Editor’s Note: Originally published on TownHall.com, used with permission. Frank Turek is a speaker and author, and a leading Christian apologist. Learn more at his website www.CrossExamined.org
As our great country accelerates its slide into economic and moral Hell, be careful whom you blame. The present boldness of liberals and timidity of conservatives are only the secondary causes. Much of the blame can be placed at the foot of the church.
When I say the church, I don’t mean an institution like the Roman Catholic church, but the entire body of believers—those from all denominations who believe that the Bible is true, that people are sinners, that God sent the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our sins, and that we are charged with spreading that message and reforming society.
Believers are God’s ambassadors here on earth, called to be salt and light in the world and to the world. When we follow our calling, individuals are transformed and societies with them. Our country is failing because too many believers have abandoned this calling.
They began abandoning it in earnest in the 1920’s. That’s when an anti-intellectual movement called fundamentalism led believers to separate from society rather than reform it, and to bifurcate life into two separate spheres—the sacred and secular. Reason was given up for emotionalism, and only activities that directly saved souls were deemed sacred. Everything else was considered secular. Careers in clergy and missions were glorified at the expense of everything else. That led too many believers to leave public education, the media, law, and politics in the hands of the unbelievers. Is it any wonder why those areas of our culture now seem so Godless? Take the influence of God out, and that’s what you get.
Secularizing public education has been the key to our nation’s moral demise. Once public education went secular, the rest of society eventually did, especially when the products of that system became our leaders. As Abraham Lincoln once observed, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
The philosophy of the schoolroom is atheistic. The question of God’s existence—the most important question regarding how we should live—is not studied or debated in our public schools. Atheism is just assumed to be true and with it moral relativism. That’s a major reason why immorality dominates our schools and why our kids know more about political correctness than truth. It’s also why we have a new generation of voters more enamored with “hope and change” than defending our changeless rights from an overreaching government. G. K. Chesterton’s observation about Russia has come true here, “Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.”
How did this happen? In the early 1960’s, the Supreme Court, consisting of newly trained secularists, banned devotional Bible reading in our schools (apparently, for the 180 years before that, people just didn’t understand the Constitution!). That decision, and several others, has stifled virtually any mention of God or the Bible in our public schools. In effect, the most influential book in the history of the world is ignored in our educational system. What kind of a quality education is that? It’s certainly not what the folks who settled this land had in mind for public education. In fact, the first public school in the new world began as a result of the “Old Deluder Satan Law.” That 1647 Massachusetts law established the school to teach kids how to read the Bible so that old deluder Satan could not deceive them.
Likewise, most of our first universities were established to teach and propagate a complete Christian worldview. Harvard’s charter read, “Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.”
The founders of Harvard knew that all truth is God’s truth. There is no bifurcation between the sacred and the secular. According to the Bible, every vocation, every discipline, and every person is sacred. Nothing is secular. In sharp contrast, those running our country now say that everything is secular. That’s a long way from our founding.
“So what?” you say. “Who cares about morality and God?”
That’s exactly the problem: Who does care? When the church separates from society, it takes its moral influence with it. But respect for the moral principles upon which out nation was founded—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is essential to its survival. Our founders knew this.
Following the Constitutional convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government he and his fellow founding fathers created for the nation. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin knew that freedom must always be defended; that the unalienable rights for which our founding fathers pledged “their lives, fortunes and sacred honor,” were never secure unless an informed electorate held their representatives accountable to uphold those moral rights.
Recognizing that only a religious and moral people will maintain a good government, George Washington declared in his farewell address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.” His successor, John Adams, wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, even the best Constitution cannot prevent immoral people or politicians from destroying a nation. That’s why the church cannot abandon its calling. But it has.
So if you’re a believer who is upset that life is not being protected; that marriage is being subverted; that judges routinely usurp your will; that our immigration laws are being ignored; that radical laws are passed but never read; that mentioning God in school (unless he’s Allah) results in lawsuits; that school curriculums promote political correctness and sexual deviance as students fail at basic academics; that unimaginable debt is being piled on your children while leftist organizations like Planned Parenthood and ACORN receive your tax dollars; and that your religion and free speech rights are about to be eroded by “hate” crimes legislation that can punish you for quoting the Bible; then go look in the mirror and take your share of the blame because we have not obeyed our calling.
