Excerpts From The Great Rebellion, 1985, by Bernard Pyron
From Chapter Four, The Great Rebellion:
"If you wanted to drive Christianity out of American life, how would
you go about doing it? Suppose you could design a whole New Culture
that you think would so weaken American Christianity that it would no
longer be a vital force in society...
Part of your plan would be to create a kind of drouth of culture and
spirituality in the fifties so people would soon be starving for
culture and spirituality. Then, when the New Culture began to arrive,
it would be very exciting and would be the "springtime of the cultural
revolution." At first only a few thousand people would be involved in
the New Culture, from about 1959 to 1963. But then a few years later
it would grow to include millions of participants.
The early excitement of the "cultural revolution" and artistic
bohemianism of about 1959 to 1968 was like experiencing a long wanted
rain on sun-parched and whitened ground in the Southwest. After a long
and hard drouth, when rain does finally come, its smell on that dry
soil is so invigorating and delightful. So, in the late fifties there
was for a few people some promise of a cultural rain. We waited for it
like old George West who sat up there on top of his huge pile of
skulls from his longhorns, dead from lack of rain, looking southeast
to the Gulf of Mexico for rain that would bring relief to his herds in
South Texas.
The art bohemians were the first cultural rain, and then in 1962 came
the drug movement under psychologists Tim Leary and Richard Alpert.
Soon we had self psychology and humanistic psychotherapy and an added
interest in all kinds substitute religions and pseudo-spiritual
experiencing. In 1966 the hippies came on the scene, and the feminists
got going strong by 1970. It rained and rained liberating movements,
all designed to free us from the restraints of pleasure and
self-fulfillment which many thought were part of Christianity. After
it starts to rain and the rain keeping going, it takes a while for all
the little streams to get to the Big River and fill it to flood stage.
By the early seventies the more negative side of all these movements
flowed together into one New Popular Culture. But before the national
media sold the New Culture on a mass scale there was a social
openness, some trust, creativity, expansiveness and excitement going
for a few thousand followers of the avant-garde then.
By the late seventies the Big River was way above flood stage. The
flooded Big River is the New Culture. By 1978 just about everybody was
being swept downstream in the middle of the Big River, which is the
late 20th century popular culture. Some people in the backwoods are
not being swept along as fast...By the end of the seventies most
Christians and non-Christians were just drifting along under the
beguilement of the New Culture. If you had been the designer of all
this, things would have seemed to be working according to plan.
The current out there in the middle of the Big River was fearfully
swift by 1980 and there were strong undertows that could pull you
under. The use of hard drugs is one dangerous undertow. So is the
drift into the occult. There are mills of people out there in the
current of the New Culture. Like dumb cattle, people follow one another
around swimming in circles, until they go under and may drown.
The New Culture and its Christian versions were designed to make sure
it would be very hard to swim against that flood current all alone.
Only a good swimming horse will take us back upstream against that
strong current of the New Culture - which is both outside and inside
of American Christianity. But one does not sit up there proudly on the
great swimming horse, which is the word of God, and ride the
river...You throw off all the heavy gear - saddle, bridle, boots,
spurs, ten gallon hat, six-shooter and ducking coat - and hang on to
the horse. He will land you safe on solid Biblical ground upstream.
Being blind, these New Culture people just follow the mill of people.
The full effect of some of these mills was not to be fully felt until
the children of the families that were broken in the mills and in the
quests began to turn to crime in the late seventies. From 1972 to
1981, violent crime rose 44 percent.
I Timothy 3: 2-7, A Fulfilled Prophecy?
This is from Chapter One of the Great Rebellion, pages six to nine. I
used the James Moffatt Translation in the Great Rebellion. Here I
switch over to the King James Version, but follow my original text
otherwise.
The text reads as follows:
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from
such turn away.
6For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive
silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
"Social scientists and others have tried to describe the selfishness
of the followers of the New Culture that emerged in the sixties. It is
interesting that the 17 personality traits listed in II Timothy 3" 2-7
line up fairly well with many of their descriptions. The 17 traits are
listed below:
l. "Lovers of their own selves." In Verse 2 the Greek word translated
as lovers of their own selves is philautoi. Social scientists Hendin,
Lasch and Yankelovich said that people in the New Culture show a great
deal of self-peoccupation. They also place much importance on
attaining self-esteem.
