The Effemi-nation
Sodom, America, and the Descent into National Effeminacy
As we prepare to launch into the topic of birth control, we felt the need to pause and address the issue of effeminacy, a root cause condition underlying this issue, as well as several others we will be covering in our series on The Seven Deadly Sins of American Christianity. Chapters I, II, and III of the present eBook, The (Ef)feminization of the Church: How American Christianity Lost Its Way by Losing Its Manhood, can be found here, here, and here.
The road to Sodom
When it comes to archeological evidence in support of the Bible we Christians are truly spoiled. Stories once written off as myths are now demanding serious consideration, whether one is inclined to believe them or not.
One striking example of this is the Biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1–29), a story few modern Americans are eager to substantiate. Although these cities lay shrouded in obscurity for millennia, archeological sites uncovered over the last century show evidence of sudden, fiery destruction followed by utter desolation—and, yes, sulfuric balls of brimstone by the score that can still be ignited to this day.1
These are no idle tales that the Bible contains. These events really happened in real history to real people, and they are recorded for our warning (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11; 2 Timothy 3:16, 17). In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, the warning is clear: Do NOT go down this road (Jude 7):
“In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.”
Thus far on our journey exploring effeminacy in the American Church, we have illustrated effeminacy’s core tendency of yielding to sin under pressure using the “fall” accounts of Adam, Samson, and Israel’s first three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.2 Here, using the Biblical example of Sodom and Gomorrah, we will examine the advanced stages of national judgment that ensue when an entire people group embraces the effeminate ethos.
As we will document below, America is well on its way down the road to Sodom—by the smell of it, somewhere near the stinking tar pits of the valley of Siddim (Genesis 14:10). Our destruction lies but a stone’s throw past the Dead Sea.
And yet, like lingering Lot who waffled and wavered on the eve of judgment (Genesis 19:15–22), American Christians continue to vacillate between the doomed city around them and the salvation that lies beyond its gates (Matthew 24:15–22; Hebrews 11:9, 10, 13–16). We know it’s all going to burn, but like Lot’s wife we cannot bear to part ways with it. We hem and haw when warned of the wrath to come (Matthew 3:7) when we should be gathering our loved ones and getting out of dodge.
In the words of our Lord we must “Remember Lot’s wife!” for “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it” (Luke 17:32, 33).
We don’t know about you, but we are officially heading for the hills (Genesis 19:17).
Will you come with us?
Whatever you do, don’t look back (Genesis 19:26).
The price of prosperity
In spite of massive inflation and a looming national debt crisis, the fact remains that 21st century Americans have thus far enjoyed the most prosperous economy in the history of mankind. We tend to take this for granted, though it really is a staggering fact if you pause to think about it (which we rarely do).
But for all its benefits, prosperity often comes at a steep price. Indeed, our modern affluence appears to have come in large part at the cost of our collective manhood.
Let’s be honest. In America today, even the hardiest men among us have become relatively soft due to the ease and plenty that mark our everyday existence. “Rugged individualism” has been superseded by a “comfy collectivism.” Gone are the days of the intrepid pioneers forging a lean existence on the wild frontier. The closest we come to “roughing it” nowadays is when we mistakenly pull into a Chick-fil-A on Sunday, forcing us to forage for food at the In-N-Out down the road.
From a Biblical perspective, America’s material prosperity has everything to do with its cultural effeminacy. In fact, the authors of scripture draw a direct line from the former phenomenon to the latter.
The archetypal example of this in the Bible occurs early on in the book of Genesis. There, we find the fateful account of Canaanite sister cities that were infamous for their sinful opulence: Sodom and Gomorrah.
So lush and productive was the land occupied by these towns that it seemed to contemporary observers to rival paradise itself (Genesis 13:10):
“And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD [i.e., the garden of Eden], like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.).”
