Christmas vs. the Sexual Revolution

Eight hundred years ago, St. Francis of Assisi staged the first Nativity scene in a cave outside the small village of Greccio, Italy. It wasn’t meant to be a decoration — it was a revelation. In a world obsessed with wealth, status, and forgetting the poor, Francis wanted people to see the truth that could change their hearts: God became man through a mother, a father, and a child.

Today, that same Nativity confronts a very different crisis: the Sexual Revolution. We are told that marriage is optional, mothers and fathers are interchangeable, and children will be “resilient” no matter how adults reorder family life. Yet biology, psychology, and centuries of Christian teaching all say something else: Family is not a lifestyle choice — it is the structure of human flourishing.

In this 16-minute special Christmas message from the Ruth Institute, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse reflects on why the Nativity scene is not sentimental nostalgia, but a subversive truth that overturns entire ideologies.

The Incarnation declares that the human body matters. The Holy Family shows that children need their mother and father. Bethlehem exposes every lie that treats the family as optional or disposable. Francis confronted the cultural confusion of his time by showing people a mother, a father, and a Child. We face our own confusion today — about sex, identity, attachment, loneliness, and the rights of children.

But the answer remains the same: Look. This is what love looks like. This is what children need. This is what you were made for. Merry Christmas from the Ruth Institute.