In reading the newspaper these days, with the stories about violence, sexual harassment, carjacking right here in Austin, and E. coli infected meat, one could easily come to the conclusion that living may be hazardous to your health.

Many years ago in Switzerland I visited the home of a professor who lived in the house where the brilliant reformation theologian, John Calvin, wrote his influential work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. The house was surrounded by a high wall. I asked the professor why John Calvin had to have so much security. He replied that there were people who would have done him physical harm, either because of the religious conflict of the time or simply to take his possessions. I thought to myself how wonderful to be living in a civilized age when people are safe and when they treat each other with civility. Now, forty years later, I am astonished at how our culture is losing its civility.

This past week a mother told me how she and her husband try to teach their daughter good moral values and how they monitor her TV viewing. "But," she added with a tone of disappointment, "many of the parents we know don't seem to be concerned about those values." I find a growing dissatisfaction about the culture of our times. This values shift in contemporary culture affects family life. According to Mary Pipher in her best-seller, Reviving Ophelia, "The role of parents has changed radically in the 1990s. Parents used to help their children fit into the culture. Now many parents fight against the cultural influences that they know will harm [them]."

When I was growing up, my parents and I never worried about kidnappings, molestation, violence at school, drugs, or carjacking. Today, these are so common, even in many small towns, that we have to take precautions and teach our children to constantly be on their guard. The childhood years are no longer a time for carefree development in a society the child can trust. And even when parents raise their child well, cultural influences far too often undermine their efforts.

But the problem is not confined to childhood. Adults are just as frequently victims of this perversity. The freedom of women is often restricted by the danger of rape or mugging. Men too are both victims and victimizers. The son of a pastor I knew, after viewing adult films with some friends at a stag party, abducted a young woman from a convenience store and raped her.

Our nation has solved many problems. We have a strong economy. We have seen unimagined advances in medicine and technology. Many of our people have become sensitive to the injustices of racism and sexual harassment Yet in spite of this in the area of moral behavior, we still have largely failed to make people safe from violence, sexual exploitation, crime, and general rudeness. While there are many reasons for this, numerous studies have pointed to entertainment and the media as principle areas of influence for these incivilities.

In the 1970s in California a lawsuit was brought against a theater for featuring a topless dancer as entertainment. The judged ruled in favor of the entertainer on the grounds that topless dancing was her method of communication and the lawsuit violated her freedom of speech. I thought of this when one of my woman clients complained that her politician husband frequented the topless bars and often mistreated her when he returned home. He refused to come with her to work on his problem of spouse abuse. She finally divorced him as the only way she could escape a situation that undermined her mental health.

There is abundant evidence that the media, for all the good it does, contributes in major ways to this breakdown in civility. According to the Centre for Adolescent Health, for example, many teenagers exposed to sexual and physical aggression in the media become insensitive to the rights of others and are likely to repeat what they see. Rudeness in entertainment and politics spawns general rudeness in society. The internet is no exception. Violence, hate groups, advocates for the use of illegal drugs, and pornography have a strong and growing presence on the internet. This past week USA Today reported that in May 28% of Online users visited adult Web sites. That figure is up 23% from May of last year.
Attempts to curb the presence of these detrimental influences have been repelled by the argument that to limit them would be a limitation on the constitutional right of freedom of speech. I remember that attempts to curb racism in the 1960s were opposed by claims for states' rights. In some cases parents can limit their children's exposure to this type of programming, but its effect on the rest of the user population is still ongoing.

There's are no simple solutions. But MADD mothers have been able to put the breaks on drunken driving. For many years wealthy tobacco interests drowned out the voices of those who pointed to the 400,000 casualties annually in our nation to tobacco-related illnesses and the $50 billion annual cost of their treatment. Now Joe Camel has been forced to retire, and Jeff Bible, the chairman of Philip Morris, had to admit, however reluctantly, that cigarettes may have killed as many as 100,000 Americans over the years. Whether he does anything about it, the admission will have its psychological impact. In southern California a community college planned to offer a seminar this fall that included a speaker who claims that the Israeli intelligence agency plotted the assassination of President Kennedy and another who denies the existence of the Holocaust Popular protest raised their consciousness level and last week they scotched their plans. The issue was whether freedom of speech or laws against racial defamation would be the main consideration.

Jesus taught us to be a light to the world (Matt. 5:14). We are to raise the consciousness level of our society. His rule of behavior is to bless other people and avoid what is detrimental to them. The truth is that values in human behavior are not arbitrary. They belong to the very nature of humanness. The human body is vulnerable to the effects of prolonged smoking and there is nothing the tobacco industry can do to change that fact. The practice of smoking has to change. Likewise, the values of love, trust, fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, and the right to human development supported by a culture of integrity are all as unchanging as the rock of Gibraltar.

Steven Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, tells of a battleship leading a squadron back to port in severe weather. The lookout on the wing of the bridge reported a light on the starboard bow that indicated the battleship was on a dangerous collision course. The captain commanded the signalman to caution the oncoming ship to change course 20 degrees. The return signal commanded, "You change course 20 degrees." The captain replied, "I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees." The response came, "I'm a seaman second class. You had better change course 20 degrees." The furious captain spat out to the signalman, "Tell him, I'm a battleship. Change your course 20 degrees." The reply came back, "I'm a lighthouse. Advise you change course."

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