Is America Heading Over the Cliff?

According to a recent study conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, more than 25% of Americans now consider themselves “religiously unaffiliated.” Likewise, the importance of religious faith in the life of everyday Americans has also declined. Ten years ago, 63% of Americans said that their faith was the most – or one of the most – critical aspects of their life. Today, that number stands at just 52%.

And you wonder why the United States is going to hell in a handbasket?

Ronald Reagan, quoting Alexis de Toqueville, famously said that “America is great because America is good. And if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” In my humble opinion, the “Gipper” hit the proverbial nail on the head.

For more than 200 years, Americans were united by a common moral code based on solid Judeo-Christian principles. We mutually agreed to treat others as we would have them treat us, and to work hard to support ourselves so that others wouldn’t have to. Murder, including the killing of a preborn child, was wrong and so was stealing, looting, and causing public mayhem.

Today, abortion is a main – perhaps THE main – plank of the Democrat Party as it desperately tries to woo white suburban women to the polls. In the same manner, we now celebrate sexual perversion, subsidize laziness and out-of-wedlock birth, and refuse to prosecute shoplifters and looters.

The bottom line is that we have become a nation of weak-willed excuse makers with skin as thin as tissue paper. We don’t go to church anymore because (1) the service is too early, too long, or too boring; (2) the pastor hurts my feelings when he talks about sin and hell; or (3) I can worship God just as well while fishing, golfing, or sunbathing. For that matter, why should I worship God – let alone submit to Him – when I am my own Higher Power?

Forget about the all-for-one and one-for-all mantra that unified the original 13 colonies… or that banded us together to abolish slavery, defeat Nazism and Fascism, codify Civil Rights, and win the Cold War. We beat the Soviet Union to the moon because we took to heart the words in JFK’s inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped foot on the lunar surface, we all did.

Sadly, our national fabric started to unravel due to the anti-establishment attitudes and sexual revolution of the 1960s, a process that accelerated because of the Vietnam and Watergate debacles. The hedonism and self-absorption of the 1980s and 1990s exacerbated matters as did subsequent decades of government incompetence, overreach, and deception. Now, America finds itself immersed in an ever-deepening moral and economic quagmire with no relief or rescue in sight.

Who knows if we can pull ourselves out of this self-inflicted death spiral that threatens to end the great American experiment in democracy. But if we do, it will be because Americans woke up to our rich spiritual heritage and started taking their faith more seriously.

And yes, that means heading back to church to sit alongside fellow sinners in desperate need of God’s grace… like you and me.