Most of us are well aware of Sodom and Gomorrah’s exceedingly great wickedness (Genesis 13:13, 18:20), most notoriously for the eponymous sin of “sodomy” (Genesis 19:5; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, 1 Timothy 1:9, 10, Jude 7).3 However many overlook the sociological preconditions that Israel’s prophets pointed out as being the major driving forces behind Sodom’s downfall (Ezekiel 16:49):
“Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”
If “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” as the saying goes, then the road to Sodom is paved with good times.
Ezekiel’s prophetic insight shows us that Sodom’s extreme effeminacy did not emerge overnight from a sterile cultural vacuum, but rather, like an insidious mass of microbes, was gradually incubated in the nutrient-rich petri dish of self-worship (“pride”), second helpings (“excess of food”), soft times (“prosperous ease”), and solipsism4 (“did not aid the poor and needy”). When Lot finally arrived on the scene, the stench of these sins had apparently already reached the high heavens (Genesis 18:20, 21):
“Then the LORD said, ‘Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to Me. And if not, I will know.’”
Given that the Lord’s angelic reconnaissance team was promptly greeted by the men of Sodom with threats of mass homosexual gang rape, it’s safe to say that the outcry against them was no overstatement (Genesis 19:4, 5). They really were that far gone.
It’s worth noting, however, that some Biblical interpreters of a decidedly neo-Marxist bent claim that Sodom’s real sin had less to do with its sexual depravity than with its capitalist abuses. This is why Ezekiel mentions Sodom’s economic excesses and neglect of the poor (Ezekiel 16:49), but fails to bring up their “mostly peaceful” sexual protests.
Please.
Such feigned ignorance serves only to demonstrate just how far we sinners are willing to go in our suppression of nature and nature’s God (Romans 1:18–32).
Given that the entire passage from which this verse originates (i.e., Ezekiel 16) likens Jerusalem’s infidelities to God to the sexual sins of her “sisters” Samaria and Sodom,5 it is a desperate move indeed to seek cover in the fact that, technically speaking, Ezekiel did not explicitly single out Sodom’s homosexual sins by name, only by inference. Ezekiel may not have felt the need to spell out this point because, well, he didn’t have to: As noted above, the Sodomites were quite literally synonymous with sodomy.
In light of this context, it would seem that only a bad-faith interpreter with a major axe to grind would read anything even remotely “affirming” into Ezekiel’s pronouncements.6
No, Sodom’s disreputable sexual proclivities were well known. Ezekiel’s prophecies do not negate them, but instead reveal that they were subsidized by a booming economy.
But how exactly does “prosperous ease” lead to moral decadence, and what has this trajectory looked like in the United States?
Let’s tackle these questions one at a time.
At ease in Zion
First, let’s parse out the connection between prosperity and moral decline. This will require some patience as we lay out the steps, but we trust in the end that it will be worth the effort.
According to scripture, righteousness is most often forged in the fiery furnace of adversity: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). Amazingly, this was even the case for the perfect man, Christ Jesus: “Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).7
Here’s how that works, in general: When things aren’t going our way and we encounter obstacles, setbacks, or hardships, the pressures that such circumstances exert on our character tend to expose its underlying weaknesses. Whereas most of the time, when conditions are generally agreeable, we can skate on by without having to address our shortcomings, when life’s difficulties come bearing down upon us, we are forced to either own and overcome our issues, or else check out and collapse under their weight.
So hard times, while challenging, present us with golden opportunities to face our flaws and, with God’s help, deal with them.
However, if we’re being perfectly honest, given the choice between either confronting our deficiencies through trying circumstances—a messy and uncomfortable business at best—or pretending that all is well while things are going well, we will almost always opt for the latter. Our flesh settles all too readily for the easy road of self-sufficiency and the status quo. “Surely I am godly enough as is Lord. No need for any additional sanctifying inconveniences. It’s all just too draining.”
We want the spiritual gain without the spiritual pain, but in God’s wisdom, that’s just not how it works: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).
Ironically, those who avoid the unpleasant discipline of enduring hardship for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10) forfeit its eternally pleasant benefits: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17). When an entire culture adopts this mindset en masse, look out: What you will find, in short order, is an effeminate people altogether untrained in righteousness.
