Why Faith Matters in Today's Culture

America is a unique and prosperous nation. We have been blessed with wealth, health, power and national prominence unlike any other nation. We have excelled in technology, science, intellectual prowess, and military might. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) outlook for 2019 and 2023 places America as the largest economy of world on nominal basis. Second only to China in parity of purchasing power. However, that could change depending upon future trade negotiations.

As a country we have weathered the storms of war from the American Revolution, the Civil War, two world wars, the Korean War, Vietnam, Cold War, Gulf Wars and the wars on terror. We have survived catastrophes from the great earthquake of 1906 and 1964, Hurricanes Hugo, Katrina, Sandy and Ike; terror attacks of  9/11 and Boston Marathon bombings. We have survived economic crises from the 1930 stock market crash to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, the dot.com crash, 2008 great recession; subprime mortgage meltdown, and  auto and bank industries bailouts.  

I believe brighter days are ahead, because we have a President who believes in the exceptionalism of our nation and loves our country. Simultaneously, we have entered a period of unparalleled darkness - spiritually and morally. We can see the madness that has taken over the minds of many people, increased attacks on America citizens by elected officials, racial division that threatens to tear us apart, and the rise of communism at a level unseen since the 1950s. I believe we are in a window of opportunity to either regain and maintain our unique greatness or become a nation that has gone the way of all other nations who forgot God.

America’s history is rooted in the principles of the Judeo-Christian faith. The founding fathers relied heavily upon the providence of God to obtain independence, overcome and abolish slavery, and reunite the country as one nation under God. Ronald Reagan said “if we ever forget that we are a nation under God we will be a nation gone under.”

The men, who formed the Constitution, wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, they read the scriptures, rehearsed them in the ears of the nation, and openly acknowledged God in the public square. Even the inclusion of prayer before the opening of each session of Congress traces its origins back to the nation’s founding. 

In 1787, Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention moved that prayer be a part of the government’s business and prefaced his motion as follows:

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men.  And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probably than an empire can rise without his aid?  We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel…I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

Men like Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Buchanan, Samuel Adams, and many others reminded the nation of God’s blessings and the need to practice righteousness. From 1789 – 2017, Presidents have called the nation to days of humiliation, prayer and fasting, and thanksgiving 146 times; in addition, since 1775 there have been 1,526 state and federal calls for national prayer. In 2018, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback issued a state call for a day of prayer and fasting. October 2019, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, called a statewide day of fasting and prayer. Calling the nation to fast is woven into the fabric of America.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for a National Day of Prayer and fasting, his words are still applicable today.“Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the ruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that only those nations are blessed, whose God is the Lord…we know that by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world…we have been the recipients of choicest bounties of Heaven, we have been preserved these many years…and have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.  But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, multiplied, enriched and strengthened us; we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness…in sincerity and truth, let us rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings, no less the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.”

In this proclamation, Abraham Lincoln requested the people abstain from their ordinary secular pursuits and to unite at their places of public worship and homes to keep the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge or religious duties property to the solemn occasion. President Lincoln said - America has forgotten God, and we are in the death throes of a moral and spiritual transformation. Our God-consciousness is being dismantled through public policies, legislation and court opinions. Secular humanism is the new opiate of the people. Society determines what is right or wrong based upon feelings, popular opinion, and secular constructs. The media through its news, entertainment, and art dictates what is morally and spiritually acceptable, thereby establishing new societal norms.  American began her departure from righteousness with the removal of prayer and bible reading from the schools in 1962/63, followed by the Stonewall Riots in 1969 which gave birth to the homosexual rights campaign; in 1973, Roe v Wade and the U.S. Supreme Court declaring abortion a legal right. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments from public schools; in 1996, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled euthanasia and suicide inherent rights; in 2004, same-sex marriage licenses were issued, in 2008 Prop passed by 52.3 percent of the vote (7,001,084). In 2010, a single U.S. District Judge (Vaughn Walker) overturned the will of the people declaring the ban unconstitutional.  In 2013, DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court; and in 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized. Policies, legislation and court opinions are changing the moral and spiritual fabric of America.   

