Admittedly, Jason Whitlock is one of the voices over at The Blaze that I frequently listen. His combination of life experience and sports knowledge makes for poignant social commentary, especially on issues pertaining to race. It is because of his show Fearless that I was introduced to voices like Delano Squires, Shemeka Michelle, and Royce White.
That being said, I write this as an honest critique of one of his recent columns ‘Pride Month’ debauchery reflects a new MAGA movement, which he subsequently centered his episode of Fearless around airing Monday, June 13, 2022. Whitlock has a tendency to rely on instinct and personal experience in his commentary. While experience can provide an excellent fountain of wisdom, provided one learns from their mistakes, it can also obfuscate objective realities in favor of emotions. At times, Whitlock has a tendency to project his own struggles on certain issues, which undergirds this column.
The in-your-face sexual depravity showcased at LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations acts as a mirror for the rest of us. It’s a reflection of the culture Christian heterosexuals built, tolerated, and/or enjoyed for the last 60 years.
One of the core premises of his article is that because heterosexual or normal sex became more mainstream across our culture, that homosexual behavior is a reaction to this. To say that Christians built or enjoyed the cultural decline over the last 60 years is disingenuous. America went from nominally Christian to further down the secular path of Europe. Much of the decline was instigated via the courts, not built from the ground up.
We allowed the centering of our sexuality in all aspects of American television, music, cinema, art, and culture. We sold hamburgers, magazines, cars, football, and everything else with sex…Sex sells.
I do not think it can be downplayed the prominence of sex to the human psyche. Sex produces pleasure, to which in our fallen state leads to hedonistic behaviors to chase after pleasure. Unsurprisingly, humans enjoy beauty and until recent times, models, actresses, and other celebrities were ideally beautiful people and naturally sexually attractive. He makes a point about sex intermingling with everything from advertisements to sports, which while true, does not mean that any appeal to sex or beauty is inherently overt or explicit. Companies like Carl Jr’s or Hooters are novelties, not norms. Sure, football has cheerleaders who are supposed to give a sense of sex appeal, but they are secondary to the attention of football fans.
It’s disingenuous and naive to be shocked that, given the opportunity and leverage, the gay movement is selling its lifestyle with sex. They’re simply mirroring the behavior of the formerly dominant culture. We made Pride Month – and all the debauchery and grooming that comes with it – inevitable.
There are two primary flaws in this premise: one, the normalization of homosexuality coincided with the sexualization of American culture; two, homosexual subcultures have always been hypersexual.
The modern homosexual movement takes its roots in Feminism, which seeks to androgenize women and effeminize men under the premise that men and women are interchangeable. Feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir, who herself was a lesbian, advocated for a consent based morality pertaining to sex. Other Marxist movements in the 60’s took up their cause, including the Black Panthers. Moreover, grooming and pedophilia have always been interwoven with the gay rights movement. The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) was founded in 1978 and advocates for pederasty and the removal of age of consent laws. The gay pride flag was commissioned at the behest of Harvey Milk, a pedophile. In the realm of pornography, gay porn has existed alongside straight porn, with the first gay porn film, Boys in the Sand being released in 1971, not even three years after Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie (1969) which is regarded as the first adult film in America. The same sixty-year time period in which Whitlock suggests heterosexuals flaunted themselves is the same period in which homosexuality became normalized in American culture. Both the sexual revolution and the gay rights movements trace their roots to feminism, thus nullifying Whitlock’s assertion. It is not reactionary, but corollary.
Furthermore, to suggest that gays all of the sudden flaunted their sex lives in the faces of everyday Americans in reaction to normal people doing the same to them is historically ignorant and asinine. On this point, it cannot be understated that gay subcultures have always been hypersexual. It is only through normalization did Americans become exposed to it on the mainstream. Along with other STD’s, the US HIV/AIDS epidemic was spread primarily through drugs and gay sex (assuming the official AIDS narrative). The amount of sexual partners homosexual males have is around 10 times the number associated with straight males or even lesbians. Drag being a fetish has been a well-known fact, only in that it was platformed to the mainstream in recent years. They are not mirroring normal sexual activity, but they are magnifying their own behavior to a broader audience.
