© 2014 By Philip A Matthews 

Today's social and political environment has become very contentious in America in the last few decades. Major cultural shifts have taken place. Controversy rules the day: Same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general; "redefining marriage; abortion; pornography and the First Amendment right to use the "F-word" and "S-word" on prime time TV; freedom to pursue happiness as defined by each individual; divorce, cohabitation, and family collapse; shall the Boy Scouts accept gays or not; can women have equal rights like men to go topless in public; how can we eliminate sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the military; and many other similar debates. What role does or should government play in regulating or not regulating behaviors in these areas of life? This question has led to much public debate, with all sides vociferously protesting, boycotting, and sponsoring people and programs to prove their side is right and force society and politics to move in their direction.

These are all MORAL debates. And the undeniable truth regarding the issues at hand is that every system of laws MUST be based on some MORAL system. Also, by necessity, all moral systems are based on some form of religion or set of spiritual beliefs, even if those beliefs are atheistic. That is, ALL morality is religious.

The laws of any organized society are written to define what is RIGHT and PERMISSIBLE and what is WRONG and FORBIDDEN. But defining what is right and wrong is MORALITY, by definition. So the ultimate question has always been and still is, WHOSE morality are we going to go by? A morality based on WHOSE spiritual beliefs? Yours or mine? The morality of the majority or the morality of the minority? A morality based on which group screams the loudest and makes the biggest disturbance? A Bible-based morality, which includes moral absolutes, versus a morality based on atheism, secular humanism, nihilism (life has no meaning at all), Darwinism (humanity just physically evolved so there isn't any spiritual aspect to our lives), or some other moral system in which absolute truths and spiritual responsibility do not exist?

During the past few decades a battle has raged in America which some have called the "culture wars," but Christians should recognize that the war is basically over and we actually lost! Those who do NOT want a society and legal system based on biblical morality were the winners! We Christians might not like this, and it doesn't mean that we should just throw in the towel, but we should recognize that our position is no longer the dominant moral perspective now and will probably never be so ever again in this country. We need to start preparing ourselves to begin "suffering as a Christian" in this no longer Christianity-dominated nation. The persecution has already started and is bound to get worse. Indeed, these are the "good ol' days" we will one day soon be longing for.

So this is what has happened over the last 240 years: 

1. America's Original Moral Foundation Was Christian

As a new nation, the United States of America began with a Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Constitution and other founding documents, all of which assumed a belief in the Judeo-Christian Creator God and the Bible He authored as its moral foundation. Numerous quotes can be found from the Founding Fathers plainly stating this. Numerous references to this same God can be found in the aforementioned documents: "All men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," etc.

 

In a ten-year study undertaken at the University of Houston, researchers examined 15,000 documents from America's founders and determined that 34% of their quotations came from the Bible, the highest by far of any source. At least 50 of the 55 framers of the Constitution were known Christians. And the Supreme Court, in 1892 after an exhaustive 10-year study of the matter, said: "This is a religious people. This is a Christian nation." See Holy Trinity Decision. Even today, the Supreme Court opens each session with the verbal declaration, "God save the United States of America." And every single American president has taken his oath on the Bible and has referenced God in his inaugural address![1]

 

The American Founding Fathers wanted to insure freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. They did not want the government to establish a specific CHURCH, but they all saw the need for a nation based on the religion of the Bible and its Judeo-Christian perspective. The idea that the new nation could or would work without biblical morality, Christian ethics, and religious convictions never entered their reasoning. They never envisioned a completely secular state, having no religion or morality. That amoral state was inconceivable to them and never written into the Constitution or our other founding documents.

How do we know this? We know this by what they said outside of the official documents they drafted:

• George Washington (First President): "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."

• George Washington: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." (From his Farewell Address, 1796).

• George Washington: "Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society."

• John Adams (Second President): "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net."

• James Madison (Fourth President): "We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

• John Quincy Adams (Sixth President): "The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity."

• Benjamin Franklin (Helped write the Declaration of Independence): "¦true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness¦ "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

• Noah Webster (Strong advocate of the Constitutional Convention): "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."

Find these and other quotes at David Barton's http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=8755.  

