The Truth Process, Session VII, Post 8

CHAOS

In 1972, fresh out of college, I started my first “real” job as a Health and Physical Education teacher and football coach at a high school in Beaver County. Those of you who are old enough to remember the 70’s will recall that this was a time of social turmoil, as the cultural shift in values that began in the 60’s was beginning to bring forth it’s fruit, and it was a bitter fruit indeed.

Even in this relatively small high school, made up of a combination of suburban, rural, and farm-family students, the cultural shift was evident. Some of the male students sported the “hippie” look – long hair, the occasional earring, thin, scraggly mustaches, and a sloppy, sometimes dirty manner of dress.  More than a few of these students were suspected of drug use, and at times their behavior justified the suspicion. The females had their own assortment of “hippie types”, suspected drug users, as well as those who had been captivated by the women’s liberation movement.

I was coming into this environment as an addition to the Boys Health and Physical Education Department, in anticipation of the opening of a new high school the following year. When I arrived, I was shocked at what I found…

The existing P.E. teacher had lost control. Students openly refused to obey his instructions, consistently came to class late, if at all, and spoke to him in a very disrespectful manner, sometimes referring to him as “old man”. Swearing was not at all uncommon among these boys, and the dreaded “F’” bomb was not off limits. There was no order. In a word, it was “CHAOS”.

I was unsaved in 1972, and the combination of little patience (for anyone and anything that was not the way I thought it should be), a quick temper, and a huge amount of pride drove me to restore order. What I did in the process back then would have cost me my job if done as a teacher today. God, in His grace saved me from myself – another story for another day.

A lack of order eventually descends into chaos. The lack of moral order in our culture has descended into a form of chaos, and here in the United States, the evidence is all around us – the out of wedlock birth rate among blacks is 72%, the divorce rate continues to hover around 50%, homosexuality is openly defended and promoted, many churches no longer preach the word of God and adopt the standards of the culture, partially born babies are aborted in a most gruesome manner. On any given day, our newspapers read of murders, rape, random shootings…

In 1993, Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan published one of the most important pieces of social theory entitled "Defining Deviancy Down." Moynihan started from Emile Durkheim's proposition that there is a limit to the amount of deviant behavior any community can "afford to recognize" (called the "Durkheim Constant"). As the amount of deviancy increases, the community has to adjust its standards so that conduct once thought deviant is no longer deemed so. Consequently, if we are not vigilant about enforcing them, our standards would be constantly devolving in order to normalize rampant deviancy.¹ This seems to be the trend within our nation, does it not?

The chaotic environment of my teaching assignment in 1972 was the result of the combination of cultural influences and a denial of authority. On a much larger scale, these same factors are at work in our country today – a denial of the ultimate authority – God, and the inevitable downward shift in cultural values.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get a bit discouraged about the state of affairs here in the United States of America. Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope at all! But the word of God reminds me that I must put my hope in God – the infinite, eternal, unchanging, all powerful God (Psalm 42:5).

The cure for the chaos that besets our nation is not found in political parties or charismatic, eloquent leaders. Any man-centric solution may appear to bring order, but it will be short lived and before we know it, chaos reigns once again. The cure is found in God and Him alone, and it is in Him we must place our hope.

May it be so…

In Christ –

John

¹Meta Filter Community Web Log, June 16, 2004