This is a big problem, for the Bible makes it abundantly clear that righteousness gives men, and the nations they comprise, the boldness to stand their ground, no matter the opposition (Proverbs 28:1; cf. Leviticus 26:17, 36): “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” When we are in right standing with God and are walking in obedience to His commands (Matthew 28:20), we feel, and in some sense truly are, invincible (Psalm 18; John 11:25, 26; Romans 8:31)—when we are are walking contrary to His precepts, not so much.
Spiritually and psychologically speaking, this is because a guilty conscience robs us of the confidence that God is unreservedly on our side (Psalm 118:6; 1 John 3:18–24), because, frankly, how can He be when we are giving ourselves over to sin (Romans 6:13)? After all, God’s “eyes are too pure to look upon evil” and He “cannot tolerate wrongdoing” (Habakkuk 1:13).
Furthermore, sin, by definition, involves siding with Satan, “the adversary,” himself, placing us squarely in opposition to God and His purposes (2 Chronicles 15:2, emphasis mine; cf. James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5): “The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”
“But wait a minute,” you might say, “I thought that God was always 100% for me, like an all-affirming heavenly life coach?” Think again (2 Timothy 2:11–13, emphasis mine):
“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful—for He cannot deny Himself.”8
I’ll bet you’ve never heard a sermon preached on this topic before. Christians simply don’t talk this way anymore—Jesus did (Matthew 10:33; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26, 12:9), our Biblically-literate forbears sure did, but not us.
Those who give themselves over to sin, to whatever extent they do so, are thereby given over by God to said sin to be weakened and effeminized by it (Romans 1:18–32). There are no exceptions to this rule. Becoming a Christian does not mean that one may now sin with impunity—far from it (Hebrews 10:26, 27):
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”
Try marching bravely into battle with that expectation hanging over your head. Not gonna happen.
We all know this intuitively, as well as from experience. It explains why our first parents Adam and Eve instinctively hid from God after they sinned in the garden (Genesis 3:7, 8). They knew that they were vulnerable and were afraid of what they had coming.
Sin always leads to estrangement from God almighty (Isaiah 59:2), the source of our strength (Psalm 46:1). When we lack the assurance of God’s full backing—or, worse, when we are sure that He has backed away from us entirely (Judges 16:20; 1 Samuel 16:14; 2 Chronicles 15:2; Psalm 51:11; Hebrews 6:4–6)—our hearts fail us, our hands loose their firmness, and our spines lose their steel. If left unchecked, sin is capable of reducing once proud soldiers in God’s army to incapacitated women, groaning belly up on the battlefield, lost in the throes of labor (Isaiah 13:7, 8a; cf. Jeremiah 51:30):
“Because of this [i.e., God’s judgment], all hands will go limp, every heart will melt with fear. Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor.”
When we give ourselves over to sin, God not only gives us over to our enemies, but to thoroughly humiliate us into repentance, He often makes it a point of giving us over to particularly unimposing enemies. When just one man, Achan, disobeyed God’s instructions, the entire nation suffered defeat at the hands of the unassuming little town of Ai, and that on the heels of a decisive, supernaturally-empowered drubbing of the fortified city of Jericho, a victory that was enabled by Israel’s obedience to God’s battle plan (Joshua 6, 7).
No matter how harmless or few in number our adversaries may be, when God’s people drop the ball and begin backsliding, the tail inevitably wags the dog and our feeble foes eat us for lunch. As always, God warned Israel—and by extension us—of this very thing at the outset through Moses (Leviticus 26:3, 7, 8, 14, 16b, 17):
“If you walk in My statutes and observe My commandments and do them, […] You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
But if you will not listen to Me and will not do all these commandments […] you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.”
And, as if that were not enough, He warned them again, and in similarly excruciating detail (Deuteronomy 28:1, 7, 15, 25; cf. Deuteronomy 32:30):
“[…] if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. […] The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all His commandments and His statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. […] The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.”
