I have noticed a lot of social media comments this week about the half-time show at the Super Bowl.  I watched the game but not the half-time show.  Of course, the objections were for the over-sexualized production at half time that has been described as disgusting, shocking, perverse, and so forth. This was just the latest addition of such half-time shows going back to Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction and Beyonce channeling her spirit (demon) in a hypersexual way.  The debate over the production reminded me of an article that our pastoral staff discussed only a week or so before the Super Bowl.  I thought you might be interested in some takeaways from the article related to a sexualized culture.  The article was written by Kirk Durston and was based on a book entitled Sex and Culture written by J.D. Unwin, a Cambridge social anthropologist. He studies a number of cultures contemporary and historic based on several criteria – one of which was a cultures level of sexual restraint.  It is a highly academic book so I will try to keep the quote brief.

Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought

A few days ago I finished studying Sex and Culture for the second time. It is a remarkable book summarizing a lifetime of research by Oxford social anthropologist J.D. Unwin.  The 600+ page book is, in Unwin’s words, only a “summary” of his research—seven volumes would be required to lay it all out. His writings suggest he was a rationalist, believing that science is our ultimate tool of inquiry (it appears he was not a religious man). As I went through what he found, I was repeatedly reminded of the thought I had as a philosophy student: some moral laws may be designed to minimize human suffering and maximize human flourishing long term.

Unwin examines the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there is a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures. What makes the book especially interesting is that we in the West underwent a sexual revolution in the late 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s and are now in a position to test the conclusions he arrived at more than 40 years earlier.  

Unwin’s degrees of sexual restraint

Degrees of sexual restraint were divided into two major categories—prenuptial (pre-marital) and postnuptial (married). Prenuptial categories were:

1. Complete sexual freedom—no prenuptial restraints at all
2. Irregular or occasional restraint— cultural regulations require an occasional period of abstinence
3. Strict Chastity —remain a virgin until married

Postnuptial categories were:

1. Modified monogamy: one spouse at a time, but association can be terminated by either party.
2. Modified polygamy: men can have more than one wife, but a wife is free to leave her husband.
3. Absolute monogamy: only one spouse permitted for life (or until death in some cultures) 
4. Absolute polygamy:  men can have more than one wife, but wives must “confine their sexual qualities (i.e., activity) to their husband for the whole of their lives.”

So what did he find?

Here are a few of his most significant findings:

1. Effect of sexual constraints: Increased sexual constraints, either pre or post-nuptial, always led to increased flourishing of a culture. Conversely, increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later. 
2. Single most influential factor: Surprisingly, the data revealed that the single most important correlation with the flourishing of a culture was whether pre-nuptial chastity was required or not. It had a very significant effect either way.
3. Highest flourishing of culture: The most powerful combination was pre-nuptial chastity coupled with “absolute monogamy”. Rationalist cultures that retained this combination for at least three generations exceeded all other cultures in every area, including literature, art, science, furniture, architecture, engineering, and agriculture. Only three out of the eighty-six cultures studied ever attained this level.
4. Effect of abandoning prenuptial chastity: When strict prenuptial chastity was no longer the norm, absolute monogamy, deism (a culture in which considerations about God shape the culture, and rational thinking also disappeared within three generations.
5. Total sexual freedom: If total sexual freedom was embraced by a culture, that culture collapsed within three generations to the lowest state of flourishing — which Unwin describes as “inert” and at a “dead level of conception” and is characterized by people who have little interest in much else other than their own wants and needs. At this level, the culture is usually conquered or taken over by another culture with greater social energy.
6. Time lag: If there is a change in sexual constraints, either increased or decreased restraints, the full effect of that change is not realized until the third generation.

The conclusions of the writer were that America is far along the path (Super Bowl) and that we hit the self-destruct button, which began our countdown back in the 60’s.  The Cambridge scholar did not try to determine why cultures that showed sexual restraint flourished while those that did not began to circle the drain, but he thought maybe the energy that would have been expended on sexual pursuits were actually channeled intoscience, technology, the arts, etc.

I have another thought on that:  Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people (Proverbs 14:34 ). God created sexuality to be a holy thing shared by one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage. He designed it to knit hearts and emotions together in a way that would strengthen the bond of marriage more than almost anything else.  It is such a holy thing that adultery was a capital offense under the Old Covenant.  Satan has made sexuality a prime target since the Garden of Eden.  In our time, a lack of sexual restraint has created a generation of fatherless children, a bevy of sexually transmitted diseases, a world haunted by gender confusion, an inability to bond properly with a spouse because of multiple sexual partners before marriage, a epidemic of brutal sex trafficking – both boys and girls, an additional epidemic of pornography, and most importantly, the removal of God’s blessing from nations.

So does the Super Bowl half time show really matter?  In one sense, it is just one more expression of a culture that has become sexualized to the point of shamelessness.  But more importantly, it is a probable indicator of the impending collapse of a great nation once blessed and used by God.  The good news is that there are still many who find such expressions objectionable.  We should.  The church must be the conscience of a nation for who else will speak out for righteousness?  Of course, speaking out is only part of the battle.  The only true solution is to evangelize the nation with the good news of Jesus Christ and the true freedom found in Him.  There are so many things the enemy has stolen from our culture that need to reclaimed and taken back by the church. A holy sexuality is one of those things and we must be in the fight…beginning with our own personal purity based on the Lord’s standard not the standard of our culture.