I like crime, corruption, and sex. Amazon recommended that I watch crime, corruption, and sex. It fed me what I like.
Whitlock proceeds to project his own personal feelings into the matter. The inspiration for his piece was the movie Killer Joe on Amazon and how the movie, which portrays a gratuitous scene, causes Whitlock to reflect of himself. Basically, Amazon through data mining suggested shows which made Whitlock question the issue personally. It should be noted that crime and corruption make for the best form of entertainment, along with war and other heavy subject matters. Naturally, sex, being a real concept, does have a tendency to fit into these tales. People enjoy art that reflects life. There is a reason even Christians do not like Christian films. Even popularized Bible stories that are commonly referenced throughout culture deal with violence, sex, and victory against the odds. Look no further than the Exodus, David and Goliath, David and Bathsheba, or Samson. There is a level of brilliance to be had when art accurately reflects the depths of human nature. It should be appreciated, not condemned.
There is much that can be said of sexualization in entertainment as networks employed tactics of sexposition in storytelling, but Whitlock’s insecurities go beyond this subject as he reflects on his affinity for classic films as The Godfather to shows like Billions and The Wire, which are not reliant on sexposition.
Silence of the Church?
On his show, Whitlock was more critical of the church, claiming that churches did not speak out on these issues throughout the decades. These types of statements are not uncommon, but are generally lacking for specifics. It is easy for us in modern times to be critical of those in the past for failing to speak out against the depravities of their decades. The silent pulpits of yesteryear did nothing! It is a rousing claim, but reliant upon absence of evidence to suggest evidence of absence.
I will not make a strawman to suggest that no churches or pulpits were speaking out against no fault divorce or promiscuity during the 60’s and 70’s. Surely in the archives of these pastors we can find a multitude of statements and sermons condemning the sins of their day. John MacArthur, RC Sproul, and Adrian Rogers were pastors during this period and in the subsequent aftermath of the sexual revolution.
On the other extreme, there are apostates who bash the church for speaking out against the culture. We actually published a response to Phil Vischer who contended that Christians were promoting fear porn for the past fifty years. With the exception to Bill Clinton, majority of the concerns Christians expressed over the past century have been realized.
Christianity in the 90’s is stereotyped by Purity Culture, which was in reaction to the rampant promiscuity among teenagers. Ned Flanders on The Simpsons was Hollywood’s characterization of this culture. While the purity culture was imperfect in its execution and gave prominence to characters like Joshua Harris, it remains evidence that the church was still involved in the culture fight of its day.
In our lifetimes, there no shortage of voices speaking out against gay marriage, claiming that it would lead to the degeneracy targeting children today. These Christians were condemned by the world for slippery slope arguments. Even nowadays, many Christians wrongfully believe the church was too harsh on the issue.
Think about it: what would future generations say of us? Would they not contend in ignorance that we did nothing as children were brought to drag shows or transitioned?
Whitlock is projecting his own previously pagan lifestyle of strip clubs and womanizing to contend that Christians did nothing and let this happen. In each generation, there is a faithful remnant speaking against the wickedness of their day.
Revival is up to God
Humans are totally depraved. We should expect degeneracy to metastasize when God’s word is rejected. The multitude of apostates gives the impression that none are speaking out, but the reality is much different. Had the church spoken out harder against gay marriage is not guarantee that Obergefell would not have occurred. The same can be reasoned about the Sexual Revolution of the past or Social Justice of the present.
Ezekiel 33:1-8 reads as follows:
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ‘If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people, then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself. But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.’
“Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me.
Our job is to deliver God’s message. Sharing the gospel and living it out in this life is our way of sounding the trumpet in warning of the judgment that is to come on those who reject Christ. The prophet was not judged according to whether the people received his message, but whether he delivered it to the people. Otherwise, our cannon would have very few prophets.
We as Christians should refrain from broad stroked criticism of previous generations of believers. Christians make mistakes. False teachers and heresies arise in churches. Church bodies rise and fall. Eventually, these heresies hollow out the pews. It is not our job to win, only to fight and finish the race that is set before us.
