“Where is the love?” Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack sang in an unforgettable hit from 1972. Their breakup ballad could now double as an odd anthem for American culture. Sadly, it seems like America's art and entertainment industry has rejected romance and sexual intimacy, and "love” has all but vanished from pop culture.

In 2014, the Journal of Advertising Research published a study documenting an odd decline in references to love throughout popular music. The word had fallen below phrases such as “good time” and other sexually and racially vulgar words or phrases are topping hits of the 2000s.

Music critic John Blake took notice seven years ago of how R&B—a genre that once gave the world Al Green and Aretha Franklin—no longer produced or broadcasted songs of romantic passion.

Film isn't much better. Esquire recently reported that “moviegoers are tired of romance on the silver screen.” A writer for The Washington Post declares that “the rom-com [or romantic comedy] is dead. Good.” Both articles attribute the lack of interest in love among the movie going public to shifts that now render the “clichés” of the boy-meets-girl movie “offensive.” It has become almost cliché to read “cutting edge” critics deconstruct popular love stories like Say Anything, reimagining them as predatory tales about sexual harassment. Never mind that the largest audiences for these films were always and will likely remain women.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Good News; Gospel; Love of God; Unconditional Love – The Good News is that God never gets bored with his love for believers: God’s love began before time (Ephesians 1:4-5), is unfailing (Isaiah 49:15-16), everlasting (Jeremiah 31:3), and grounded in his grace and not our worthiness (Romans 5:8). 2) Marriage; Husband; Wife – Married love will continue to grow through the years when the couple truly experiences God’s love (1 John 4:19).

Source:

Adapted from David Masciotra, ‘How America Grew Bored with Love,’ The American Conservative (12-26-18)