Herbert Hendin. The Age of Sensation, 1975.
Christopher Lasch. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life In An Age
of Diminishing Expectations, 1978.
Daniel Yankelovich. New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment In A
World Turned Upside Down, 1981.
2. "Covetous." The three social scientists did not list this trait
for those in the New Culture, but many in that culture are covetous
and money loving.
3. "boasters, proud." In verse 2 alazones, or boasters, and
huperephanoi, or proud, both appear. Then in verse 4 we find
tetuphomenoi appears, meaning puffed up. These words suggest an
emphasis on mere appearance, on appearing to be better than others and
the desire to win out over others. "Lasch, the historian, described
people in the New Culture as worshipping image, and of being obsessed
with "mere packaging of people. Lash also identified the second trait
of pride. This can be stated as the goal of wanting to win over others
in games of social power disguised as love, friendship or business."
4. "Blasphemers." This can mean speaking evil of others or of
God."None of the descriptions of people in the New Culture by the
three social scientists are explicit in noting this trait. But the
tendency to verbally abuse others is common in the New Culture." The
meaning of the Greek word "blaphemoi" which includes blasphemy against
God, is hidden by its translation as "reproachful" in the Moffatt
Translation.
5. "Disobedient To Parents." Being disobedient to parents was
certainly a trait of the rebellious young people of thje Me Generation
of the sixties.
6. "Unthankful." Or ungrateful. Again, although the three social
scientists seem to miss this trait in the Me Generation, it is
present. They were too obsessed with self to be thankful to parents
and others.
7. "Unholy." Being unholy toward the God of the Bible is an essential
trait in the counterculture people, though those who became caught up
in the New Age Occult Movement which more fully on the scene in he
early and mid seventies might be seen as having a "holy" attitude
toward their occult channeling or mystical experiencing or toward Far
Eastern religions.
8. "Without natural affection." Psychiatrist Herbert Hendin found hat
many of the college students he studied of the early seventies showed
a lack of affection to close relatives, lovers and friends.
9. "Trucebreakers." Perhaps "irreconcilable." This trait could
describe people who are not willing to forgive others and to put a
stop of interpersonal strife. A trait in the New Culture people
identified by Lasch and Hendin comes close to this trait - they found
that New Culture people have a war-like approach to life.
10. "False Accusers." "Slanderers." The Greek word here in verse 3 is
"diaboloi," or diabolos , from 1225, to traduce, accuse, Satan, false
accuser, devil, slanderer. The Moffatt translation "slanderers" misses
important strands of the meaning of the Greek "diaboloi." Webster's
New Collegiate Dictionary says "slander" means "a false report,
tending to injure the reputation of another." More generally, many New
Culture people are liars because they have lost Christian and common
morality. Many of these people may also make false accusations about
others.
11. "Incontinent." This characteristic, the lack of self-discipline,
corresponds exactly to a trait of New Culture followers found by
Lasch. The Me People lack the self-control of the many in the older
generations.
12. Fierce." Uncivilized, barbarian or beastly might be which is
being described here. This trait also describes many in the New
Culture,
13. "Despisers of Those That Are Good." Lawlessness and rebellion
against people who follow an older decency might be what is involved
in "aphagathoi," not lovers of good." Many New Culture people despise
Christian morality and try to see how much lawlessness they can get by
with.
14. "Traitors." Or "those who betray others." Me People can become
nasty toward others when they don't get their way, their self-esteem,
they think is threatened, and others are not fulfilling their "needs."
15. "Headlong." Rash behavior can be acting in a too-hasty, reckless
way toward others without consideration of how that action will affect
others. Lack of self control, found by Lasch in New Culture people
hits this general trait. In addition, the emphasis on
self-assertiveness in the self psychology and women's liberation
movements contributed to rash behavior.
16. "Lovers of Pleasure Rather Than Lovers of God." Hendin found that
his college student subjects of th early seventies sought after
momentary physical sensations of pleasure in sex, touch, taste, taking
drugs, more than in long term fulfillments.
17. "Having A Form of Godliness, But Denying the Power Thereof." This
trait describes many Christians under the spell of the New Culture.
The Personality Traits, Assumptions and Goals of the New Culture.
