The Basics II.a

By this time, fundamentalism is considered by much of the mainstream to be a cultural and intellectual wasteland and Bible-believers took on an inferiority complex. World War II and big-band swing music are the things of the news. The baby-boom began as did post-war prosperity. Television in 1948 -the electric drug! The mentality of "We don't need God if we got it this good!" -whether intentionally or not.

Prosperity continues and baby-boomers are beginning to come of age to think and act independently. Korean War, Cold War begins, Vietnam politics get tense. An age of leisure, which fosters philosophical considerations. 1956, Elvis is the rage, with his suggestive pelvis and lyrics. 1957, Sputnik is launched by the Soviet Union. 1959, Communism enters the Western Hemisphere in Cuba! A counter-culture of beatniks, rebels and bikers (picture tough-acting greasers in their leather jackets) begins to flourish, due, in my opinion, to too much given to kids without them having to appreciate the work that went into it. Affluent bored kids can get quite creative. The "Beats" romanticized outcasts and glorified uninhibited sexuality, spontaneity and new-age spirituality. The Un-American Activities Committee didn't like the Beats, and vice versa. Rock and Roll music is born, and the youth of the counter-culture quickly adopt it as theirs.

Despite all this, a Christian revival started. Billy Graham, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, and Norman Vincent Peale launch their ministries. The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur are very popular movies. "Under God" is added to the Pledge, and "In God We Trust" is mandated on U.S. currency and coin. Faith with no real aim also entered popularity when Dwight D. Eisenhower said everybody should have a faith, no matter what it is.

I don't know where the us versus them attitude began, but it was that attitude which birthed the Christian sub-culture.

Rock and Roll is king. "The Pill" and Sexual Revolution blur traditional male/female relationship roles. Vietnam war, race riots, John F. Kennedy shot in Dallas ('63), Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. shot ('68), space-race, hippies/flower-children --if our adult generation can't control things, we can't trust 'em, and have to rebell. God is dead, new-age religions, 1969 Woodstock "Peace Music & Love" ...and a new Christian counter-rebellion is born.

Wow, what a role model! Christ rebelled against authority, He preached brotherly love and mutual sharing. What a new cultural icon. This appealed to quite a few who thought the hedonism/humanism/agnosticism/atheism thing was

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