A Culture in Crisis: The Sexual Revolution, the Pursuit of

Happiness, and How Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Might Be Part of the

Answer

By Kyle Rapinchuk

What is the problem?

• “You’re just one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And it’s just passé at this juncture.”—Playboy CEO Scott Flanders)

• “The publishers of the magazine were acknowledging that their product was no longer commercially viable as explicit pornography is so pervasive in the Internet age that no one need buy their product.”—Al Mohler

Rather, we have reached a point of crisis where magazines like Playboy, which for so long stood

as visible reminders of the objectification of women, the wickedness of sexual immorality, and the idolatry of self, are now too tame to keep up with a growing demand for sicker,

darker, and more unnatural sex acts.

Finding True Happiness

Four Levels of Happiness/Pleasure:

Level 1: External, pleasure, material

Level 2: Ego-Comparative

Level 3: Contributive-Empathetic

Level 4: Transcendent

Level 1: External, Pleasure, Material

Its source is brain and sensory faculties. Level 1 pleasures include things like food,

drink, material satisfaction, and sex.

Level 2: Ego-Comparative

The source of these pleasures is in our self-consciousness as they try to bring the outer world under the influence of our own inner world.

Examples of level 2 pleasure are status, popularity, perceived or real intelligence, power, and winning.

Level 3: Contributive-Empathetic

These arise as well from self-consciousness, but specifically as our consciousness creates a desire to make an optimal positive difference to the world beyond myself.

Examples of these pleasures include actions and empathy to family, friends, the Kingdom of God, and others.

Level 4: Transcendent

Its source is our transcendental awareness of and desire for the sacred and spiritual as well as perfect and unconditional truth, love, justice, goodness, beauty, and being.

This pleasure is manifested in opening ourselves and others up to a transcendental power who is perfect and possesses and shares unconditional truth, love, justice, goodness, and being.

Levels of Happiness

• The reason is that the higher levels of pleasure are more pervasive (affect more people), more enduring (effects last longer), and deeper (require greater amounts of intellectual, creative, and psychological powers).

Levels of Happiness

• “We will have to give up the immediate gratification, intensity, and surface apparentness of the lower levels of happiness.”

• But this is hard for “they are like a ‘default drive’, because they are enticing, intense in their fulfillment, and immediately gratifying. Moreover, our culture promotes them as if they are the only things worth striving for and can be completely satisfying and meaningful.”

“We enter into an ever-increasing darkness of

emotional pain termed the ‘comparison game’ and ‘existential emptiness.’”

“The Sexual Revolution can not and will not ever keep its promises. Even its most thrilling pleasures eventually become old news, as the editors of Playboy now know. The trouble with a pornographic culture isn’t that its sex is too daring, too hot, too exciting. The problem is that, ultimately, it’s too boring to last.”—Russell Moore, President of the ERLC of the SBC

Consequences of Level 1 and 2 as Ultimate Desires

1. Misunderstanding of what it means to love2. Destruction of marriage—divorce, same sex marriage, and

more3. Destruction of the family unit4. A failure to secure lasting fulfillment and therefore an ever-

increasing need for more and more lower-level pleasures that lead to existential emptiness and the comparison game

5. The cycle is perpetuated exponentially in the next generation. With increase in divorce, for example, comes increase in single parent (usually single mom) households; with no male figure in the home, young boys tend to assume the feminine qualities of their moms or take attitudes of “macho men” who are aggressive towards and/or demeaning to women.

10 Propositions About How Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Can Help

A proper understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood…

1. can help the church correct cultural misunderstandings of the nature and meaning of love.

2. can save marriages before (and after) they are broken, thereby reducing the frequency of divorce.

3. can lead to marriages that properly reflect the gospel and Christ’s relationship with the church.

4. can prepare men to be God-honoring husbands and fathers that lead God-exalting families.

5. can prepare women to be God-honoring wives and mothers that nurture God-exalting families.

10 Propositions About How Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Can Help

A proper understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood…6. can help the church set an example for culture of the

blessings of marriage and family done in accordance with God’s standards.

7. can help stop sexual idolatry, sexual sin, and pornography.8. can redeem singleness as a calling, not a condition.9. can move us towards ever increasing levels of happiness,

joy, and satisfaction in the transcendent reality of Triune God who created us in His image.

10. can help us be all the God has called for us to be in His Son Jesus.

Foundational Elements of Manhood and Womanhood in Genesis 1-2

1. Men and women are both created in the image of God2. God gives a specific task to both man and woman to do

in cooperation, not competition3. God created the human race male and female, two

sexually distinct human beings, that through marriage and God’s design of sexuality become one flesh. Thus, even in the marriage bond we see unity and distinction, equality yet difference.

4. Woman was created as a helper suitable for man, not vice versa

Complementarian vs Egalitarian

Complementarianism says that this verse, along with the witness of the rest of Scripture, points to male headship. Although women are equal in dignity, they are different in their role, specifically in the fact that a man is called to lead his wife and family and the woman is called to submit to her husband.

Egalitarianism says that the two are equal not only in dignity but also within a marriage relationship. They share equally the responsibility to lead one another and their children; it is in this sense of sharing equally that the woman is his helper—he does not do it alone.

“Comparisons” by G. K. Chesterton

If I set the sun beside the moon,And if I set the land beside the sea,

And if I set the town beside the country,And if I set the man beside the woman,

I suppose some fool would talk about one being better.