We patriotically celebrated America this past week, but now that the holiday is past, it’s a good time to point out that we may be in the final stage of America’s existence as we know it (& that’s not hyperbole). We’ve got problems like never before threatening to send this nation down in flames because so many are ignorant of or abandoning the foundational principles that made America great.
It cannot be questioned that this nation was uniquely founded with a recognition of biblical values. Not that it was ever an “official” Christian nation–because no political entity can enforce spirituality. But it seems reasonable to conclude that we’ve been blessed in so many unprecedented ways because this nation has acknowledged & relied on God from the beginning, with the majority promoting or at least supporting a Christian environment. We should be grateful for America’s religious heritage. But that’s gone, & most everyone, no matter what their beliefs, senses something is terribly wrong. We’re witnessing a descent into moral madness in many ways.
Yet the only reason a democratic republic like America can even work is when the people are moral. Without self-control we cannot have self-governance-we will instead default to authoritarianism in order to enforce lawful behavior. Lawlessness has to be either checked by self-restraint or by external force. America’s Founders understood the evil in people’s hearts–that we must be a nation of laws based on God’s law (what some would call “natural law”), not of corrupt power-hungry politicians. Check out these historical quotes:
• Pres. John Adams – “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• Pres. John Quincy Adams – “The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.”
• Founding Father Samuel Adams – “A general Dissolution of Principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy. While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their Virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal Invader.”
• Supreme Court Decision 1892 – “Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of The Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian… This is a religious people. This is historically true.” (Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States)
• Sec. of State Daniel Webster – “Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits.”
• “Father of American Scholarship” Noah Webster – “The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
• Pres. Abraham Lincoln – “…but for the Book [Bible] we could not know right from wrong.”
• Pres. Calvin Coolidge – “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”
• Historian Philip Schaff – “Republican institutions in the hands of a virtuous and God-fearing nation are the very best in the world, but in the hands of a corrupt and irreligious people they are the very worst and the most effective weapons of destruction….” (Church and State in the United States, 1888)
So if we continue to have an increasingly secular society with licentious people, then the paper the U.S. Constitution is written on is worthless. If people continue to turn away from God, then the culture grows more reprobate & unfit to be governed in a republic. The only option will be more authoritarian rule. We will either be guided by faith in God or controlled by fear of tyranny. We can’t live in freedom without policing our own behavior. When people abandon moral behavior, they actually welcome the “order” enforced by the “emperor” even if it means loss of freedom & more oppression.
There are signs of hope, but unless those claiming to be Christian turn back to true biblical teaching & godly morality, then this experiment called “America” may be beyond salvaging. It won’t be politicians leading the way, it has to be us. Revivals have happened before. We may be living in what looks more like Babylon than Zion-but that doesn’t mean we have to let it happen. It’s not too late. Don’t you believe it’s still worth fighting for? What do you think?