Shameless

"Was it really that different?" I'd picked up my 16-year-old niece from youth group and she was updating me on her school, her friends, her life. As she talked, she seemed shocked that I was–well, shocked.

"Was it really that different?" I'd picked up my 16-year-old niece from youth group and she was updating me on her school, her friends, her life. As she talked, she seemed shocked that I was–well, shocked.

She lives in a world where friends are openly gay. The lead actress in last year's musical had to get her costumes specially made to accommodate her pregnant stomach. She has classmates who have parties where girls make the rounds, delivering sexual favors to the line of boys. She passes girls in the hall who wear bracelets in a rainbow of colors, each signifying a different type of sexual exploit so the world will know what they've accomplished. There are "420" drug parties (accounting for a tremendous number of absences every April 20). She lives next to an ROTC teacher who was fired for prohibiting same-sex couples from attend the military ball.

Yes, it really was that different. My niece was stunned that when her uncle and I were in school (just a decade ago for him), we didn't know any students who said they were gay. Pregnancy still marred reputations, abortions caused scandals. Sex (oral or otherwise) wasn't done in rounds at parties and girls didn't wear jewelry to brag about it.

Critics will be quick to say that all those behaviors existed in my generation, and for generations before me. That's true. But here's the difference: they've lost their shame.

There has been a concerted effort among adults to normalize all sorts of behaviors (what we used to call "sins"). Media that pours teenage sex, pregnancy and abortion into the developing brains.The work to get homosexuality highlighted in movies, tv shows, music. Video games that glorify defying authorities and devaluing people.  Schools that offer diversity training for behaviors and sexual preferences. Porn-peddlers who target their inboxes. Leaders who praise open-minded tolerance and criticize "bigots" who describe a narrow path.  Like those warned in Isa 5:20, they call good evil and evil good.

And their reward? A generation that has forgotten how to blush, children who don't know they should be embarrassed. Yes, a sin is a sin, whether hidden or open. But there's a serious cultural shift when a people lose their shame, and a serious cost.

Anorexia, cutting, depression, suicide, homelessness, helplessness are ravishing our teens. The enemy is scarring, destroying, killing our children. They don't know how different their behavior is than past generations. They don't know what's wrong with them, why they're hurting so much, that they're drowning in darkness.

Shame on us if we let them continue to drown.