SPECIAL EDITION FRIDAY: America Has Lost Its Moral Standing

The following is my syndicated column from April 25, 2016.  I submit it is even more true today than when it was originally written nearly seven-years ago to the day.

A question frequently voiced today is: What has happened to America? How did we go from the greatest nation in the world to an immoral nation with failing schools, government-sponsored murder of children, government endorsed homosexuality, division and antipathy, and an orthodoxy of political correctness that punishes truth?

The answer is that the two bedrocks that America was founded upon and depended upon are today reviled and attacked as not being relevant to modernity. The two bedrocks are the Bible and the Constitution.

The Bible is no longer the truth a vital nation anchors its present and future aspirations upon. It is viewed as the resource of the foolish and ignorant who subscribe to a theology of misogyny, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

A PHD psychologist who attacks my positions with rabid viciousness voices a popular view of Christianity and the Bible. She espouses that: “It is only Christians that find it important to divide and deny all others in their beliefs. Christians move off into a strange pagan entity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. That’s straight from pagan history.”

This view or a variation of same is the perspective held by many so-called leaders and intellectuals today. Others reduce the God of scripture to the level of man wallowing in the same vices and immorality of fallen man.

However, Alexis de Tocqueville, the great 19th century political thinker and historian, in his famous work, “Democracy in America” wrote: “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors…; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. 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. … The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom. … The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other. … Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts-the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.” (Excerpted from: America’s God and Country by William J. Federer)

In her brilliant 2004 book, “The Roads To Modernity – The British, French, and American Enlightenments,” Gertrude Himmelfarb references Tocqueville: “Among [the French]…the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom almost always move in contrary directions [but] in America I found them united intimately with one another.” Thus her powerful conclusion, that religion, i.e., God/Christ, was so interwoven into 18th century American society and mores that it hardly needed to be mentioned explicitly in the Constitution. Said was understood and accepted to be the case. (Which is why the modern day idea of “Separation of Church and State’ are so profoundly preposterous. But I digress.)

Ergo, freedom sees religion, i.e., Christianity, as its companion. Despotism can do without faith in the triune God, but freedom cannot.

If there is no God; if there is no absolute truth; if we are to individualize our decisions based upon what feels good to us; we in effect have contributed to the creation of chaos and disorder. There are no behaviors that are to wretched and evil as to be unacceptable.

Immorality and moral opprobriousness are no longer to be judged, it is proper instead to understand that the only thing that matters is how it makes the individual feel. Situational ethics are the norm, i.e., the means justify the ends.

It must also be noted that our very system of jurisprudence is based upon the Ten Commandments and biblical precepts. Yet the government and judicial system today have a vested interest in removing all aspects of God. Add to that, we are on the verge of a government-run church. The government today dictates morality and punishes the church for not following government edicts.

The Constitution of the United States (and its tangential documents) were the most influential preservers of human rights and the setting of limits pursuant to reach of government since the Magna Carta.

Yet today the Constitution is looked upon as outdated and a creation by wealthy old white men who owned slaves. It is looked upon as not warranting legitimacy as such because times have changed and our Founding Fathers could not have understood what changes the future held; ergo, it was only functionally relevant during their time.

America has replaced order and morality with chaos and selfishness. America is no longer a standard to the world that shows forth truth and Constitutional justice. Today America is a purveyor of lies, debauchery, betrayal, and subjugation.

America has lost its standing with the world because America has lost its moral and Constitutional standing with its people at home.  To be more succinct, it is because America has turned away from God.