 

The Founding Fathers all recognized that liberty and democracy absolutely require deep morality in order to survive. We simply must have a common understanding of moral absolutes. As John Adams, our second president, said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."[2]

 

So without a common, universally-agreed-upon moral system, there is no governing or controlling of the liberties given. That common moral system was once the morality contained in and promoted by the Bible”the Ten Commandments, the intrinsic value of every individual, the Rule of Law, etc. It would be ridiculous to claim, as some do, that this country's system of laws was not originally based on biblical morality as its standard for behavior. Without this morality, everyone becomes driven by his or her own selfish desires, and liberty eventually collapses upon itself. The warning for Americans is that there is no longer a consensus that biblical ethics are truly absolute. Our liberties are eroding as big government tries to take over where our biblical consensus left off. Tyranny and social tragedy are the logical results unless we reverse this trend.[3]

 

2. America's Moral Foundation Has Eroded Over Time

Gradually, over time, our biblically-influenced society became more secular and moved away from the Bible. Decades ago, but especially in the 1960s and 70s, we as a society began overtly dumping the principles of biblical morality, the idea of absolute truth, and the notions of right, wrong, taboos, socially unacceptable behaviors, etc. Instead, we began to accept the idea that, since there are no absolute moral truths, then each individual has a right to his own ideas of morality, and no one, including the government, has any business judging or declaring anything morally wrong or unlawful.

 

This attitude swept in no-fault divorce: In 1900, only 1% of marriages ended in divorce, but now almost 50% do.[4] It permitted the legalization of abortion: Over 50 million children have been murdered since 1973.[5] It gave complete social acceptance for cohabitation (once called "living in sin," adultery, or fornication), out-of-wedlock births (once called "illegitimate children" or even "bastards"), and other practices once almost universally condemned.

 

3. Accepting Homosexuality Is A Moral Failure

And now, this same attitude prevents us from condemning homosexual behavior and gay marriage, simply because the only real argument against it, that would truly hold water, is the moral argument against it—Creator God plainly condemns it—but that is found only in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Evil is only meaningful within a biblical context to provide some kind of moral standard or measuring stick. But, of course, the Bible is no longer allowed to serve as the standard for our moral or legal systems today, and no one has come up with a suitable replacement.

 

To discuss this topic intelligently, it must be noted that there is a difference between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior. Sexual orientation does not usually appear to be a choice that a person chooses for themselves. (We say "usually" because of the current discussion on sexual orientation appearing to be "fluid or "plastic," i.e., changeable. See Endnotes #12 and #13 below.) However, science has never been able to prove a genetic or natural biological cause to justify the claim that people are just born gay—there is no "gay gene"—although the media and popular opinion now ASSUME this to be true! Instead, almost all reliable sources, pro-gay and anti-gay alike, agree that a gay orientation results from a combination of probable biological factors, environmental (upbringing) factors, psychological influences, social factors, etc.:                       

1. The general position of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which is not pro-gay, is that "The research has never revealed that people are born gay." In fact, the research indicates that there are many factors, including possible biological and environmental factors, which contribute to a homosexual orientation (LeVay, 1996; Whitehead & Whitehead, 1999). While homosexuality is not simply biologically based, neither are homosexual attractions [always] a conscious choice. Attractions and desires are like feelings; they come from deep within us and are not a conscious choice on our part."[6]

2. Even a pro-gay article on about.com concludes that "Despite social science and biological research, it is still not known what causes someone to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight. Scientists and social scientists will no doubt continue to study the causes of homosexuality in both animals and humans."[7]

3. Also, Exodus Global Alliance quotes Dr. Dean Hamer, a gay researcher, in its article "Is Sexual Orientation genetic or is it a choice?:" "[M]ost researchers agree that the causes of same-sex attractions are multi-causal and complex; many factors contribute to the development of same-sex attraction. Most researchers, including Dr. Dean Hamer, the gay gene researcher who is himself a gay man, agree that same-sex attractions are due to a combination of social, biological, and psychological factors.[8]

            