Francis James Grimke, an 1878 American Presbyterian minister simply stated:

‘If the time ever comes when America shall go to pieces, it will be from losing sight of the fact that “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but that sin is a reproach to any people’...Unless we hold...to these great fundamental principles of righteousness America will be only a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”

As we see the decline of patriotism, spirituality, and morality in America, the right of religious freedom is being trampled upon and castigated by the culture. Unfortunately, most Americans are biblically and constitutionally illiterate. This illiteracy gives those who despise our liberty a comfortable seat under the phrase ‘separation of church and state.’  This lie has become the weapon of choice to relegate God to private life and out of the public square. And while Christians and pastors have practiced the lie, they have left the positions of governmental authority and power to those who vilify our faith and have weaponized the laws of the nation against us. The lie has become a truth to so many. 

Joseph Gobbels, propaganda minister of the third Reich made this remarkable statement:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…thus it becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

This is what has been going on the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, the media, Congress, and the big tech companies (google, fb, twitter). They have been working to hide the truth, suppress dissent, and ensure our children are ignorant of the principles that made America great.

Governor Morris, a signer of the Constitution, held that “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals, therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God.” The abandonment of faith by government and the culture has resulted in legislators and governors agreeing that the first amendment right to life does not extend to babies in the womb, in the process of birth, or even after being born. This culture of death from the womb to the tomb is no different than the Democratic Socialist Party in Germany during WWII.  The belief that the murder of the unborn is a right of reproductive choice has seared our national conscience. If the life of the innocent is not sacred, neither are the lives of any of us. God forbid.

Charles Finney bluntly reminded us that:

“Politics are a part of religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as part of their duty to God. It seems sometimes as if the foundations of the nation are becoming rotten...

We see the moral decay and the foundations being destroyed right before our very eyes.  Psalms 11:3 asks the question – “If the foundations be destroyed what can the righteous do?”

As people reject the truth of the gospel, God allows them not only to be deceived but to come under a strong delusion. Many people today do not know right from wrong but many who do have created stumbling blocks by calling right wrong and wrong right, who call evil good and good evil.  The Apostle Paul in the book of Romans wrote that because men when they knew God they did not glorified him as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness, refuse to retain God in their knowledge, God gives them over to become reprobate in their thinking.  A prime example of this reprobate thinking is to call a man a woman and to force this lie upon society as a truth and criminalize any objection. Sexual deviancy and immorality are being accepted as normal and  forced upon our children at an alarming rate. If you ask children (or adults) today if same-sex behavior or lifestyles are sinful, you will get a resounding no. The education system is normalizing transgenderism, pedophilia and sexualizing children with drag queens in the libraries, and teachers transitioning from male to female in the classrooms. Laws such as SB 145, SB 495, and a host of other legislation are aimed at confusing children and penalizing parents who don’t go along with the agenda.

In the court decision to remove the Ten Commandments from the public square, Justice Paul Stevens writing for the majority opinion created a new moral climate by these words “Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no . . . educational function.  If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the children to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey the Commandments . . . [This] is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.” Stone v. Graham (1980). The Ten Commandments are so foundational they were adopted as the fundamental legal code of western civilization and our national common law.

Benjamin Rush observed:

We have lost the soul of republicanism because we have left the only sure foundation upon which a free nation rests, the Judeo-Christian faith.  We have abandoned private virtue, which led to the abandonment of public virtue, which without we are incapable of maintaining liberty. And liberty is the object of all republican governments.

In 1798, John Adams reminded the militia that:

“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.”

The darkness of the immoral has even commandeered our language. California Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, with committee approval, instituted new rules in the Senate Judiciary committee that eliminates the use of gendered pronouns, like "he/him," "she, her." Instead members are supposed to use "them/they."  This is foolishness in the darkened heart of a reprobate. When you have less than one-half of one percent of people demanding that you approve of their mental illness as acceptable and they can bring to bear the force of law – we are under tyranny.

Why? Because language is an important tool being used to coerce us into surrendering our liberties. The euphemisms to which we are daily exposed as well as the political correctness compels us to violate our conscious out of fear of reprisal. Political correctness is bullying, it is a way of controlling and dictating public thought and speech. Euphemisms makes bad seem good, negative seem positive, unnatural seem natural, unpleasant seem attractive or tolerable. It is language which conceals truth and prevents rational analysis and critical thought.

For example, the word “gay” originally mean happy but now it comes to mean an alternate sexual lifestyle. The word pro-choice or reproductive rights are euphemisms for the killing of the unborn. An illegal alien is now called an undocumented migrant. The killing of the elderly or disabled is called politely termed euthanasia or death with dignity. And the latest created euphemism from the left is embryonic pulsing instead of fetal heartbeat. And the use of words such as homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobia, transphobia are linguistic attempts to bludgeon us into submission. 

