A Time of Rebellion in America

(From about 1960 to 1973)

Richard Hollerman

We know that with a title such as this, we could go in many different directions. We could discuss various kinds of rebellion. Right now there are massive amounts of rebellion of all kinds in the fair country of America and each of these could be profitably discussed.

But rather than looking at America in general, we want to focus on the spiritual and moral “rebellion” that we find in America, from about 1960 to about 1973. This is a much more limited time period but we must even look at this in a somewhat succinct manner.

We read this from a leading internet source: “By the late 1960s a full-fledged cultural rebellion was underway, and all forms of authority were being questioned. The so-called counterculture celebrated personal freedom at the expense of traditional social mores. Youthful rebels—dubbed hippies—defied parental authority and college officials.” (https://www.google.com/search?q=Rebellion+in+1960s&oq=Rebellion+in+1960s&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l3.8655j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)We know that this sounds somewhat sensationalist but it is absolutely true!

We hardly know where to begin and stop in regard to the rebellion of the 1960s. We know that some of our readers just won’t understand. (But we do hope that you will read the previous paragraph that shows how vital this really was!) Many different sins could be mentioned. We think of the marching. There was also the feminist movement. There was the “civil rights” movement. We also think of the anti-war movement. There was also the various movements spawned by the young people in their teens and twenties. But there was much, much more. The whole decade was one of rebellion, evil, and massive wickedness.

Of course, we realize that many people from other countries are reading this, thus we must apologize for the fact that we are dealing with a single nation—the United States. And we are dealing with a very brief period of time—some 13 years rather than the past several centuries. Some of what we say will be applicable to other countries around the world as well but we’ll focus particularly on the United States of America. Let’s begin.

1. Rock ‘n Roll introduced

A lot could be said about this venue for there are centuries of worldly music in the background of this country. But we do think that the “floodgates” of evil music was especially prevalent when this form of “music” (if it can be called music!) was introduced! Thus, we know that worldly music has been around for centuries, but this specially evil form of “music” was introduced relatively recently.

 

2. Evis Presley

Elvis, introduced by the nighttime program led by Ed Sullivan, was the epitome of “rock and roll” music. This country slid into unprecedented wickedness with the “rock” beat and people seemed to both love and follow!

 

3. The Beatles

Most of us have heard of the British singing group called the Beatles. Since their time and the wickedness and debauchery they introduced, music has not be the same in this country of America or in other nations of the Western world.

4. Drugs in American culture and society

We believe that the Vietnam War may have opened the door to the drug culture that has been happening since the 1960s. Soldiers from America and other countries brought this evil influence to our shores to the point that vast numbers of people die each year and many more are pulled down. How the perversion of this drug (and there are many different forms of the drugs) has ruined a whole generation of young people and others!

5. Prayer in school eliminated

Sadly, this is an indictment against a wicked Court system that eliminated prayer in the public schools in the 1960s. We read this in Wickipedia: “At the heart of the debate is a 1962 U.S. Supreme Court case called Engel v. Vitale. In its ruling in this case, the Court decided that prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution. … At stake, say backers of prayer in the schools, is the freedom of religious speech.” We note the negatives of this matter of prayer, but we do see at least some positive influence before this was eliminated in the 1960s.

7. Bible reading in school eliminated. Similar to the previous elimination of prayer, we also note that Bible reading was legal and common at one time but it was eliminated in 1963. We also find this in Wikipedia: “So what exactly happened 50 years ago? In two landmark decisions – Engel v.Vitale on June 25, 1962, and Abington School District v. Schempp on June 17, 1963 – the Supreme Court declared school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings unconstitutional.” Again, although we find problems with this, we again can see that this practice had at least some good influence on the country at one time.

8. “Christian” Rock begun. We again must go back to the 1960s to find the origins of what has been called “Christian Rock.” We read that so-called Christians were not favorable to this form of music at first, from the 1950s, into the 1960s, and the early 1970s. Since it was introduced by Larry Norman (now dead), this form of music has been going downhill. Vast numbers of professing “Christians” have been led astray over the years.

8. Vietnam War

Many of our readers may not be conversant with this war, that lasted over some 20 years. We read this: “The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was nominally fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. (Wikipedia). We know that numerous Americans were killed, along with many Australians, French, British, German, and others. The point that pertains to our study here is that many aspects of this war affected the American people and led them astray. Many were killed. Thus, this War led many professing Christians to kill what they perceived was their “enemy” but accompanying this War were many different evil influences that are seen even today.

 

9. Sodomites “came out” according to what we read. Sadly, we must cite now one of the most evil, the most perverted, and the most wicked aspects of New York and the other portions of the country—such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and others. We read this from Wikipedia: “The Stonewall Inn in the gay village of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots, the cradle of the modern LGBT rights movement and an icon of queer culture is adorned with rainbow pride flags. New York state, a state in the northeastern United States, has one of the largest and the most prominent LGBTQ populations in the world. New York City has ‘one of the world’s largest, loudest, and most powerful’ LGBT communities”, and “Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York’s basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rises, and Broadway theater”. LGBT Americans in New York City constitute by significant margins the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern gay rights movement.” All of this perversion serves to help identify the 1960s as an evil period of American culture.

