Meditation 1131
Back in that golden age of morality and family values...
by: John Tyrrell
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In the previous Meditation, I wrote about how the news of the US Navy’s rejection of the Humanist chaplain brought back memories of a 1950s radio sermon attacking military chaplains. And the other target of the sermon was “women bashing their babies’ heads against mailboxes.”
The preacher didn’t tell us specifically where this came from – but “women” was definitely in the plural. Perhaps there was an epidemic of this in Virginia at the time, perhaps just a single incident. A search on the web brings up nothing, but mothers (or fathers) killing their children did not make the national news back in those days. And that’s not because there was less of such killing – very possibly there was more, as it has been throughout humanity’s history.
But the preacher was trying to use “women bashing their babies’ heads against mailboxes” to make a point – the increasing moral degeneracy of the time. I can’t remember what golden age of morality he was looking back to – possibly pre-WWII – possibly even the 19th century. But now in the '50s “women bashing their babies’ heads against mailboxes” was a clear sign that there was too much sin in the world – the world was like Sodom and Gomorrah – like the days just before the biblical flood – and the time of Revelation was upon us.
Remember – this was the 1950s – the Eisenhower years in the USA – the very years that today's hell-and-brimstone preachers look to as a golden age of morality – a golden age of family values. Apparently also a golden age of murderous mothers and mailboxes.
The world survived this particular preacher’s forecast of the apocalypse just as it will survive similar forecasts from today’s preachers, and we can be assured it will survive similar forecasts from preachers another 60 years from now – those preachers who will look back on today as a golden age of morality.
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