Now where else have we recently witnessed a series of tiny, fringe minority groups running roughshod over a complicit, compromised majority?9
There is no denying it: America has devolved into a full-blown effemi-nation. Affluent and apathetic, we in the so-called “moral majority” appear almost completely incapable of standing up to the godless, manipulative crybullies that seemingly push us around at will. God warned us of this. We have only ourselves to blame.
In contrast to the effeminate pushover, the Bible says that the righteous shall never be moved (Psalm 112:1, 2, 5–8, emphasis mine):
“Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. […] It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice. For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.”
The conclusion, therefore, is inescapable: Ruined by material prosperity and an apparent lack of need for God, the vast majority of American Christians have become untutored and unskilled in righteousness, absorbing with little qualm the detestable practices of the world around us and thereby inviting the judgment of God—the gradual giving over of both ourselves and our children to our small, but disproportionately effective enemies.
There is no denying this. You know it and I know it.
Is it any wonder then that the prophet Amos pronounced a curse on an effemi-nation such as ours on the eve of her destruction? Amos 6:1:
“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion [i.e., Jerusalem], and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes!”10
Sadly, as bad as Sodom was, Israel eventually became even worse (Ezekiel 16:46–48, emphasis mine; cf. Lamentations 4:6):
“And your [i.e., Jerusalem’s] elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.”
And friends, we hate to inform you of this, but it’s simply the truth: America makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Candy Land. We have far exceeded her perversity, bloodshed, self-absorption, and hubris. America is Sodom on steroids. As Ruth Graham once remarked to her husband, the famed evangelist Billy Graham, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”11
We see then that Sodom was not unique, a one-off abomination that stands alone in history, but rather a pattern for each and every nation that allows its effeminacy to completely have its way with it, dragging both it and its surrounding peoples straight into hell (Genesis 13:11,12, 19:28,29; Revelation 20:10, 14, 15). Indeed, Jesus taught this very thing with respect to the towns that rejected His disciples to their face, a far graver offense than Sodom ever committed (Matthew 10:14, 15):
“And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”
This much is clear: Whatever we once were as a nation, we are no longer. The once burning lamp in the “shining city on a hill” has been all but snuffed out (Revelation 2:5).
If God judged the chosen nation Israel for her unfaithfulness by destroying her at the hands of her supposed lovers (Ezekiel 16:35–43), will we new covenant believers, living in our so-called “Christian nation,” escape with a lighter sentence?
God does not play favorites (Acts 10:34). If He judged His people Israel of old, then He will surely judge us, His ingrafted people, today (Romans 11:21, 22; cf. John 15:2, 6, 1 Peter 4:17, 18):
“For if God did not spare the natural branches [i.e., unbelieving Jews], neither will he spare you [gentile believers]. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.”
Wake up Christian!!! God means business!
Sodom’s story is already written and in the books, but ours has yet to play out. Believe it or not, there is still hope for us and our country. If we as God’s people repent today, while it is still called “today” (Hebrews 3:7–15), then Israel’s downfall does not have to repeat itself in America.
Our current national experiment has been run a thousand times before. We don’t need to run it again. We know how it ends: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Indeed, every nation, great or small, from the foundation of the world until now, that has stubbornly persisted in its rebellion against God has forfeited His blessing and incurred His just punishment (Jeremiah 5:25–29, emphasis mine):
“Your iniquities have turned these [blessings] away, and your sins have kept good from you. For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch men. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich; they have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?”
Friends, that is us! Shall He not punish us?
Instead of fulfilling our calling to be a “holy nation” within any nation in which we are find ourselves (1 Peter 2:9), we in the Church have adopted—sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly—each and every one of the ungodly practices of the “pagan nations” around us (Leviticus 18:1–5, 24–30). Yes, that’s right, each and every one. Name the sin and we’ll show you its “Christian” counterpart (see the list below for examples).12
We used to say that “America is great because she is good.” Now it seems that she is effeminate because she is evil.
The Church must own its leading role in this, or we have little hope of either personal or national revival.