In the Great Rebellion I found four major strands of rebellion
against an older culture which retained slight influences from
Protestant Christianity. These are:
l. An Increase in Selfishness and Self-Preoccupation.
2. The Revolt Against Christianity, Especially Opposing Christian Morality
3. The Reduction of the Human To Desire, Feeling and Conditioning.
4. The Denial of Objective Reality. The New Culture not only allows
for the telling of lies in certain circumstances. As a culture, it
also teaches that there may be no agreed upon reality outside your
individual mind against which your statements can be checked to see if
you are telling lies or not. In the drug movement the idea that one
creates his own reality was taught by Tim Leary, Ken Kesey, Richard
Alpert and other leaders.
Starting in about 1962 with the drug movement and going on through
the sixties and the arrival of the New Age Occult movement in the
early seventies, this New Culture
taught many people to focus upon dreams, fantasy, the occult and
especially on experiencing during LSD trips. All this emphasis moved
reality toward the subjective.
The drug movement taught a few thousand and later millions that you
can create your own reality in your mind. Truth is found in subjective
mystical experience, not in interpreting Scripture.
The create your own subjective reality idea was also taught in
psychology. Psychologist Randie L. Timpe says "Our constructions of
human nature and God are based on a philosophy of constructive
alternativism (Kelly, 1955) where the individual is free to formulate
new and alternative explanations."
Self psychologists Carl Rogers and A.H. Maslow said that the
expression of feelings and fulfillment of desires and "needs" come
first. They ignored intelligence and cognitive abilities, contributing
to the bent in the New Culture to reduce the person to his or her
feelings, desires and conditioning. Emphasis upon feelings rather than
cognitive clarity also made it much easier to see the idea that we
create our own reality, that we are free to construct our own
subjective view of external reality.
The Great Rebellion discusses the contribution to the New Culture of
Self Psychology, the Art Bohemians, TV and Other Media, the Hippies,
the Feminists. the Drug Movement, and Sex Liberation Movement.
Self Psychology led the New Culture people into several aspects of
Selfishness. Self Psychology said that New Culture people serve
themselves but do not serve others, and they have a right to be served
by others. Self psychology taught the people the Assumption that the
self is "real" when one serves himself but when he serves others. The
Goals that Self Psychology taught are that the person should have more
self-esteem, and more self love, that the person should fulfill as
many "needs" or psychological desires as possible, all at once, and
because the self is a collection of "needs," one must fulfill many
needs to be a winner in the culture.
TV and other mainstream media taught that one should be obsessed with
image, with one's appearance, and that appearance is reality. And the
Art Bohemians taught the New Culture that creativity is reduced to
novelty and shock value of art and action, which creates visibility
and image success.
For the second major strand of rebellion - The Revolt Against
Christian Morality - the Hippies showed that they waned to demonstrate
as much lawlessness as they might get by with. After the Hippies and
the counterculture had been around a few years in the major centers
like San Francisco, the Near East Side in NY, Ann Arbor, and Madison,
crime rates rose in those Hippie communities. The art bohemians said,
in effect, that morals are not given by God and morality is not
absolute. Self psychology taught the assumption that a person need not
make moral judgments about his behavior, and that morals are not
objective and shared. Self psychology taught that man is basically
benign without a sin nature. The art bohemians, hippies, those in the
drug movement and self psychologists all agreed that Christian
morality restricts freedom and should be done away with. The feminists
said the person must be independent of Christianity and the family.
Under the third major strand of rebellion - the Lowering of Man to His
Desires, Feelings and Conditioning - self psychology taught the Me
People to have a lack of self control, that expression of feelings is
all important and knowing is not as important. Self psychology said
the fulfillment of "needs" is most important. The sex liberation
movement said the goal is to have freedom to have sex outside of
marriage. The feminists and behavior therapy from B.F. Skinner said
the lower animal functions of reward and punishment define human
behavior.
Within the fourth strand of rebellion - the Denial of Objective
Reality - the drug movement promoted the assumption that there is no
shared, objective reality. Self psychology taught that people make up
their own perceptions of others, themselves and the world around them,
and are free to create alternative constructions of "reality." Reality
is subjective and in the individual mind only. Self psychology also
claimed that expression of feelings is "authentic," but expression of
knowing is not "authentic."
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