4. New research presented February 13, 2014, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago by Dr. Michael Bailey, Northwestern University psychologist, once again stated that, although it appears that genetics might play some role in same-sex attraction, it could not be determined exactly what that role might be. Some gay men shared a certain genetic characteristic on a region of the X chromosome called Xq28. However, (1) it could not be determined which genes in that region affected same-sex attraction; (2) Only 40% of men having that genetic marker identified themselves as gay; and (3) Not all gay men had the marker, and not all men with the marker were gay. This indicated that other factors, i.e., environmental and social, play an important role also. Dr. Bailey's 1990s research with Richard Pillard concluded that although identical twins have the exact same DNA, the identical twins of gay men were not always gay. In fact, the adoptive brothers of gay men are even more likely to be gay than the identical twin brothers of gay men, suggesting that environmental factors play an even larger role than genes. But all of the studies concluded that there is no evidence of similar genetic markings in lesbian women. Reports of this study can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10637532/Being-homosexual-is-only-partly-due-to-gay-gene-research-finds.html or http://www.christianpost.com/news/born-that-way-new-research-on-gay-genes-raises-new-questions-few-answers-114651/ .

Furthermore, there is simply too much empirical evidence within the gay community to claim conclusively that "God made me this way" and choice has nothing to do with it. For example, most women who have sex with women (WSW) also have had sex with men,[9] and lesbians "were significantly more likely to report more than fifty lifetime male sexual partners (in addition to their female partners)."[10]  Or how does one explain bisexuality genetically” or women who are happily married to or in a relationship with a man for years, then suddenly switch to a woman, e.g., Sheryl Swoopes (WNBA star) and Cynthia Nixon ("Sex and the City actress), who both actually admitted that their lesbianism was a conscious choice, a very politically-incorrect and unpopular thing for either to say?[11] By the way, the last thing we heard about Ms Swoopes was that she was engaged to and living with a man again. Obviously, her sexuaity is quite fluid--and definitely a choice!

Interestingly, the article in Endnote #11 ("When Gay Is A Choice) also quotes psychologist Dr. Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah, promoter of the concept of "sexual fluidity: "Women's sexuality is fundamentally more fluid than men's, permitting greater variability in its development and expression over the life course."[12] The article also quotes social psychologist Dr. Roy Baumeister, who proposed the idea of "female erotic plasticity." In other words, "the sex drive [desires and orientation] can be shaped by social, cultural, and situational factors."[13] Genes, however, are not quite that "fluid or "plastic." So it appears that some people can choose their sexual orientation after all, as well as their sexual behavior.  

So perhaps sexual orientation may not be a choice for some people. Regarding homosexual behavior, however, it is very difficult—indeed impossible—for the biblical Christian position to see it as anything other than a behavioral choice. Even if a genetic tendency to homosexual orientation were finally established, a biblical Christian position would still be to condemn homosexual behavior for this reason: Even our natural tendencies must be controlled, not acted upon in an immoral manner just because they are natural or biological.

For example, some people are born with a natural, genetic weakness for alcohol, but they must control it, not indulge it, or they will become alcoholics. Some heterosexuals are born with increased libidos, desiring lots of sex partners, but it would still be immoral to act on their desires outside of God-ordained, heterosexual marriage. Some people are born with an increased tendency to a fiery temper or an increased tendency to be violent (the so-called "warrior gene"), but it would be immoral to act on such every time they felt the urge. In each situation, a person must control what might even be their natural urges and still behave only in a moral way. Most of us have some natural tendencies about us that fall into this category, but moral behavior is still required, even though it might be very difficult to do.

So because the Christian position views homosexual behavior as an immoral sexual behavior and not an innate or natural state or condition that must be acted upon, it would never be able to equate gay rights and equality with the status of racial or civil rights. It is not immoral to be African-American; it is immoral to practice gay behavior. This was the battle ground where the controversy once centered, and although the social and political discussion has moved away from the morality of homosexuality, this conflict was never really resolved. Biblical Christians cannot morally agree with creating special rights for gays, but they acknowledge that they are morally bound to show love to gays, just as they are morally bound to show love to anyone practicing some other immoral behavior, e.g., adultery.