Life, liberty, and effeminacy
The relevance of Sodom’s and Israel’s declines to America’s current descent into the sexual abyss must not be missed. Our historic excesses of leisure, goods, time, and money have enabled our first-world sexual sins to flourish, sins that our salt-of-the-earth forebears simply did not have the luxury to indulge.
Strangers to true adversity and often bored out of our minds, we sensory overloaded Americans are resorting to increasingly perverse and outlandish pleasures in a vain attempt to stimulate our saturated synapses.
How else do you explain the recent outing of a red state mayor, and Baptist pastor, who gave himself over to shameful transvestite fetishes while insisting on his “freedom” to do so? “What I do in private life has nothing to do with what I do in my holy life.”13 Indeed, and that was the problem.
Mirroring previous societies, our once vibrant, virile young nation, led by the likes of the “bull moose” Teddy Roosevelt, has in so short a span decayed into the decadent dotage of the deviant “Biden crime family,” an emblem of our national decline. But don’t think for a second that the opposition party gets off the hook, run as it is by courageous men like Marjorie Taylor Greene and powerful women like Lindsey Graham. The strenuous life of civic and religious virtue advocated by the men who built this country has been replaced with the easy life of the effeminate grifters who are tearing it all down.
With the land and its natives largely subdued, and with peace and prosperity abounding, the scrappy, God-fearing pilgrims and patriots who built this country have disappeared, leaving the hard-earned fruits of their labors to their undisciplined, unrestrained trust-fund babies. We are giving our inheritance away hand over fist, faster than the spinning digits of the national debt clock.
And, most egregiously of all, the Church has not only gone along for this ride, it has paved the way for the United States of Effeminacy from the get go.
Don’t believe us? You don’t have to. The facts speak for themselves:
At the turn of the 20th century, America was in the midst of a massive transition from a primarily rural, agrarian economy to a primarily urban, industrial economy, a period typically referred to as the Industrial Revolution. Thus, the hard life of the subsistence farmer, who depended directly on God for his every need, was gradually replaced by the comfortable, inter-dependent, suburban middle class mentality that most of us are familiar with today.14 Now, with much of our manual labor either obsolete or farmed out overseas,15 the jobs that used to engage one’s entire person—body, soul, and spirit—have gradually disappeared, with the few that remain experiencing shortages of willing and able workers.16 As a result, America is presently experiencing both a leisure surplus and a labor shortage.
The first issue of Playboy magazine was published on December 1, 1953. A decade later, the Motion Picture Production Code, or “Hays Code” (1934–1968),17 which prohibited lewd or otherwise inappropriate film content during Hollywood’s golden age (1927–1960), was gradually abandoned, paving the way for widespread social acceptance of cinematic voyeurism, vulgarity, and violence. Then, beginning in the 1990s when access to the world wide web became common in America, and especially upon release of the iPhone (2007) and Android-based smart phones (2008), pornographic materials became more or less instantly accessible to virtually all Americans. Thanks to these three landmark developments, pornography is not only a fixture of modern, mainstream American culture, but an endemic plague on the American Church, with nearly 70% of American men who attend church, as well as 50% of pastors, regularly viewing pornographic materials on the internet.18 And it’s no wonder: The United States stands head and shoulders above all other nations as the most prolific producer of porn worldwide (25%), with the United Kingdom coming in at a distant second (6%).19
The sexual revolution and women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s ushered in the age of the birth control pill (1960),20 Roe v. Wade (ruled 1973, overruled, 2022),21 Planned Parenthood (1916, flourished after Roe decision),22 and mass infanticide, including in excess of 60 million abortions in a roughly five decade span.23 In spite of this, as well as the advent of advanced ultrasound technology that unequivocally established the humanity of the unborn, most professing American Christians today are still in favor of legal abortion.24
The sexual revolution has also led to mass male sterilization, with over half a million men, many of whom are professing Christians,25 electing to undergo vasectomies each year in the U.S.26 In the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, for example, many male feminists publicly vowed to immediately obtain vasectomies,27 with subsequent data confirming these anecdotes as a significant medical trend.28
