American Idols

The idols of the USA are not the singers and non-singers on Simon’s TV show. Our idol is self. And at that, only a part of our self. We are all pleasure seekers. I am a pleasure addict. I have to fight my selfish impulses in order to love and care for others.

One of our main pleasure idols for ourselves is sex. We know it can feel great and help us escape our sometimes mundane existence. But when it is all about us it is destructive. When I hide from others to pursue porn pleasure I tear down other relationships. When I give in to my basest urges, others lose. What if Ted Haggard gave into Oprah's badgering and was "honest" with himself and admitted he is a homosexual? How would that affect his family? Oprah was more ticked that he was not, by her judgment, being honest with himself than she would be saddened if that further tore apart his marriage and family.

Why has our society declared sex as the greatest life achievement? We make more money so we can take better vacations at better hotels so we can have more sex. We take all kinds of pills to make sex better and supposedly safer. We exercise a lot and eat better or jump on the latest diet fad so we can have more and better sex. Cosmo, Men's Health, etc. are all about looking good and knowing the right or best techniques to get more people to have more fun sex with. Who cares about loyalty, commitment, monogamy? Those are all anachronistic wastes of my pleasure time. The time is now.

Why have we claimed sexual freedom as our highest good? We scream for the right to have sex with whomever, whenever we want. Some scream for the right to have sex with a whatever. "Ick!" This is all without concern for consequences. We scream for the reproductive freedom to terminate an unwanted pregnancy since the child would interfere with our freedom. It must be our choice alone without meddling from those who might disagree. We can take pills, shots and creams for nearly every other consequence of our flings. Their ads are all over the place telling us after we use their product we can continue without delay or fear. We don’t necessarily have to tell a future partner of a prior virus or disease. We define ourselves by our sexuality rather than who we are. It seems it is all about our sexual release. After all, we were born this way, so why change or exercise self-control? But what would happen if we lost the ability to have sex? Then who are we? Does that ruin our life?

Have you heard what is going on in California? Here is some info from Chuck Colson's Breakpoint newsletter:

Opponents of traditional marriage have sent threatening emails and vandalized churches. They have forced supporters out of their jobs and boycotted their businesses. They’ve made abusive telephone calls and even threatened their neighbors with death. Hundreds of cases of harassment have been documented.

Ron Prentice, chairman of the pro-Proposition 8 group ProtectMarriage.com, says the message of the maps “is unmistakable: Support traditional marriage, and we will find you.”

This is unbelievable in a democracy. In fact, “domestic terrorism” is not too strong a word to use for what’s occurring in California—and it’s a reminder of what happened when citizens allowed similar tactics to go unchallenged in another time and place. He goes on to show how Hitler's youth followers harassed and abused anyone Adolf opposed.

So doing life and sex God's way are the enemy? Now that's the loving way to treat others! Not exactly the role model Jesus set for us. So, who is really the intolerant and the judgmental?