“The culture wars are being fought in virtually every sphere of life—government, business, law, politics, commerce, education, the sciences, media, the arts, entertainment, religion, marriage, family, health care, and popular culture to name just a few. Each of these spheres produces seemingly unrelated instances of cultural conflict. Yet, it is in the accumulation of such present-day moments of conflict that we gain an understanding and direction of the cultural drift. The purpose of these posts and the books I have written is to participate in the redemption of culture in all institutions of American life through sharing the truth of the biblical worldview which was at the heart of the nation’s founding and formed the central cultural vision by which it is to be governed.
Over the last 15 years I have written and posted many articles about American culture from the perspective of the biblical worldview. Therefore, I have selected a few of the posts that continue to offer time-tested answers to the questions of life and the turmoil found in modern society that we encounter every day.”
Larry G. Johnson
The American Church – 13 – Liberals-Modernists abandon their faith 1870-1930
We have written of the Protestant hegemony that dominated America life and its institutions up to 1870. But the so-called “common faith” that supposedly blanketed all denominations and their particular characteristics was in reality a weak facade which hid an American Protestantism that was deeply fragmented as they faced the coming assault by the humanistic secularizers between 1870 and 1930. The Protestant church was divided by denominations, geography, race, ethnicity, organizational types and methods, and social class lines. As the Protestant church began to experience loss of social power, cultural authority, and institutional influence, these various differences became polarized around two competing visions of Christianity and resulted in a modernist-fundamentalist split in the late nineteenth century which reached its rancorous end by the late 1920s.[1] […]
The American Church – 12 – Babylon invades Beulah Land
The remarkable strength and vitality of the American church from its very beginning with the Pilgrims in 1620 until the mid-nineteenth century can be attributed to its success in resisting Satan’s two-fold attack that has plagued the church throughout its history since its birth 2000 years ago. The first attack comes from within through attempts to corrupt the doctrinal truths of the Bible and undermine unity within the body of Christ. The second attack arises from without through the assimilation and accommodation of worldliness in the church including the contra-biblical relationships between the church and state. The humanistic spirit of the world became a cultural force that swept over the American Beulah Land during the last half of the nineteenth century. The enormous changes that […]
The American Church – 11 – Trouble in Beulah Land
Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it… For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their youth: for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, saith the LORD. [Jeremiah 32:28, 30. KJV] Industrialization and societal change J. M. Roberts in his definitive The New History of the World described the large-scale industrialization of the Western world that began in the late eighteenth century and lasted through most of the nineteenth century. He wrote that the magnitude of societal change produced by industrialization was […]
The American Church – 10 – The unrecognized enemy
America the exceptional John Quincy Adams expressed the sentiments of many of the Founders when he wrote of the importance of the Bible and Christianity in the nation’s founding. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.[1] The remarkable strength and vitality of the American church from its very beginning with the Pilgrims in 1620 until the mid-nineteenth century can be attributed to the American church’s success in countering Satan’s twofold attack as […]
The American Church – 9 – Growth and characteristics of the evangelical church
To understand the dominant Protestant paradigm and its characteristics that existed in 1870, we must understand the main currents of Christianity in America that began with the Pilgrims and developed through the three Great Awakenings. The first current began with the early Reformation churches planted in America in the early seventeenth century. These were the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians (Anglican), but their religious fervor and commitment cooled as native-born second and third generation colonists replaced their European-born parents during the last half of the 1600s. The second current grew from the stirrings of revival that blossomed within the church during the 1720s. These stirrings became a renewal movement called evangelicalism and birthed the First Great Awakening that began in the 1730s. Evangelical churches emphasized a […]