The Good Ol’ Days Weren’t Always So Groovy
Welcome to The Big Picture Podcast. I’m Joel Fieri, and this podcast, as usual, seeks to begin and hopefully sustain a conversation about current trends, ideas, and issues in the church and greater society. Now, a while back, I introduced y’all to the late boomer. So I think it’s time we check back with him as he continues his effort to mop up the societal mess that is the baby boomer legacy. So let’s hang out. My topic for this week is the decade of the 1960s. The decade that really defines the baby boomers. I’m sure you’ve heard what a supposedly cool time the ’60s was, with hippies and peace signs, social change, and women’s lib, the groovy clothes and even groovier music, which was all so much better than the previous oppressive decade of the 1950s. Especially with those two stifling symbols of the middle class, Robert Young and the infamous June Cleaver.
Yeah, it’s pretty popular these days to idealize the ’60s because, I mean, really how much cooler can you get than Woodstock, sit-ins, laugh-ins and Haight-Ashbury. Right? Well, as a child of the ’60s, whose early life was pretty much imprinted on by all this coolness, please allow me to offer you a little different perspective. You see, in February, 1960, a month or so into this decade of cool. I literally headed out on my life journey. I’d like to tell you about the world and the times I entered. Many of my earliest childhood memories were of a society quickly turning violent and dysfunctional. Cities were burning, leaders were murdered, and wars and invasions were brought right into our living rooms. It was a society where the older kids were turning on and tuning out, families were fighting, and people were locking their homes at night in fear.
One of the first of these memories for me was looking out from a suburban hillside in Southern California to see smoke rising over Los Angeles from the Watts riots. Now at five years old, I didn’t quite know what to make of seeing my city burn. I suppose it did set a context for the dozens of other cities I would see burning on TV over the next few years, but still it wasn’t a cool experience. Another particularly uncool part of my ’60s world was drugs from marijuana discovered in an older brother’s bedroom, some grade school classmates wandering the playground higher than a kite and hearing of one rock star after another dying from overdoses, the drug culture was everywhere. You couldn’t get away from it or the damage it was causing. Now, do I really need to ask if this was cool? But by far the most uncool thing of all that the ’60s wrought on my childhood was fear.
It was fear of a society going crazy. In years of my youth, that should have been carefree, instead I saw people locking their doors and arming themselves against drugged up bands of hippies like the Manson family and stark raving lunatics like the Zodiac killer. It seemed that God had been declared dead and it was open season on everything and everyone else. Let me tell you, fear like that is decidedly uncool. Now I’ll grant you. This was my little world and no, I don’t think the ’60s were all about me. There was a whole big country and world out there that I was just beginning to become aware of. It was a country, for instance, where leaders were murdered, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. It was all interesting history now, unless you happen to have lived it back then. At the time, no one had ever heard of political murder in the United States of America, at least not for 100 years or so.
That kind of thing only happened in third world hell holes, but it did happen here. And for a kid of eight years old, it could only embed the notion that political change happens, not at the ballot box or the town hall, but at the end of a rifle. As for world politics, there was The Cold War, with the evening news giving Vietnam War body counts right there on our living room TV, and then pictures of communist tanks rolling into Eastern European cities. And there were also unimaginable things that I never heard about. Mostly the millions and millions of human beings tortured and starved to death clear on the other side of the world. So yes, the world at the time was much bigger than the junior me, but I think my childhood world of the ’60s stands as a flawed, but pretty fair microcosm of the larger world at the time.
Please hear me young people. Yes, the ’60s had some cool funky stuff and some of the changes were good. Some even very good, but as for the big picture, I want to tell you that rarely in human history has such a decadent, violent, and dysfunctional time been as glorified and celebrated as the decade of the 1960s. You’re too young to have known it, but this supposedly cool and enlightened decade stands as a landmark of human foolishness and evil. There are others of my generation who will tell you otherwise, that the ’60s were a time to celebrate and even emulate. Please, please don’t believe them.
In closing, it’s time for the great cloud of witnesses, the segment of our podcast, where, once again, we meet and hear the stories of those who have given and some who are still giving their lives by faith in the promises of God and of whom the world was and is not worthy. And once again, if you don’t know that reference, check out Hebrews chapters 11 and 12 in your Bible. Today’s witness is again, pastor Richard Warbrand of Romania, whose story is so relevant to the times of the late boomer. Last time we heard about him, Pastor Warbrand and his wife Sabina had been arrested by the communist leaders of Romania. And we’ll pick up the story from there. Quote, I admire communists, unquote. The words seems strange from a pastor who had spent 14 years in communist prisons, but Richard Warbrand was sincere when he said them. Many communists were willing to die to defend their utopia.
They were more committed to their cause than some I met in churches, he said. In every enemy, Pastor Warbrand saw a potential friend and a potential Christian. By loving his opponents, he not only saw many come to Christ, but also increased his opportunities to witness. Quote, when they called me a dirty Jew and told everyone not to read my books, people immediately went out to see what this dirty Jew had to say, he chuckled. I welcome anyone who has an offense against me. Others are not always interested in what you have to say. You need to challenge them to the truth before you share your beliefs. To do this, you must understand where they’re coming from and be able to speak intelligently. But we must also remember to always speak in love. Pastor Warbrand’s words were not some high mind ideal that he didn’t exemplify.
He and his wife Sabina welcomed into their home a Nazi officer who worked at the very concentration camp where all of Sabina’s family had been exterminated. When the officer saw their forgiveness and love for him, he was won into the kingdom. And here again, we see why Pastor Warbrand and his amazing wife, Sabina are part of the great cloud of witnesses of whom the world was and still is not worthy. Thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this big picture podcast, please go to my website at gobigpicture.net, and also check out the other podcasts and points of view on the Esquared Podcast Network at e2network.net. And again, wherever you go, leave a few comments and pleases tell your friends about us. See you next time on The Big Picture Podcast. Be blessed.
