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INTRODUCTION
In my September editorial I wrote about Moses' ministry to a disobedient generation for forty years (see FMI report Sept. '03). He led a people out of Egypt who wandered in the wilderness until they all had died off and who would not see the inheritance that the Lord had prepared for them. Joshua and Caleb were the only ones from that generation considered worthy to cross over into the Promised Land.
A BROKEN PROMISE
November 22, 2003 marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Now considered by many to be America's second greatest President next to Abraham Lincoln, at 46, he was one of the youngest presidents ever to hold office. He was young, charismatic, good looking and had a beautiful wife; he was the 'promise' of the baby boomer generation. But the world changed forever that day in 1963. The 'hope' of that generation was unceremoniously gunned down in Dealey Plaza. The unspoken message they received was that if the world's most powerful man could be killed in his prime, then anyone could die just as easily. This shock to their immortality, spurred the boomers to become a 'now' generation. This reaction created a ripe environment where many of the social movements of the sixties would flourish. People wanted abortion now! Their sexual revolution now! Their civil rights now! After 200 years, the cherished 'democratic' rights of the American individual were beginning to be redefined.
DOING MY OWN THING
Even though he was a Democrat, JFK would be considered a conservative by today's standards. But it was a different world in 1963. The bubble of fifties innocence burst with his assassination, and coupled with the Vietnam War and Watergate controversies that followed, Americans developed a deepening cynicism and mistrust of their government. This in turn sparked off many of the social movements that established a new era for individual rights. Most began with sincere people wanting to express genuine concerns about certain inequities in the culture, but in most cases, eventually the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.
The cry of “give me liberty, or give me death”, and the cost that the original signers of The Declaration of Independence knew they would have to pay, (often with their own blood) took place in the context of a young nation endeavoring to establish a rightful separation from the tyranny of British kings and bishops. After 1963, these noble sentiments began to degenerate into a self-centered ‘pseudo-right’ to independently “…do my own thing”, the ‘credo’ being; “Nobody has the right to tell me what to do because I’m free!”
THE POWER OF ONE UNDUNE
Since JFK's assassination, our culture has been redefined and turned upside down! Alan Caruba comments, "In a
 time when a single American atheist can get the Supreme Court to consider his demand that the words 'under God' be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, the rest of us must pray that his lawsuit fails. An Alabama judge whose Ten Commandments monument offended someone has been censured. A U.S. Army lieutenant general who told people he was proud to be a Christian had to promise to keep that to himself. The message is clear - if you believe in God, for God's sake, keep it to yourself!"
THE NEW RIGHTEOUSNESS
In the same way, that the disobedient generation in the wilderness had to die off before there would be any change, so it will be that there will be no major change until the 'now' generation 'dies' off and a new generation 'crosses over' into a new time of promise for America. According to WorldNetDaily, a new Gallup survey of teens finds 72 percent believe abortion is morally wrong. "We're winning the struggle for hearts and minds," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press. "The young people are more conservative than their parents."
Could the 40th anniversary of JFK's assassination be a sign to us that things are about to change? I believe so!
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