Depravity and Society’s Downward Spiral- The Evidence of Chaos

 Before looking at the problems in the world around us, we need to look within. At the root of our cultural collapse is something older than our news cycle—it is the rejection of God’s definition of who we are.

Expressive Individualism: Where It Began

“Expressive individualism” refers to the belief that our humanity is realized by expressing outwardly what we feel inwardly. It flows from the Enlightenment motto “I think, therefore I am”—placing the self at the center of all reality.

The Evidence of Chaos

In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul identifies three stages in society’s downward spiral, each marked by the sobering phrase “God gave them over”:

•  Sexual immorality (v. 24)

•  Celebration of homosexual sin (vv. 26–27)

•  A debased or reprobate mind (v. 28)

Stage 1: Sexual Immorality

Romans 1:24 (ESV)  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

The “therefore” points back to the arrogance of self-determination described in the preceding verses:

Romans 1:22–23 (ESV)  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Stage 2: Homosexual Perversion

Romans 1:26–27 (ESV)  For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

What is particularly striking is how rapidly cultural change can happen. Joe Carter noted that while it took 46 years for electricity to be adopted by a quarter of American households and 35 years for the telephone, the cell phone took only 13 years and the internet only 7. Ideas now travel at a similar pace. Same-sex marriage is a prime example: in 1996, 65% of Americans opposed it. In 2003, no states had legalized it. By 2015, the Supreme Court had made it the law in all fifty states.

Stage 3: A Debased Mind

Romans 1:28 (ESV)  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Sometimes the sins most dangerous to us are not the obvious ones but the ones we have simply stopped questioning. C. S. Lewis observed:

“The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones that are being argued, but the ones that are assumed.”  — C. S. Lewis, cited in A Practical Guide to Culture

Culture’s greatest influence is not in what it argues openly but in what it presents as simply normal—and therefore leaves unexamined and unchallenged.