H.R 5, the Equality Act, is anything but an act of equality.  It is the nail in the coffin of religious liberty, of women’s rights, of free speech if it becomes law. It passed the house, 236-173. Let’s hope it dies in the Senate or the President vetoes it.

 Congressman Tom McClintock on H.R. 5 said

“This legislation would prohibit under federal law, in all circumstances, any acknowledgment of the reality of biological sex, and would allow anyone, at any time, to declare that he or she is a member of the opposite sex, or that he or she is a member of an undefinable but legally protected class of people. Among its unintended consequences, this bill abolishes safe spaces for women, requires doctors to provide life-altering and often irreversible hormones and surgeries to adolescents without parental involvement, and effectively eliminates girls’ and women’s sports by allowing biological males to compete against biological females in girls’ and women’s sports.”

In addition to hijacking the language, we are living in an age of relativism where people believe that truth is not absolute and that murder, theft, lying, and sexual promiscuity are morally acceptable. As a matter of fact, churches have abandoned preaching against sin. God forbid we say certain behaviors are “sinful.”  This lie of “that’s your truth” “there is no absolute truth” “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else” were the seeds of destruction. The culture swallowed it hook line and sinker.  This poisonous lie is like barbed wire wrapped in your favorite treat. While it is being eaten it tastes oh so good. But when digestion sets in, the barbwire begins to unravel. And death occurs from the inside out with excruciating pain. This is what is happening in our culture today. We have been fed poison in the form of fake liberty and we are convulsing at the pain it has brought us.

We have answered three of four critical questions: what is it – the need for faith in today’s culture and government; why is it important – the only restraint on unbridled passions is morality and religion. How does it affect us? Without it we will lose the republic and go the way of all nations that forget God.  The final question – what can we do?

What can we do to return our nation to it roots of virtue and morality? 

1) Return to teaching natural law, virtue, traditional family values, morality and righteousness as demonstrated in American history through the principles of the Judeo-Christian faith.

President Trump very much aware that we are in a battle for the soul of our nation tweeted out "Numerous states introducing Bible literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible," "Starting to make a turn back? Great!" This tweet was in response to Project Blitz. Project Blitz is a coalition of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, National Legal Foundation, and Wallbuilders. The coalition provides model legislation and talking points to state and local legislators who want to introduce bills that support religious freedom and liberty, preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promote prayer. Public schools are being encouraged to teach the Bible’ literacy and historical significance, allow public display of “in God we trust’ and several states have already enacted some of the legislation (Bakersfield on cop cars). Six states have introduced bible literacy legislation; 12 states have called for public schools to post the national motto, “In God We Trust," and six states have passed those bills into law. Similar legislation is being introduced in nine more states. This is great news.

2)      Return to the basics of the right to life and the belief that every person is made in the image of God and is entitled to the rights defined in the Constitution, beginning with the first right, that of life.

State legislatures and governors are rising to the challenge of the sacredness of life. While seven states have passed laws to murder babies not only in the womb but after birth, nine states have passed laws restricting or banning abortion. (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio). Planned Parenthood reported that in 2019 so far, there have been 300 anti-abortion bills introduced in 36 states. And the President has issued a ban on fetal tissue research and canceled a $2M research contract with UCSF for HIV research (in which fetal tissue was used for the research).  3)      Courage to stand for truth regardless of the consequences. We need pastors to return to preaching the truth of the righteousness of God. When was the last time you heard a sermon about sin and hell?  We preach about the love, grace and mercy of God but nothing about the justice, righteousness, or holiness of God. Many pastors have abandoned calling immoral and ungodly behavior “sin” for fear of being called judgmental. The secular mantra of “don’t judge me” has replaced the pastoral duty to declare right from wrong and truth from error which stands as a bulwark against an ungodly progression toward national destruction.

John Quincy Adams believed:

“There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality.  The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments.  Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark.” 

Charles Finney lays the responsibility rightly at doorstep of the pastors and Christians:

“If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it.”

Charles Finney believed there was a direct correlation between the kind of legislation passed in Congress and the kind of preaching taking place in the pulpits of America’s churches. I agree and that is why faith matters in today’s culture.