This week some of us attended a lecture hosted by Iona Institute on how the sexual revolution is succeeding and how it is failing. After almost 60 years of its existence this seemed to be a good time to review it.
Most commentators on the subject reckon that it commenced with the decoupling of sex from reproduction. This was made possible by science producing a contraceptive pill. This promised freedom but introduced a new type of bondage. Men, never the brightest when it came to taking responsibility for their actions, now had a let out passing responsibility to the woman.

Selfishness has increased the distancing between the sexes. Women have gone for careers liberating them from what was considered to be the more menial household tasks postponing ideas of marriage or childbearing till the biological clock begins to chime. Men have largely done nothing! This lethargy having a negative effect even in Christian circles with marriage being postponed in a most ungodly way.

Many young people find this climate presents an opportunity to look inside and answer the question ‘Who am I’.
It is said to produce authenticity as people are true to what they are. Gay marches display this happiness, confidence and pride at being able to let it ‘all hang out’.
There is the claim to an overarching freedom coming out of all this typified perhaps by Madonna’s statement, ‘I am my own experiment, I am my own work of art’.

These sort of claims rest uneasily with the disclosure this week of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment of over 44 budding Hollywood stars hoping to get a role in his movies. You might say ‘that’s America’ but we have the unleashing of porn from the top shelf in the newsagents to the bottom shelf to the laptop in the bedroom.

This degradation of women turning them into objects for consumption polluting the minds of men making stable relationships even harder to achieve.
We also have more revelations of pedophilia, often by powerful people, on little boys and girls. Indeed, it is the children and those most vulnerable – the unborn – whose lives are now at risk. Perhaps the ultimate feminine freedom is the much sought after ability to legally kill the unwanted baby in the mother’s womb.

For the Christian freedom means something different. It too starts by looking within and recognising the selfish mess and the hopelessness of making our own rules. In turning to Christ we acknowledge our helplessness and in Jesus find all we need even the repentance that leads to the forgiveness of sins (Acts Chapter 5 verse 31).

Trading marriage for a career is never going to give the love and security that Christian marriage offers. Careers can and often come unstuck just when you need them most as more youthful staff compete for your position. The employment agreement is as weak as the living together deal. It does not compare with the marriage covenant with vows made before God in the presence of many witnesses. It has an everlasting element to it “till death do us part” which is unique.

Christian marriage, as opposed to the other forms available today, provides the space for true freedom in Christ, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (St John Chapter 8 verses 31/32).