Why America's Moral Dam is Bursting

The moral collapse that we are witnessing in America has been a long time in developing. At a fundamental level, it began in the 19th century with theological modernism and Darwinian evolution, in fact, but it was at work dramatically even in the 1950s which is considered the heyday of morality and biblical Christianity in modern America. I was growing up then and America was anything but biblically moral, even in the deep South where there was a Baptist church on every corner. Independent Baptists barely existed then. It was the Southern Baptists who were the conservatives, yet they weren't taking the Bible seriously. There was more a form of godliness than the true reality thereof. Kids typically went through the motion of "trusting Jesus" without a genuine conversion experience and without being true disciples of Christ, and then lived as they pleased and drank as deeply of the emerging pop culture as they wished. It was almost expected that church kids would "sow their wild oats." The humanistic philosophy was that parents shouldn't be too "strict or tight-laced." When rock & roll blasted on the scene, there was some resistance by the elders, but it was party time for the church kids, and it wasn't long before the parents were rocking, too! When television and Hollywood foisted their wares on society, the churches pretty much accepted what was offered, except for the most extreme stuff, walking lock step with the world. They complained about the moral pollution, but they stayed tuned in, nonetheless, which is a major form of soul-deadening hypocrisy. It was a Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Walt Disney kind of Christianity. A major thing that was missing from "conservative" American Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s was obedience to biblical separation. In fact, separation was publicly and brashly renounced by major "evangelical" leaders, with Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham at the forefront. But when God's people are the "friends of the world," they are the enemies of Christ (James 4:4), and there is no power and blessing in that arrangement. The deep compromise that flowed from the churches affected the entire nation. For a long, long time, America's morals have been leavened by the licentious end-time philosophy (2 Timothy 3-4), promoted through the government school system, the pop-entertainment culture, the mainstream news media, judicial activism, and in many other ways. The roots of the tree have been rotten for a long time.

(Friday Church News Notes, September 26, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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