faith in a country filled with churches and Bibles?
Today I recognize the value system instilled in my youth had the semblance of
Christianity, but was disconnected from a living faith. I estimate that the
Christianity my parents professed was more nominal than vital. You might say it
was second hand, passed down generationally by precept, not faith. The moral
precepts were mostly Christian in origin and kind, but lacked any power to claim
their rightness. They were disconnected from their Author and His Book. They
could easily be challenged and even be overcome. It was a Christianity you could
easily be talked out of.
Twentieth Century America has lived off the moral capital of past Christian
faith and obedience. Spiritual seeds were sown in blood and sacrifice to establish
a new nation "under God." Recent generations have reaped a bountiful harvest of
prosperity and liberty, but have forgotten the cost and the source of these
blessings and what is required to perpetuate them. By the 60's that capital was all
but spent. There was nothing left for the children. Instead of good seed, the tares
sprouted profusely through the land.
Post W.W.II prosperity and technology made American life easier. Hardship
and sacrifice became less necessary. Upwardly mobile parents were able to pass
on material goods and opportunities to their children to the neglect of their
spiritual heritage. The American vision of Christian liberty was replaced by a
Horatio Alger "dream," and the quaint neighborhoods of the Nelson's and the
"Beave" painted a cushy future.
The youth of the 60's expected the idealism of Lassie only to discover the
reality of Vietnam. They blamed tradition and establishment as repressive
tyrannies that prevented the free expression of the idealism of innocence. The
real evil of selfishness and lust was thinly veiled in symbolic cries for peace and
love. This contradictory worldview required abandoning the distinctions of
morality and immorality for the conveniences of amorality. Beaver's worldview
was ridiculed by Archie Bunker's. Al Bundy would become the spokesman for
the next generation.
Many are quick to blame prosperity and materialism for the moral collapse in
America. Their remedy is another false idealism called socialism. But prosperity
itself is not the problem, nor socialism the solution. Prosperity is a blessing of
God not inconsistent with moral living, and He has prescribed in His Word the
means to maintain and perpetuate that prosperity.
The risk of prosperity is the predilection to forget God. To prevent this, God
commanded His people in the Old Testament to keep sacred memorials
throughout the year when His commandments, judgments and testimonies would
be solemnly recited in the children's ears.2Colonial Americans understood this
well by remembering God daily in various social activities and events. Public
prayer, preaching and Bible reading were ordinary. Community politics were
comfortably conducted within houses of Christian worship. The Sabbath,

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