What Happened To America?

The other day, as I was applying a handful of shaving cream to my face, I looked at the can with its American styling (OK–barbershop but red, white and blue) and proud “Made In USA” emblem and I thought to myself, “What happened to the USA?”

I mean, when I read the news I see a culture whose sense of purpose seems lost, whose families are broken, whose values are questionable, and whose happiness often appears to be a façade that requires anti-depressants.   The rest of the West appears to be no different.  These symptoms exist everywhere.

So where did it all go wrong? I pondered these questions and set out to understand just what had happened.

Then, as I stepped back in time, the answer came to me while reading this quote from President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address (¹):

Today, these words are almost devoid of meaning to America and the West–they are platitudes from a bygone era.

Yet Kennedy said so much in those few lines.  He was calling upon America to follow a true and righteous path that history would judge favorably.  Not a path built on the selfie culture we have today, but one of sacrifice for the good of others.

He was calling upon God for his blessing and help and was acknowledging God’s very existence.  Today, governments, schools and workplaces are being sanitized of God in the name of diversity, political correctness and (incredibly) freedom.

How far have we fallen since that day in 1961.

Back then Kennedy’s speech rallied Americans who shared a common belief and trust in God–a belief and trust that had given strength and purpose to America through the previous 185 years.  It was to see Americans land on the Moon eight years later—a pinnacle, if not THE pinnacle, of human achievement.

Today, that belief and trust has dimmed.  Each new generation now wanders blindly in a dark, purposeless and selfish culture that consumes their lives.

So how did America go from the God-fearing, constructive society of the past to the Godless self-destructing one of today?

In God We Trust

In the Declaration of Independence, its five authors including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin wrote the famous words:

The founding fathers of America understood and underscored a piece of knowledge inborn to every human being: That we are the creation of a Creator.

Now, many people today deny this, citing the newest and most confident scientific evidence to prove they now understand the universe and that those who believe in a God are delusional.   However, once convinced of their enlightenment, they expose a truth that gnaws at the back of their consciousness—that in a universe without a Creator they have no purpose.  No reason to exist, no value for having existed and no place to go after death.

The founding fathers also underscored this truth when they said that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness each person received were “endowed” or “given” by their Creator.  For without the Creator, life would have little value, liberty would only be an invitation to self-indulgence, and the pursuit of happiness would be like a dog chasing its tail.

From the seeds of the American democracy in 1776 through to what some might argue was the pinnacle of her standing in the world, the victory of World War II in 1945, the vast majority of America’s people believed in and trusted in one God. They were overwhelmingly Christian, as was Europe from which they mostly came.

That changed in the decades following the war as shown in Graph 1 (²)
above.  The graph shows the decline of Christian believers in America since 1948, and the increase of atheism or agnosticism.

However, one can’t simply blame atheists for ruining America and the West.  Despite the high percentages of Christians shown in the graph, many people who identify as Christians do so based on their family history and don’t practice their faith. As well, many branches of Christianity have strayed from Biblical teaching through something called “Moral Relativism”, the belief that the truth changes with the culture.

Moral Relativism

Almost everyone today, whether religious or not, sees themselves as a “Good” person.  We like to think we adhere to a societal code that says “Do no harm to others” or as is often quoted of Jesus Christ, “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.” (Luke 6:31, NASB)

But do we?  This is where moral relativism comes in.  Moral Relativism is the ever changing definition of “Good” we as humans like to come up with.  It is a rationalizing of our own bad behavior so we can continue to feel “Good” about ourselves.

For example, with moral relativism:

• Q: Why does “taking a pen from work” not equal stealing?
  A: Because they won’t miss it.
• Q: Why does “calling in sick to take the day off” not equal lying?
  A: Because I work hard every other day.
• Q: Why does “preventing another car from merging into my lane” not equal selfishness?
  A: Because I have to get to work on time.
• Q: Why does “passing the failing kid” not equal hurting them?
  A: Because it would hurt their self-esteem to hold them back.
• Q: Why does “a one night affair” not equal cheating?
  A: Because science has proven humans are not naturally monogamous and it’s OK if there is no relationship.

There you have it…I can do all of the above and still be a “Good” person. Okay, maybe my wife or boss or the guy in the merge lane or the failure in life kid wouldn’t agree. They would all see what I’m doing as wrong–If not now, then perhaps later.

However, as you can see, without an absolute standard by which to judge our moral actions, we have only our own self-serving standard to go by–hence moral relativism.

This brings me to my point: As belief and trust in God diminished in the latter half of the 20^th century, America and the West began to replace their Christian, Bible-based morality with their own relative morality…

(continue)