John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, the America of the Founders was based upon the assumption that people who accept the biblical worldview are capable of governing themselves internally where ethical and moral issues are concerned. Thus, the architects of America’s early government structure envisioned the Republic supported by a foundation of common morality, and that morality rested on the bedrock of the Christian faith.
As we noted in Part II, Christianity and Christian principles that permeated and bonded with the principles of civil government formed the basis for America’s exceptionalism. Recognition of the truth of Adam’s words that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people has monumental implications for America in the 21st century as Christianity and Christian principles are being driven from the public square. If America rejects Christianity and Christian principles in guiding and informing American civil government and culture, we will cease to be great and America will no longer be exceptional. As a consequence we will lose our freedoms.
Daily we are seeing the loss of freedom in America. As citizens turn from a Christian worldview, they are unable to guide themselves internally with regard to ethical and moral issues. Benjamin Franklin recognized the folly of this course when he said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” This is a picture of America in the 21st century as we see the power and reach of the state expanding rapidly before our eyes.
The Bible outlines the course of events for nations and points to ancient Israel as the prime example. The cycle begins with a nation being blessed by God. From blessing comes satisfaction which begets pride, but as pride increases people forget God. God brings judgment so that they may remember, repent, and return to God. Without remembrance, repentance, and return, destruction follows. Today, the institutions of American life, its leaders, and a large percentage of the population have mostly forgotten God and deny the validity of the nation’s biblically-based Christian roots in the governance of America and its various institutions. And, the sad fact is that people are ignorant, apathetic, uncaring, or just too busy with life to make a difference.
Much of American society in the 21st century cannot be called by His name for we are chiseling that name from our public buildings and monuments and silencing His mention in public discourse. Humility is no longer an American trait for God has been pronounced dead, and man is now the measure. Prayer is not only lacking but banned from our schools and the public square. The ways of the wicked are embraced wholeheartedly by a popular culture in which deference to maximum autonomy of the individual and abdication of the will to the senses reign supreme.
America’s founding makes sense only when understood as the work of Christians who operated on the basis of a biblical worldview. Just as America was founded by believers, so it must be sustained by believers if it is to survive—believers who care deeply and passionately about their country. We must face the fact that the America as designed by the Founders is likely to disappear altogether if we do not take swift, deliberate, and resolute steps to salvage it.
American exceptionalism is not dead, but it may be on life support. The prescription for reversing America’s cultural decline is a spiritual renewal within the individual which can subsequently transform a nation. Only then can America’s central cultural vision be restored. Spiritual renewals have restored America during several times of crisis in the nation’s history. How do such revivals come? Throughout all of history, the remarkable and unfailing thread running through all of Western civilization’s spiritual awakenings is concerted prayer. That prescription is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 10-11, 247.
Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 414-416.