The percentage of Americans who describe themselves as LGBT has risen over each of the preceding five generations, with numbers skyrocketing over recent decades: While on average less than 3% of the Silent Generation (1945 and earlier), Baby boomers (1946–1964), and Gen X (1965–1980) identified as such, over 10% of Millennials (1981–1996) and a whopping 20% of Gen Z (1997–2004) claim membership in one of these categories.29
In spite of, or perhaps in part because of, our record-setting economic growth,30 America is less religious than ever before. For example, around 1900, about two-thirds of Americans identified as Protestants, under a third as Catholics, and almost none as non-religious.31 Now, self-identifying Christians make up only 63% of Americans combined, while a full 29% identify as “nones,” that is, those who identify with no organized religion whatsoever.32
Lacking the resilience of, say, the “Greatest Generation” (1901–1924), which endured two world wars and the Great Depression, recent generations of Americans have embraced “snowflake,” “safe space,” and “cancel” cultures as a means of coping with increasing levels of psychological fragility, intellectual immaturity, and spiritual superficiality. As evidence of this, the use of antidepressants has increased exponentially in recent decades,33 with roughly a quarter of Americans today receiving professional mental health services annually, nearly double the rate from twenty years ago.34
We plan to expand on these historical developments in our ongoing series The Seven Deadly Sins of American Christianity. For now, if one were to simply follow the bouncing ball, one can see in America the exact sort of pattern scripture would lead one to predict for a culture that is long on prosperity and short on character: First the men go soft, lost in their wanton sensuality (Romans 1:18–27), then women and children rise up to fill the leadership vacuum (Isaiah 3:12), traditional sexual mores go out the window (Romans 1:28–32), the vulnerable suffer violently (Leviticus 18:21 and immediate context), and the godless go from bad to worse with no one man enough, or godly enough, to stop them (Deuteronomy 28:30–35; Psalm 11:3; 2 Timothy 3:13).
And yet for all this, when the Church needs bold, God-fearing men more than ever, Christians for the most part have little to no tolerance for so-called “toxic masculinity” (read: “traditional masculinity”). “Strong men of God? Who needs them? Uncompromising prophets? Pass. Too difficult to manage. We’ve got plenty perfectly compliant prophets of Baal to do our bidding, thank you very much.”
Our tone-deaf lack of self-awareness is almost gold medal worthy.
Nevertheless, with the majority of us still living relatively high on the hog, American Christianity can afford to limp on, as it were. At least for the time being, we can go on dismissing the austere “fire and brimstone” values of yesteryear. You know, the values that formed our nation’s founders, stirred great awakenings, built our most enduring institutions, and provided our citizens with both moral and legal “checks and balances” to restrain our inherent evil—those values. Who needs ‘em, right?
In our arrogant sense of entitlement, we modern American Christians have forgotten who we are, where we came from, and the God we once depended upon for our daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Like Israel before us, we too have entered a “promised land,” only to forget the One who promised it to us in the first place (Deuteronomy 8:11–14):
“Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up [in pride], and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
There’s something about the prosperous times that makes us forget the lean days when we truly hungered for God (Matthew 5:6, 6:33). When we have things a little too good, we become spiritually fat and sassy, stifling our appetite for God: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ […]” (Proverbs 30:8b, 9a).
May God reveal to us our effeminacy and true spiritual poverty (Matthew 5:3) so that we can once again find our power and riches in Him.
“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”
—Revelation 3:17, 18
Ladies and gentlemen
Up to this point in this series we have focused primarily on the impact of effeminacy on men, both individually and collectively. But if “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), then neither would any treatment of effeminacy be complete without addressing the role of women in this phenomenon. In the next installment, we will place the sexes side by side to compare and contrast their relative contributions to the softening of American Christianity. Although the responsibility may rest primarily on the shoulders of gentlemen, we will see that there is still plenty of blame to go around for the ladies. We all have a part in this predicament, and we can all do something to get ourselves out of it. Don’t miss what’s coming next on the League of Believers.