 

4. Every Government Legislates Somebody's Morality

"But that's just it, many people would say. "The government should not be legislating morality! And that sounds right, until we go back to the first paragraphs above: Every system of laws has some moral system underlying it. That is, the government is already legislating morality. It is impossible NOT to legislate morality! It is impossible to have any laws without them being based on somebody's ideas of right and wrong, i.e., somebody's morality. So what people really mean is that "the government should not be legislating morality that I personally disagree with!"

 

5. Immorality Causes Almost All Social Problems

Because there appears to be little biblical morality left in the hearts and minds of a large portion of the American people today, greed, selfishness, dishonesty, perversion, and all the other dark attributes of the human psyche now pervade every area of our social existence. The "Me Generation is in full-bloom: Clinical narcissism, a disorder defined by heightened feelings of entitlement, decreased morality, and a dog-eat-dog mentality, is up 30% and affects 2 out of every 3 people![14]) Presidents have illicit sex in the White House then lie about it. Top businessmen scheme and cheat and end up going to jail. Greed on Wall Street and the banking industry, coupled with dishonesty and collusion between loan officers, real estate agents, appraisers, and the average American consumer, combined to create a huge housing bubble that disastrously burst and threw the whole country into the Great Recession. Over 60% of newly married couples have lived together before marriage.[15] Almost half (48%) of all American babies are now born out of wedlock, and illegitimacy has become the norm for women of all races having only a high school diploma.[16] Among African-Americans, the rate is almost 75%.[17] All of these behaviors are immoral and have dire consequences.

One result is that 24 million American children live in a fatherless home and 40% of all students in grades 1-12 come from homes having no biological father in them. Fatherlessness is at the bottom of most of our social ills, being the major factor in 63% of youth suicides (US Dept. of Health/Census), 90% of all homeless and runaway children, 85% of all children with behavior disorders (Center for Disease Control), 80% of rapists with anger problems (Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26), 71% of all high school dropouts (National Principal Association Report on the State of High Schools), 71% of all teenage pregnant mothers (American Family Association), 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers (Rainbows for All God's Children), and 85% of all youths in prison (Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992).[18] A child is 4 times more likely to live in poverty if there is no dad in the home (American Family Association). And one of the worst direct consequences of fatherlessness is the inability to control one's impulses, which figures in all of the above social problems.

Another direct consequence of the collapse of our families and other immoralities is the tragic increase in emotional and mental health disorders among our young people. A 2008 study of 5,000 young adults 19-25 years old, co-authored by Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, found that "counting substance abuse, nearly one-half of young people surveyed have some sort of psychiatric condition."[19] Many of these kids were college students, the "cream of the crop" of our young people, just leaving their childhoods, already suffering with mental issues: personality disorders  (obsessive, anti-social and paranoid behaviors), depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, self-injury, and substance/drug abuse. 91% percent of college counseling center directors report that the number of students with severe psychological problems is getting worse.[20] There is only one possible reason for these kids to have all these problems before they have ever been scarred by the rigors and brutality of adulthood: Their broken, ill-formed, dysfunctional families, raising them in an increasingly immoral social environment, are manufacturing them this way! We have allowed our families to collapse so that we keep churning out these self-centered, little, mentally ill, emotionally-drowning monsters, but we refuse to admit it!

Just recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) featured an article titled "An Epidemic of Anguish, in which the author describes the skyrocketing rates of student mental illness on campuses based on the 2014 National Survey of College Counseling Centers report from Professor Robert P Gallagher (University of Pittsburgh), sponsored by the American College Counseling Association (ACCA). In this report, 86 percent of college counselors report an increase of students arriving on campus already on psychiatric medication. 94 percent report larger numbers of students with a history of anxiety issues, depression and self-injury ("cutting themselves) before they ever get to college. Fifty-two percent of college counseling center clients have "severe psychological problems, which is an increase of almost 10 percent in just two years! And, unfortunately, 86 percent of the individuals who committed suicide never sought any help at all.