10. Abortion laws have been largely eliminated. You have probably heard or read that killing one’s baby is a somewhat recent phenomenon. Generally, in the past, the mother was the “protector” of her son or daughter. But, sadly, this is no more. Now, millions of mothers (and fathers) are decidedly against their children and want to murder their babies!

We read this: “In America an abortion reform movement emerged in the 1960s. In 1963, the Society for Humane Abortion was formed, providing women with information on how to obtain and perform abortions. In 1964 Gerri Santoro of Connecticut died trying to obtain an illegal abortion and her photo became the symbol of the pro-choice movement. Some women’s rights activist groups developed their own skills to provide abortions to women who could not obtain them elsewhere.

As an example, in Chicago, a group known as “Jane” operated a floating abortion clinic throughout much of the 1960s. Women seeking the procedure would call a designated number and be given instructions on how to find “Jane”. Since abortion laws were changed and many baby murders have been allowed, 50 to 60 millions of babies have been killed, besides the many abortions around the world—in places like Russia, China, Japan, and others.

11. Feminism has continued unabated. We know that feminists have sought to lead American women into more “liberation” for over two centuries but became more pronounced in the 1960s. Women not only wanted to vote in national and local elections but they wanted to have a leading role in society. Today, women have leading parts to play in many different ways. They want to have masculine jobs, they want to leave their families to enter the job market, they now are more likely to graduate from college than men, they are leading contributors to educational upheaval, they leave their families so that the government can teach them, they have leading roles in entertainment, in education, in nearly every position of society.

12 Home schooling, Christian schooling, and the like are increasingly under the leadership of secular and worldly influences. It is true that several million “Christian” children receive this “Christian” education, but it is also true that tens of millions of children are being taught by secular educators! If this is true of America, think of the vast numbers of children being taught by non-Christian educators!

13. Television Continued

We know that television (shortened to “T.V.”) was introduced into American culture in the 1950s, but by 1960 snd following, this form of media was vastly increased. Think of the terrible danger that this brought to the American public! More and more, people were influenced by the evil, the worldliness, the foolishness that they saw on the television screen! Thus, we must add this to our list of evil influences that brought down people into the evil workings.

14. The False Theory of Evolution

It is true that the false theory of evolution was introduced long before Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species. Thus, at least a century elapsed from the time of his infamous book until the 1960s, we must admit that many evil results were found before this time. However, we think that the 1960s promoted this wicked and false theory much more readily than before. Probably many teachers were somewhat afraid to deal with this issue but it became increasingly popular and acceptable by the 1960s. Satan has a way of promoting His agenda as the time goes by.

 

15. No-Fault Divorce became popular.

We know that Jesus declared that when a man divorces his wife and marries another woman, he commits adultery. And we also know that all adulterers will be sent to eternal hell (see 1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and exist under the burning wrath of God (Hebrews 13:4). This makes divorce (particularly “no fault” divorce) very serious!

When did this all begin, you may ask. We read this explanation: “With a law adopted in 1969, California became the first U.S. state to permit no-fault divorce. California’s law was framed on a roughly contemporaneous effort of the non-governmental organization National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which began drafting a model of no-fault divorce statute for states to consider in 1967.

Australia established no-fault divorce in 1975, with the only ground for divorce being irretrievable breakdown of marriage, evidenced by a twelve-month separation. Canada effectively permitted no-fault divorce in 1986 by reducing the separation period to one year.

By now we hope that readers will see that there has been a great deterioration of Christian principles since evil influences have come to bear on America. Much of this has happened from about 1960 to 1973 but parts began earlier or lasted longer. This is why we refer to this period of time as the “decade of rebellion.”

You might say that much rebellion against governmental authority has happened during the last year or two—which is right. Such things as the rebellion found in Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington or Chicago, Illinois should be considered rebellion—with broken windows, with enflamed cars and buildings, with wild yelling, and so much more. But we must see the decade I mentioned before as one of the many precursors of rebellion in this country. We don’t mean to minimize the terrible rebellion found in many countries of the world for there has been much of this. But along with all of this evil, we must see the decade I mentioned as being part of this generalized rebellion. This is so sad and it should make us weep.

Friend, we do hope that you and I are not part of this downward spiral of evil in America. If a dozen different ways of rebellion were seen sixty years ago, we know that such ways are seen today as well. Let us live holy lives, exemplary lives, and pure lives. Let us live for Jesus in the midst of a world out of control! Years ago a well-known teacher wrote a book entitled, “World Aflame,” and this describes what we see around us. The 60s constituted Satan’s efforts to pull us down and lead us to part of the world flame with evil and wickedness. Let us live for the Lord today!