How Did We Become So Pagan?
At first glance, the title of today’s article may seem upsetting, especially for practicing Catholics and Christians. The believer would rightfully recoil at the thought of anything paganistic, yet for the past 60 years or so, there has been a steady trend to adopt pagan ideas and practices in society. You would be naïve to think it has not affected you in some way through steady and slow conditioning of how you feel about yourself and the world.
In the 1960s, the sexual revolution took root in the country and worldwide, a momentum fueled by the early baby boomers. There were profits to be made, and the sex industry began in earnest. It was at the same time that drug abuse became an issue with lower economic young adults and a more affluent college crowd indulging in pot and much harder drugs. It was a time when people believed that human freedom was the vehicle to do whatever they pleased. The moral outrage of many in the movement had little to do with their moral lives and all to do with shutting down the war in Vietnam sympathetic to the communist regime in the north.
In the 1970s, the infamous Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision explicitly gave license to Americans to legally kill their young. For fifty years, the never-ending mantra of women’s rights, back alleys, and healthcare exempted no one. The propaganda behind the barbaric practice of society that kills the innocent for convenience and calls the murder by another name has influenced many Catholics and Christians. How else do you explain Christians voting for a party that not only condones but encourages abortions up till and after birth? How else can there be a group of believers called pro-choice Catholics who claim they can be faithful and still allow for abortion?
In the 1980s, twenty years after the sexual revolution, the rise in lesbian and gay clubs and organizations blossomed in major cities like New York and Los Angeles for fear of public scrutiny and security. Those gay people thought they were so targeted they needed to gather in places that were safe, like bars and clubs. Today, it is estimated that there are only 15 bars left. If the fear of being harmed is genuine, then the world has accepted homosexuality entirely, as evidenced by the many parades promoting vile and perverse sexual behaviors. Oh yeah, we are taught repeatedly that “love is love.”
The 1980s saw the beginning of more heterosexual couples cohabitating before marriage than in past decades. The number of couples cohabitating in the 1980s was double the amount in the 1960s. Every decade after, statistics show a substantial increase, so much so that living apart before marriage is the exception, not the rule. From 1960 through 1980, cohabitation was scandalous; today, it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.
From 1960 to 1980, the number of out-of-wedlock births of single mothers steadily increased dramatically. During the 1960s, unwed mothers made up a small 7% of those having children without being married to the father. In 2024, unwed mothers soared to 25%, often cohabitating with the father without the stability a marriage brings to the child.
The United States has been devolving from a Judeo-Christian country into one that openly promotes paganism and social practices in direct defiance of those earlier values. Just recently, Joe Biden used his bully pulpit to blaspheme Easter Sunday by declaring on the holy day of Christianity as Transgender Day of Visibility. Any other day could be used for this grandstanding, but the Administration picked the most important Christian religious holiday to make the point.
The seed of paganism has been sown, and now we are seeing the plants poking up from the ground. Most of the public conversation no longer revolves around alleged sexual freedom, the killing of babies in the womb, or the war on marriage and family. Those battles have already been won. What is talked about today is abortion and IVF being winning issues for the Democrats in the upcoming election. No longer is there a moral question about the eradication of abortion or whether IVF kills embryos, but the fight is about assuring Americans they will remain in place as if killing is the right of every citizen.
Not much is mentioned when young, impressionable minds are contorted into believing they have gender dysphoria and need to fix the problem with drugs and a scalpel in the hands of an unscrupulous surgeon. The diversity issue is so important that society loses the obvious truth: there are two sexes, male and female, and according to God’s design, they are meant to complement each other and grow in holiness and not compete against each other.
Some object to banning books in the children’s section of the library, which has pornographic books for them to see long before their emotional and spiritual level can be used to protect them. There doesn’t seem to be an outcry when every smartphone can pull up unimaginable images that objectify women. The list can go on longer, but you get the point.
Regardless of the statistics you may hear about, the country we live in is influenced more by paganism than it is by any religious faith. It is a hard pill to swallow, but the facts are indisputable. With that much anti-Christian influence in the public square, it is hard to imagine many of the faithful have been conditioned over the years to accept things they possibly wouldn’t have in the past.
Relentless social conditioning makes it more difficult for a Christian. That is not only a bad thing but also a good thing. It isn’t good because you are constantly swimming upstream. It is good because you cannot be lukewarm in your faith; paganism will take you over if you do. The choice is crystal clear: be a Christian or bend the knee to paganism.
I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth (Rev. 3:16).