TownHall.com columnist Laura Hollis then commented on the CHE report in "An Epidemic of Denial, writing, "What shocks me, however, is that no one seems to be asking the obvious question: WHY are our young people suffering from mental illness in ever-greater numbers?... If we want to know why young people today are drowning emotionally, when young people in earlier generations were not, we might start by asking what's different. Here are some things that have changed: The family has unraveled. There is too much divorce; not enough stability; and not enough time with both parents, especially fathers. According to the Pew Research Center, only 46 percent of children (under 18) in the U.S. are living with two heterosexual parents who are in their first marriage. In 1960, that number was 73 percent. Too much school and not enough down time. Too much work, too much pressure, and not enough sleep. Too much exposure to sex and sexual themes, particularly adult sexual themes, and not enough time to be children." But, in general, American adults continue to insist that, despite all of these factors of immorality, "The children will be just fine!" Obviously, not really!

Meanwhile, because it is politically incorrect to blame immorality (illegitimacy, divorce, and cohabitation) for causing most fatherlessness, this society will never be able to do anything significant and effective about these grave social ills. It is fruitless and foolish to work on symptoms only, never addressing the root causes of a problem. Still, the government is trying, spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year just trying to patch things up and keep the lid on our collapsing society. Indeed, an annual estimate is found in a report from the University of Virginia and the Institute for American Values, "The State of Our Unions (2012): "The national cost to taxpayers when stable families fail to form is about $112 billion annually, or more than $1 trillion per decade, by one cautious estimate”are significant" (page 7)”and rising!

An immutable biblical principle/prophecy from Malachi 4:6 states that unless the hearts of fathers and children are reconciled and brought together, a society will be cursed and eventually destroyed. Increasingly, this is the condition of American society, ”fatherless,” and short of a widespread spiritual and moral revival that will change the hearts and minds of the critical mass of the people, there is NO remedy.

It should be noted that no society in history has ever survived a redefinition of sexuality, marriage, and the family brought about, as in America's case, through the prevalence of divorce, cohabitation, illegitimacy, and now, the normalization of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. In 1936, an English anthropologist named J. D. Unwin studied the sexual behavior of 86 societies through 5,000 years of history and found that a nation rises to prominence and remains strong only when it keeps its sexual drives before and after marriage under strict control, thus demonstrating its great regard for the sanctity of marriage. But when its sexual regulations are relaxed and the family is thereby redefined, that society invariably begins to rapidly decline.[21] Also, the eminent Harvard sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, in his 1950s analysis of human cultures, argued that no society has ceased to honor the institution of traditional marriage and survived.[22]

Because the institution of marriage itself seems to be in trouble, several national family advocates have jumped on board a new move called "A Call for a New Conversation on Marriage," sponsored by David Blankenhorn, President George W. Bush's "family czar" and his Institute for American Values.[23] These experts rightly recognize that strong marriages greatly benefit society as a whole, so it's in the best interests of the government to promote any policy that strengthens marriage, especially among the lower and middle classes. Although many of the signatories have been against gay marriage in the past, they have abandoned fighting against gay marriage and instead seek to concentrate their efforts towards combatting the growing and socially-detrimental trend of Americans abandoning marriage altogether. They are nobly calling for a "new conversation to strengthen marriage across all social strata."

However, the problem once again is that their main argument for marriage is based on pragmatism: Marriage ought to be strengthened because it benefits individuals and society as a whole. This is not a moral argument. But the truth of the matter is that marriage should be strengthened because marriage is morally right, and the benefits are merely by-products, icing on the cake. But this moral argument cannot be promoted by the government nor is it accepted by the growing majority of amoral and immoral Americans. So, unfortunately, do not expect the "New Conversation" to have much impact. When a society is no longer driven by strong moral convictions, pragmatism doesn't have much effect: People do what they want to do, feel like doing, or what they see everybody else doing, and telling them about the benefits of getting married and suppressing their own selfishness to stay married is fairly useless. Lack of moral character trumps common sense any day. Moral issues cannot be ignored or replaced by simply starting a new secular conversation.

In short, our problems are SPIRITUAL, and no secular resolution will ever completely resolve them. And no charismatic politician or political party will be able to change much either.

