Wrestling
With Angels
The
Sexual Revolution Confronts the Church
Marjorie
L. Coppock
INTRODUCTION
During
the volatile years of the 1960’s, I was in my 20’s. My husband and I were
raising three young children. A
bewildering array of social revolutions was occurring all at once. It was an exciting but a dangerous time.
Shrill reports of confrontations, demonstrations, and assassinations filled the
newscasts, newspapers, and magazines.1
§
The
cold war was a hovering concern.
Following Russia’s launching of Sputnik I in 1957, the United States
accelerated the exploration of space.
§
The
leaders of the civil rights movement, activated by the Montgomery bus boycott
in 1955, led sit-ins and marches which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
§
Anti-Vietnam
protestors confronted the military mindset in the late 1960’s.
§
Women
were challenging the second-class status of women whose contributions to
society were dismissed as trivial or non-essential.
§
The
assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Robert Kennedy and
Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 accented the reality of social revolution.
§
The
sexual revolution confronted traditional values.
The
sexual revolution that exploded and swept across the United States in the last
half of the 20th century brought profound changes in sexual and family
relationships. These changes challenged
traditional values and religious practices.
The changing sexual and family behaviors jeopardized the ability
of the family to act as a reproductive support group for religious values and
ideas. Social influences through the
media, schools, and legislation influenced people; young people especially, to
move away from commitment to traditional moral behaviors and family values toward
more unrestrained behaviors.
Dynamic
changes in family and sexual behaviors became the focus of major social
movements from the years 1960 to 2000.
Highly disciplined and vocal groups engaged in intense debates over
these changes. The debates relating to
sexuality, sex-education, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality focus on the
meaning of human life, the family, and sacred values. Consequently, the disputes became acrimonious, accompanied
by ferocious denunciations and accusations.
In their
support of traditional values, religious groups encountered political struggles
internally and within the larger society.
The struggle over control for the definition of 'normal' sexual behavior
was evident within denominations and even within their own hierarchies. Liberal factions sought to change official
church statements related to sexuality in order to bring them into line with
secular practices. A dichotomy between
Churches became evident. ‘Mainline’
denominations moved in the direction of accommodation to contemporary values
while 'fundamentalist' denominations sought to preserve traditional biblical
values and family relationships.
Interest
in this study has grown out of my life experiences within academia as a student
and a professor of sociology; within churches of several denominations,
including Baptist, Church of the Brethren, United
Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian; and as a
wife and mother raising three children who were born in the 1960's. As parents raising two sons and a daughter,
my husband and I were confused and concerned about the changes that were taking
place in society. Being unaware at the
time of the organized groups that were challenging traditional moral values, I
naively assumed that other social institutions were continuing to support these
values.
My
family and I were actively involved in the churches in which we were members.
These experiences sensitized me to the varied perspectives, both within
denominations and between denominations, in regard to support for diverse
sexual and family relationships. I
observed and felt personally the intensity of feelings these topics generated
within congregations.
At age
53, I received my Ph.D. in sociology with a focus on marriage and family. I
began full time teaching of undergraduate and Master’s level university classes
during the 1990's. Most students held the long-term goal of forming a
loving and stable family. Yet, many
expressed concern and anxiety about their ability to achieve their goal. They had seen, and many had felt, the pain
experienced when marriages and families broke up. Consequently many were afraid of forming marriage and family
bonds; indeed, many were even concerned about serious dating relationships.
This manuscript presents a summary and
overview of the challenges directed predominantly toward Jewish and Christian
organizations in their support of cherished sexual and family values and the
accommodations made by these groups to the changing culture. The study identifies the perspectives,
actors and organizations involved in the debates over differing definitions of
appropriate sexual and family patterns, particularly as they responded to
changing legislation.
Denominational literature, newspaper and magazine reports, journal
articles, and other literature are summarized and integrated to analyze the
ongoing contests and debates within and between religious organizations as well
as within the larger society. This
summary study is intended to help concerned laypersons, students of social
organization, church professionals and other interested readers gain a clearer
understanding of the social forces and dynamics behind the rapid changes that
occurred within society at the end of the millenium. In so doing they can more effectively address the continuing
challenges being directed towards traditional sexual and family relationships