You Reap What You Sow
MANY persons disapprove of the hippies’ drug-taking, their loose sexual conduct and their rejection of authority. They feel that this is going too far.
But where did the young get these ideas? Well, what example have they had? Remember, a Bible principle says: “Whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap.”—Gal. 6:7.
Now, then, who first sowed disrespect for authority? What kind of respect for authority was built when nations scrapped peace treaties and took to slaughtering one another, including innocent women and children? What kind of example was it for the young to have their elders begin wars that in just this century killed and injured 100 million persons?
Does it build respect for authority when young people see those in high places lie, cheat and steal? Will the concerned, intelligent young respect the authority that often allows millionaires to go tax-free, but people living in what is considered poverty having to pay tax?
What of respect for the highest authority—God? Who has taken the lead in belittling his supremacy and authority, his right laws and principles? Who in recent decades has robbed youth of solid belief in this Supreme Authority? Who has promoted the evolution theory that makes God “unnecessary”?
The Example
You know that it is not the young who set the example. It is the older generation that does so. Sadly, they have set a pitiful example. They have disrespected all kinds of authority themselves. World leaders have often trampled on international law and disrespected the rights of others.
Educators and even clergymen have promoted the evolution theory, as, of course, have scientists. This theory makes God “unnecessary.” Hence, it undermines his authority. Too, many clergymen have destroyed the Bible in the eyes of the young. They have belittled it and called parts of it myth and legend. If parts of it are not to be believed, then the young wonder why they should believe any of it. And why, they reason, should they then adhere to the Bible’s counsel to respect law and authority, both man’s and God’s?
Once the older generation embarked upon the road of rejection of law and authority, particularly God’s, it was a simple matter for youth to imitate their example. After all, if God, His Word the Bible, and international law can be rejected by older persons, then the young have little incentive to respect lesser authorities such as parents and local officials.
Yes, the older generation has sowed disrespect for authority. They are now reaping—with interest, for their own authority is being rejected by their young.
Moral Values
The hippies advocate “free sex.” But is this a new idea? Who first cast aside the moral standards of the Bible? Typical of the attitude of many adults was that of a highly regarded “intellectual” who declared: “We objected to the Bible’s morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”
Many investigations have revealed that a high percentage of adults, including fathers and mothers, engage in fornication and adultery. Residents of suburbia have indulged in various forms of “wife swapping.”
Are not hippies reflecting in an open manner what many adults thus do, or advocate, in a more “sophisticated” way? The loose sex lives of adults who put on a veneer of propriety is surely not missed by today’s alert youth. Often the hippies’ utter frankness in speech and conduct is an expression of their contempt for the hypocrisy of adults.
Too, the adult world promotes movies, television shows and stage plays that make heroes out of actors and actresses who lead immoral lives. Is this calculated to improve youthful respect for morality? And the contents of many of these shows—do they not tend to demoralize their youthful viewers?
What of smoking marijuana? Well, who has promoted the smoking of cigarettes? This has been pushed into the minds of young people all their lives by adults, through films, advertisements and by adult example. And since harmful cigarettes continue to be smoked by adults, the young feel that there is not that much difference in smoking marijuana.
They also reason that their use of drugs is not that much different from the use by adults of all sorts of pills to have their tensions and troubles eased. Consider, too, the adult overindulgence in alcoholic beverages. Too much alcohol produces effects not unlike that produced by some drugs. So if adults can get “high,” the young say, why not their offspring?
Example of Clergy
The efforts of many clergymen to become more acceptable by becoming “modern,” excusing or even recommending fornication, adultery, homosexuality and drug-taking, backfire. Recently when some young people were asked why they no longer go to church, one replied:
“I was in one group where the minister kept telling us about all the people he knew who smoked ‘pot.’ The kids laughed at him behind his back. They thought he was a phony. A minister should be a person who feels strongly about the existence of God and the moral laws we should follow.”—Toronto Daily Star, March 8, 1969.
Hence, many young people today simply do not respect the orthodox religions as earlier generations did. Hippies feel that the “golden rule,” doing to others as you would have them do to you, is not practiced by pharisaical clergymen who “say but do not perform.” (Matt. 23:3) As one hippie told an interviewer: “A bishop is about the furthest from God that I can imagine one being. You didn’t see Jesus walking around in velvet robes while the people starved.”
Yet, with all of this professed idealism, are hippies building a better society for themselves? Do they have the answers to the problems plaguing mankind? Do they improve their happiness?