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“Sulfur Balls of Sodom and Gomorrah,” Joel Kramer, Expedition Bible.
Traditionally, Sodom and Gomorrah have been placed southeast of the Dead Sea (Genesis 10:19, 14:1–12) at Bab edh-Dhra and Numayra, respectively, sites that have remained uninhabited to the present (Jeremiah 50:40; Matthew 11:23).
More recently, American archeologist Dr. Steven Collins, citing Biblical descriptions of the “cities of the plain” (Genesis 13:12, 19:29), claims to have located Sodom northeast of the Dead Sea at Tall al-Hammam. However, this claim appears to suffer from numerous Biblical, archeological, and scientific shortcomings.
For evidence in support of the southeast location, see:
“The Search for Biblical Sodom” and “Sodom’s Big Bang: Caused by Meteor or Earthquake?” Deborah Hurn, Patterns of Evidence.
“Sodom burned—Zoar did NOT: The full story of the discovery of the Cities of the Plain!” Joel Kramer, Expedition Bible.
For evidence in support of the northeast location, see:
Bunch, T.E., LeCompte, M.A., Adedeji, A.V. et al. A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea. Sci Rep. 2021; 11, 18632.
“Discovering the Lost City of Sodom (w/Dr. Steve Collins).” Sean McDowell, Sean McDowell Show.
For evidence against the northeast location, see:
Jaret, S.J., Scott Harris, R. No mineralogic or geochemical evidence of impact at Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea. Sci Rep. 2022; 12, 5189.
Turpin, Simon. “Biblical Problems with Identifying Tall el-Hammam as Sodom.” Ans. Res. J. 2021; 14: 45–61.
Today, the word “sodomy” has been largely replaced by rather clinical term “homosexuality.” While accurate in a purely technical sense, referring to such shameful, unnatural acts (Romans 1:26, 27) as “homosexual” is like referring to a murderous act as merely “life-depriving.” Obviously, but where’s the moral sting in that? Without a proper cultural and linguistic stigma, “sins” transform into mere “symptoms.”
Formally, solipsism refers to a philosophy that maintains that one can only be certain of one’s own existence while the existence of others is either suspect, unknowable, or merely a projection of one’s own mind. Informally, solipsism refers to extreme self-centeredness and disregard for the needs of others. Obviously, the latter definition is intended here.
For example, Jerusalem us accused of adultery (Ezekiel 16:38), prostitution (verses 15–17, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30, 31, 33–35, 41), promiscuity (verses 25, 26, 29, 36), lewdness (verses 27, 43, 58), and other “detestable” practices (verses 2, 22, 36, 43, 47, 50, 51, 58) that were commonplace in Samaria (verses 46, 51, 53, 55) and Sodom (verses 46, 48, 49, 53, 55, 56).
Not to mention the fact that such reasoning is clearly an “argument from silence,” since it rests on an inference from what the text does not say, rather than what it does say. While such arguments are not necessarily false, they often are. Regardless, arguments from silence are conjectural by their very nature and are typically considered fallacious.
Although in Christ’s case, His maturation (Luke 2:52) and testings (Hebrews 5:7) were not marred by sin (Hebrews 4:15): “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Notice also from this quotation, as well as the others cited along this vein, that this sentiment is found in essentially identical form in both the Old and New Testaments, so it will do no good to try and hide behind a supposed “new covenant” dodge. Truly, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Yes, God’s redemptive plan unfolds in time (Hebrews 1:1, 2, etc.), but God’s character never changes.