6. America's Immorality Will Be Its Undoing

Indeed, rampant, systemic, epidemic immorality will be our utter undoing. The costs of immorality are so immense, financially and in the damage done to stable social institutions, that NO immoral society can avoid eventually going bankrupt. For example, our very undisciplined schools can no longer successfully teach our very undisciplined kids, despite new programs brought in by every new President. So we continually revamp the "standards" but the kids continually fail to measure up to them.  But since we have tossed the Bible overboard as the dominant moral force in our society, we cannot really correct many of our problems because we have no real standard to go by or desirable behaviors to require. "You can't legislate morality," "Don't try to force your beliefs over on me," and "I thought you Christians weren't supposed to judge!" are some of the catch phrases used today to silence those who cry out in protest for a more moral society—according to biblical standards. Their cries fall on deaf ears, and will most likely continue to do so.

In the future, expect to see Third World-type corruption and lawlessness taking over in America. In a land where so many are mentally imbalanced, driven by self-centeredness, and having little or no conscience, random violence will continue to occur on a routine basis. Guns or no guns. After the Newtown, Connecticut, shootings, famous black actor, Samuel L Jackson, correctly summed up the problem: "I don't think it's about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This is about people who aren't taught the value of life." Any civilized and safe society depends on every individual within that society to place a great value on human life, and any person not valuing life automatically becomes a menace to society. "Self-preservation is the first law of Nature" is being turned on its head! When huge, growing numbers of people (e.g., the terrorists, the gangstas, the suicidal mentally ill, etc.) no longer care whether they themselves live or die, then the fear of death no longer keeps them from killing other people. They will do it with guns, homemade bombs, knives or machetes, or whatever is readily available. More of these incidents happen almost every day, making our supposedly-civilized society increasingly dangerous.

Also, when the majority of society no longer lives by strong, non-negotiable convictions of right and wrong, then people can be bought and bribed to do absolutely anything, no matter how morally reprehensible or heinous it might be. In other words, people in a society that is morally bankrupt will do anything if the price is right. They won't even stop to question if it is right or wrong. Their only concerns will be, "What's in it for me? How can I profit from this?" and "Can I get away with doing something like this? Will I be caught?" Few people will be brave enough or willing to do the right thing simply because it is right. Few people will have moral convictions that they are willing to die for, so they will sell out for money, power and prestige, or simply to survive and reduce the pressures of living in a lawless society. Remember the story of Lot and his family and their narrow escape from Sodom, which his children had become such a part of that they no longer considered it to be an evil place.[24] 

Many people will disagree, no doubt, with this assessment. But Americans, especially those in charge, should be aware of what is happening. We cannot force people to be Christians. We cannot force people to live by Christian morals. We can dump biblical morality if we want to. But everyone should know that by doing so, we are in essence dumping our country, because it has been biblical morality alone that has made it great and unique.

In a sense, democracy contains the seeds of its own destruction. Freedom and liberty are great gifts that carry great responsibility: a person is free only to do what is right. Otherwise, that freedom becomes selfish, and rampant selfishness invariably collapses upon itself. Everyone doing their own thing becomes chaotic. And that is the path we choose when we dump a standard of morality and no longer have a consensus on what is right and wrong for the common good.

So apparently, our democracy has reached the harvest time and has "gone to seed." It seems to have run its course. Judging by our Benjamin Franklin quote above, because of a lack of virtue we are miserably failing: "[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." 

The signs of transition to another more intolerant form of government are already visible. Just recently, the vast University of California system began discussing its proposed "Statement of Principles Against Intolerance, a policy that is itself intolerant and that even the liberal Los Angeles Times fears is "going the wrong way on free speech." (See here and here or here). And increasingly, people are declaring the personal pronouns, "he" and "she," along with "male" and "female", as disrespectful and offensive hate language that should be banned! We should all start using "xe", "zir", and "xyr" instead!  (See here and here).

 

As American society implodes upon itself, the pressures upon those who are true to their biblical moral convictions and practices will radically increase. How will this script eventually end? From a Christian perspective, it will end in either of two ways: (1) In their desperation, people will start to pray again, widespread revival will break out, and society will turn back to the Judeo-Christian God, Jesus, and biblical morals; or, (2) The pressures eventually exerted upon God's people will grow so intense that Jesus Himself will return to rescue them from the debacle. In either case, life as we have known it will be radically changed.

God bless America. She desperately needs it.

Philip A Matthews

cchallenge@sbcglobal.net

https://www.christianchallengeministries.org/

May 2013

© 2014  Philip A Matthews

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ENDNOTES