Then start over. Reengage at every level of society. Treat every job and every person as sacred. Be a beacon for Christ and truth in whatever you do and wherever you are. There is hope if you act. After all, we believe in redemption.
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Thanks, Frank.
I pray this word goes far, wide, and deep in the hearts of the saints. We need it desperately in this hour.
Very good article. Very true – except, to me, there is a foundational argument missing. The reason our founding fathers and for years after were able to continue our form of government was that the majority believed as they did and agreed. Where the church failed was in her mission to “act” out the Bible, sacredize the secular in everyday life, and leave the results to the Lord. When churchdom became polarized, denominationalize, and self-centered, the “heathens” correctly identified the hyprocisy and the church lost her own way and those that might have adhered to the original plan.
Now what do we do. What we DON’T do is try to bring back the original plan by using the arm of the government to do so. Can’t you see the dangers looming ahead? We cannot legislate morality. It will lead to a church-state which will lead to the very thing our founding fathers left England for – freedom. Now we have our real work cut out for us. We must “be” the Bible to the world, not turn our government into the Bible. God is big enough to make happen what needs to happen if His people “will turn from their wicked ways” as in 2Chron 7.
The only effect of turning the secular-state into an arm of religion is playing right into the hands of satan to present to the world a “religious” leader for them all to follow. I truly believe that if the people of the Lord, not the pretenders and pew sitters, will hunker down and pray and sacrifice their agendas for God’s and go out and be Christ to others rather than mouthing off platitudes (preaching without annointing) we will see the change that is needed for the rest of the world to want what we have. Right now, no one wants hyprocrisy and force. Gal 5:1 says that “it is for freedom (to choose sic) that you were set free….” We are about to be “forced” to accept a healthcare plan that this president has amassed the troops of God to promote (delusional) and we will no longer have a choice int he matter. Future scenerio: The deceipt of the gradual – no choice is normal state of affairs. End time scenerio: when the wheat and the tares are separated, when the goats and the sheep are separated – people who don’t know will follow their religious leaders (read Esther, or the Sanhedrin/Pharisees) and not choose the Lamb because they never knew Him so He does not know them (Matt 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kindom of heaven………Lord, did we not perform many miracles in Your name…….and Jesus says, I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness”)
My friends – it is time to come to know Him, not his pretenders, intimately. He WILL show you the way. The time has come to know the Truth, who is a Person, that we may be Him to others, not follow religious precepts designed by the evil one to lead us off the path of Christ and onto the path of destruction. Busyness is not holiness.
The moral failure of a nation is the fault of that own nation. It is the lives and the words of people as they go about their every day life that should shout out the words of God. I don’t understand this fixation with America being a beacon for godliness that we seem to want to see. If the church is at fault it is because of our own lack of godliness. Fundamentalists may have separated themselves from society but its to what extent that we should ask. Did they become monks in the desert? No, they stayed on within society they just chose not to associate with society. I think thats within their liberty, the question is how did they relate to the every day people within society? Did they preach the gospel and live out their days following God’s word? If yes then fundamentalism is not to blame, if no then it is to blame. If American morality is degrading, it is because the people of America have by their own choosing chosen not to listen to the call to repent or it is not being heard.
Marriage being subverted? This has always been done through adultery and fornication, why don’t we see the conservatives asking for adultery to be made a crime? It is in many country’s. Reforming society through the use of politics and law is a pointless endevour bound to fail as it clearly has. It is the hearts that need to be reformed, renewed and reborn. That will lead to godly living.
I agree with what you have written and request more descriptive writing on what you have cited as a failure of “our calling.” Please break this down into action descriptors which would specifically identify and apply this calling to this present time, season, and culture at hand. In othe words expound on how to do our calling in this present country in which we, as believers, reside. Please give examples in present context of how to be salt and light.
When the so-called Jesus Movement of 1972 touched a generation of youth free love was on many young peoples lips as the radical view of intimate relationships for a generation disenchanted with the American dream, their parents, and what had been its norms to that point. This kind of embrace of a radical regard swept over the nation and the Lord quickly raised up a standard against it, which was the counterrevolution of the Spirit identified as the Jesus Movement (a derivative really of the Charismatic movement momentum from the 1960s coming mainstream before arising youth culture). It took on the inauthentic materialistic preoccupations of “the establishment”, and countered these with heartfelt conversion and resulting teachable hearts.
What will it take for a movement of the Spirit to touch this relativistic generation?