Again, for those who might brush these warnings aside as applying only to Israel and to no other nation or people, keep in mind that God repeatedly tells His people that if they sin and defile the land as Canaanites did before them, then they too will be vomited out of the land just as the Canaanites were (e.g., Leviticus 18:28). Clearly, God judges not only Israel, His uniquely redeemed covenant people (Exodus 19:4–6), but also all the nations of the earth (Psalm 2:8, 9, 110:6; Isaiah 2:4, 66: 1–5,16–24; Joel 3:12; Micah 4:3; etc.), who likewise owe their allegiance to God as their Creator and Sustainer (Acts 17:24–31). God’s special covenant people do not receive special treatment in this respect—indeed, if anything, they, along with their spouses and children (1 Corinthians 7:14), are even more accountable to God than their pagan neighbors by virtue of their having entered into a unique covenant relationship with Him, whether through descent from Abraham, personal faith in Christ, or a combination of both (Genesis 17:7; Deuteronomy 11:13–17; Acts 2:39; Galatians 3:28; etc.).
Tellingly, the New Living Translation renders Amos 6:1 (emphasis mine): “What sorrow awaits you who lounge in luxury in Jerusalem, and you who feel secure in Samaria! You are famous and popular in Israel, and people go to you for help.”
“My Heart Aches for America,” by Billy Graham.
See also our list in The Seven Deadly Sins of American Christianity.
Tragically, shortly after saying this, this same man took his own life. See “Alabama Mayor And Pastor Died By Suicide After His Social Media Accounts Are Exposed” by Paige Skinner of HuffPost.
This is by no means to say that this transition was either easy or universally negative, only that it paved the way for widespread ease and its many profound downstream consequences.
“The Unintended Consequences of Outsourcing,” Adam Hayes, Investopedia.
“Understanding America’s Labor Shortage,” Stephanie Ferguson, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Hays Code can be found in its entirety here. It is worth reading in full, as these standards stand in stark contrast to content that we now take for granted in most films, even those geared toward families and children.
“Hope in the Midst of Porn Addiction,” Landon Tucker, Lifeway Voices; “Porn in the Digital Age: New Research Reveals 10 Trends,” Barna Group.
“15 countries that supply maximum pornography online: How much does India contribute?” Chaitra Anand, Yahoo Finance. WARNING: This link contains risqué, but apparently non-pornographic content (though this was not thoroughly verified).
Kao, A. History of Oral Contraception. Virtual Mentor, AMA J Ethics. 2000; 2(6): 55–56.
It should be noted that the birth control pill was the “brainchild” of Planned Parenthood’s found, Margaret Sanger (“The Birth Control Pill: A History,” Planned Parenthood).
“Roe v. Wade.” Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18 (Accessed 15 Mar. 2024); "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392. (Accessed 15 Mar. 2024).
“Our History,” Planned Parenthood.
“Abortion Statistics: United States Data and Trends,” National Right to Life.
For example, “only 45 percent of all Christians think abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances” and “The majority of white mainline Protestants (59 percent), Black Protestants (56 percent) and white Roman Catholics (52 percent) support legal access to abortion in all or most cases” (“Religious women have abortions, too,” Zahra Ayubi, Rebecca Todd Peters, and Michal Raucher, NBC News, Think: Opinion, Analysis, Essays).
For example, Sharma et al. found that “Approximately 9.8% of Protestants had a vasectomy compared with 4.5% of Catholics […].”
Sharma, V., Le, B.V., Sheth, K.R., et al. Vasectomy demographics and postvasectomy desire for future children: results from a contemporary national survey. Fertil Steril. 2013; 99(7): 1880–1885.
“Men rush to get vasectomies after Roe ruling,” Meena Venkataramanan, The Washington Post.
Bole, R. et al. Rising vasectomy volume following reversal of federal protections for abortion rights in the United States. Int J Impot Res. 2023; 1–4.
“U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%,” Jeffery Jones, Gallup.
“Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989 to 2019,” Congressional Budget Office.
“What Did American Religion Look Like Before Modern Surveys Began?” Ryan Burge, Graphs about Religion.
“How U.S. religious composition has changed in recent decades,” Pew Research Center.
“Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008” and “Antidepressant Use Among Adults: United States, 2015-2018,” CDC National Center for Health Statistics; “Astounding increase in antidepressant use by Americans,” Peter Wehrwein, Harvard Health.
“Americans' Reported Mental Health at New Low; More Seek Help,” Megan Brenan, Gallup.