, to name a few common topics, which leaves me wondering if it is possible for the moral pendulum to swing any farther.

A regular theme from media commentators is that "Youth culture has always been pushing the limits of society. Don't be such a fuddy-duddy; kids will be kids." But such comments only prove that they have lost any fixed reference points for morality. Such people tout themselves as open-minded, but opening their minds completely has only caused everything to fall out, including moral discernment.

Do they not see that there is a moral difference between Elvis, who used to be regarded as "cutting edge rock" and Madonna, or "Alice in Chains"? To be sure, they all are alike in that they are provocative in their times, but the difference is the extent to which one must go to be provocative. Today it takes not just the gyrating hips of Elvis but the bare hips of Madonna, the pictures of dead girls courtesy of "Alice in Chains," and profane rap lyrics about the rape and murder of innocent people.

Obviously there is a difference. And there is a difference between the scandalous curse word in "Gone With the Wind" and the non-stop profanity, violence, and perversity of movies like "Natural Born Killers" and "Fatal Attraction." And if you are ever in doubt as to how the depictions of families on television have changed, just pop in a videotape of an old episode of "Ozzie and Harriet," and then watch "Roseanne."

There is a drastic difference in our schools today. Some of you remember when teachers and students led devotionals in class; I do. We read from the Bible and prayed without fear of either strange heterodoxy or a law suit. The culture was much closer to a Christian consensus then. Today it has been ruled unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to hang on the wall, and if Johnny is a Christian often he feels that he is part of a beleagured, counter-cultural minority and gets less attention and public respect for his beliefs than those who are openly homosexual, a lifestyle which was classified by the American Psychiatric Association as an emotional illness until the mid-'70s.

Our culture has changed. If you work in the marketplace or attend a school or university, I have told you nothing that you don't already know. In fact, on this score you could tell me a lot that I don't know. You know how you are perceived in many circles when you say things like "I love Jesus Christ," or "I believe that the Bible is the Word of God."