Abstract
The 1960s will be remembered as a major clash that helped shape today’s Western society. Young people were breaking out of the moulds that had been cast by their parents’ post-war era. The conflict brought about significant social change all over Western society. Western man searched frantically for a new world, willing to risk the hardship of revolution. In a world full of confusing and conflicting approaches in terms of how to view man, the Bible has the clear answer: man is created in the image of God, and is, in this capacity, God’s vice- regent and image-bearer. However, the Christian church is by- and-large remarkably indecisive as the social conscience of Western society. The main thrust of the sixties was anti-status quo, anti-esta- blishment, anti-materialist. In the process of man’s self-deter- mination on either side of the conflict, great erosion of man’s greatest gift occurred: ethical distinction. The spiritual vacuum created by anti-establishment forces led to confusion and self- destruction.
Highlights
In a world full of confusing and conflicting approaches in terms of how to view man, the Bible has the clear answer: man is created in the image of God, and is, in this capacity, God’s viceregent and image-bearer
From the early sixties onwards, as the postwar children reached the age of discernment, the conflict between materialism and idealism came to a head
From the early sixties onwards, when the postwar children reached the age of discernment, the conflict between materialism and idealism came to a head
Summary
“From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen”, Cat Stevens complains in his song Father & son (Stevens, 2001). Other philosophical approaches had consistently eroded the Judeo-Christian society, starting right back at the Renaissance and the Enlightenment Coming from such a culture and moving into World War II, it is understandable that the generation following the war would cling to the only thing that was seen as a source of possible comfort, i.e. creature comfort as found in amassing material security (Cook, 2001:70, 230, 469). Such clutching to the mundane brought a seemingly inevitable pendulum swing reaction from the generation, the frustrated exclamations by the son in the dialogue so brilliantly presented by Cat Stevens. This article seeks to analyse the phenomena that impacted society so markedly ( beyond the 1960s into the decades), observe the reaction of Christians in that day, and evaluate which Biblical responses would be appropriate
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