How did practical minded mainstream Americans buy into the “I have a right to do my thing” mantra of the hippies?

Americans have a reputation for being practical people, not philosophical eggheads. Yet, there is nothing at all practical about assigning the individual the right to do his own thing.

Common sense insists that doing so will result in chaos. For example, if you tell a college student that he has the right to do his own thing, do you think he will go to class? Do you think that instead he might get his girlfriend pregnant and then bail out on her?

This is precisely where that philosophy has led. We find the rubble all around us.

We understand why college students would buy into this philosophy. During those idyllic days with no spouse and kids to support and mom and dad footing the bill, it is not hard to choose between responsibility and fun. Give them a philosophy that makes doing their thing noble, and of course they will immediately grasp its profound wisdom.

But one would think that mom and dad would know better. Well, they did, that is until a psychologist named Carl Rogers came along.

Just as an aside, it seems that every society adopts its own gods. The Canaanites chose Baal, the Europeans, after rejecting Christianity, opted for philosophy. Americans, in our post-Christian pagan state have deified psychology.

As Isaiah demonstrates so graphically, idolatry is idiotic, making fools out of its followers. Philosophy has made fools out of intellectual Europeans. Psychology is doing likewise for Americans.

Rogers taught that we optimize ourselves as human beings by accepting ourselves unconditionally, i.e. feeling good about ourselves regardless of how bad we live. A bad self-image is the ultimate disease and unconditional self-acceptance is the cure.

However, we can only accept ourselves unconditionally if significant others accept us unconditionally. This means that allowing our kids to do their own thing will not turn them into unbridled hedonists, but will make them into psychological saints—wholesome, actualized individuals.

This belief that unconditional acceptance fixes broken people and makes them into the persons they were meant to be dovetails beautifully with the gospel denuded of repentance, described in the past two postings.

In the absence of repentance, the gospel is reduced to unconditional acceptance. Though this is an unbiblical message, in our culture shaped by the psychology of Carl Rogers it feels right.

Rogers taught us that unconditional acceptance provides the power to change and grow. The gospel stripped of repentance seems to be saying the God agrees. It seems the grace is synonymous with is unconditional acceptance. Salvation comes through a realization that God accepts me “just as I am.”

Change comes, not from repentance, but from this realization that God accepts me apart from any intent to change—even though I am living with my girlfriend, watching pornography, and smoking pot. As I experience God’s grace, His unconditional acceptance, I change will come spontaneously.

This is a life-changing gospel in the sense that it gives people freedom from guilt without change of lifestyle—sort of like spiritual Paxil offered free at your church pharmacy. This is not a biblical gospel and, as George Barna has demonstrated, the promised change in behavior is not occurring.

However, evangelicals are hooked on the message because it is extremely comfortable, fits well with secular culture, and sells well.

Evangelicals have sold a lot of this elixir to their Republican friends. Now these politicians know the God feels good about them regardless of self-serving pork and political duplicity.

Polls reveal that the American voters are not accepting them unconditionally. They may make it, but only because the political alternative is worse.

Make it or not, one can only hope that the voters’ ire will generate enough repentance-producing guilt to produce some change in their behavior.