Temple Baptist Life

I know my articles are usually filled with humor, but this month I hurt for my country. These words will not surprise anyone who knows me, so here they are.

As we move into the celebration of The Birth of The United States of America, I feel our nation in the last 40 years has taken a turn from morality to a Godless State controlled not by Godly citizens, but high sounding godless people. There are no rules, anything goes and everyone goes after the desires of their own heart. Man is no longer a sinner, he is just someone who is the product of a bad environment. Morality has been proclaimed to be dead. Anything goes. Today in 2009 we can say that The United States of America has moved morality to its “unimportant” list. We can even go so far to say we are no longer a moral nation.

I think it is impossible to have a moral nation without faith in God, because without it everything rapidly comes down to “me,” and “me” alone is meaningless. President Obama has said this year that America is not a Christian nation. America has stopped acting in terms of her own moral, ethical and religious beliefs and principles. America has stopped acting on what it knew was right, and the “me” has become the measure of everything. A nation, built upon faith in God, honor, trust, and the law blossoms because it is harmonious; because people love or at least respect their fellowman; because, finally, they have a common belief in something beyond themselves. It simplifies life.

I believe the french writer Alexis de Tocqueville got it right, after visiting America in 1831, said, “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests–and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning–and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution–and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”

Here are some excerpts from What Really Ails America, condensed from a speech by William J. Bennett, delivered December 7, 1993 at the Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C., reprinted in Reader’s Digest, April, 1994.

Last year I compiled the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, a statistical portrait of American behavioral trends of the past three decades. Among the findings: Since 1960, while the gross domestic product has nearly tripled, violent crime has increased at least 560%. Divorces have more than doubled. The percentage of children in single-parent homes had tripled. And by the end of the decade 40% of all American births and 80% of minority births will occur out of wedlock. These are not good things to get used to.

In 1940 teachers identified the top problems in America’s schools as: Talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise and running in the hall. In 1990, teachers listed drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, suicide, rape and assault. These are not good things to get used to, either.
There is a coarseness, a callousness and a cynicism to our era. The worst of it has to do with our children. Our culture seems almost dedicated to the corruption of the young. We have become inured to the cultural rot that is setting in. People are losing their capacity for shock, disgust and outrage…

The ancients called our problem acedia, an aversion to spiritual things and an undue concern for the external and the worldly. Acedia also is the seventh capital sin–sloth–but it does not mean mere laziness. The slothful heart is stepped in the worldly and carnal, hates the spiritual and wants to be free of its demands.

When the novelist Walker Percy was asked what concerned him most about America’s future, he answered, “Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom…gradually subside into decay through default and be defeated, not by the communist movement, but from within, from weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed and in the end helplessness before its great problems.”

I realize this is a tough indictment. If my diagnosis is wrong, then why, amid our economic prosperity and military security, do almost 70% of the public say we are off track? I submit that only when we turn to the right things–enduring, noble, spiritual things–will life get better.
Most important, we must return religion to its proper place. Religion provides us with moral bearings, and the solution to our chief problem of spiritual impoverishment depends on spiritual renewal. The surrendering of strong beliefs, in our private and public lives, has demoralized society.
Today, much of society ridicules and mocks those who are serious about their faith. America’s only respectable form of bigotry is bigotry against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore.
Today we must carry on a new struggle for the country we love. We must push hard against an age that is pushing hard against us. If we have full employment and greater economic growth–if we have cities of gold and alabaster–but our children have not learned how to walk in goodness, justice and mercy, then the American experiment, no matter how gilded, will have failed.

Do not surrender. Get mad. Get in the fight.

Morality is important. It was important to our founding fathers and should be important to us in 2009. Without morality we cannot stand united, we cannot stand for what is right, we cannot stand at all. Even those who wrote the constitution never saw a day when this nation would turn from its roots and its God. I have been thinking a lot lately (I know that is dangerous) but I will go so far as to say this. If we turn from morality then we turn from our constitution and the principles that built this nation.

Our President said recently that Government is the only hope for America. We see this idea acted out daily in new legislation, regulations, and controls coming out of Washington D.C. If this trend continues, the public sector of our society will be replaced by one order that controls our lives. I believe that the only hope for America does not lie in more government, but in more of God. True freedom can never be realized apart from a real relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus sets us free to do what is right, what is moral and what is Godly.

We must turn back to our roots and our God ……… if it is not too late!

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord Psalm 33:12