By Don Wildmon | AFA Founder/Chairman

Originally published April, 1993

When I was 18 years of age and prepared to leave home to go to college, I had never lived in a house which had a lock on a door or window. A lock simply wasn’t needed. That is not to say that people did not steal in those days. It is to say that the commonly accepted, widely practiced underlying belief was that stealing was wrong. That moral was taught in our homes, in our churches and in our schools. Society as a whole viewed moral behavior as being an important element in life. The combined pressure from society’s institutions managed to keep the publicly accepted morality based on Judeo-Christian values.

Back in those days our streets were safer, our homes and families more solid, our crime less violent and our moral standards higher. Sure, there were wrongs. But there was also a norm which could be used to address those wrongs.

Then came television and, unfortunately, a change in the attitude and values of those in the entertainment media. The old prohibitions were removed. The Playboy philosophy came to be the norm in Hollywood and at network headquarters in New York. The old attitudes based on twenty centuries of practice were scorned.

Before long those who held contempt for the old values gathered new friends. They were small in number, but they were in very influential places. They held important positions in education, the media, the legal system, and other areas of influence.

For nearly 30 years now our entertainment media and their friends have scorned, ridiculed, belittled and bashed those old values. And now our society is beginning to reap what they have sown.

These new values of freedom without responsibility, immediate gratification, materialism and sexual freedom have brought us an ever increasing amount of crime, drug use, breakdown of the family, AIDS, etc. The list goes on and on.

Actions have consequences. For every action there is a reaction. We do, indeed, reap what we sow.

We are at a very critical point in our history. Will we totally abandon those values that have made our nation strong for two hundred years? Will we continue to pursue our current path and follow the Playboy philosophy until we reach our ruin?

The answer to that question depends on what those of us who still believe in the old values do – or fail to do. We can draw back when criticized. We can remain in our shell and refuse to get involved.

Or we can do what those who went before us did – we can work to maintain and implant those old, time-proven values as the norm.

The decision is ours. And resting on that decision is the future of our nation.