Sometimes the good things in life change so slowly that you don’t notice them changing until they’re gone.
As a young boy, growing up Catholic in a Protestant country didn’t present many problems because both Protestants and Catholics were recognizably Christian, and the United States was an overtly Christian country. This was especially true in my youth and in the 40s and 50s when America saved Europe from conquest by the Nazis. I remember how jubilant my countrymen and the English and French felt when the Allies finally defeated Adolph Hitler, and I was bursting with pride over my Christian country.
What has happened to America today? It shocked me when I finally realized that the United States is no longer a Christian country. It has embraced progressivism and now struggles against its own Christian heritage in which our forefathers placed all their hope. Our political leaders no longer credit God for His Providence in guiding our country. Many of them actually no longer even believe that God exists. Many of them seldom mention Christian principles when they run for office.
Progressivism is a euphemism for a deadly attitude that human beings can build a better world than God can. This brave new world of human construction is – according to the theory – a place where all humans of any persuasion can live at peace, a world with no borders, with one world economy and one religion that all humans can “embrace” (because it is forced upon them), where the needy and unwanted of all races can find safety and shelter. It is said to be similar to a republic or democracy where the people delegate power to elect representatives to rule them rather than a king. This seemingly ideal society stems from the inspiration of Lucifer who wants to eventually rule the world himself. You can tell it comes from Lucifer when you detect some of its claims that contradict the pillars of truth that Christ revealed.
The American Revolution…
The United States formed a very popular republic in 1776 when our Founding Fathers pushed away the English King and announced that they would rule themselves. The opening gunfire of the ensuing war was heard round the world as people in less-free countries longed to free themselves from tyrannical governments.
The American Revolution was different than all subsequent revolutions in that it used Christian, biblical principles to form the foundation of the American government, which, I think, will endure as long as the Constitution is held firmly in place. All subsequent revolutions setting up a republic to govern rather than monarchies were to some extent antichristian.
…Versus Other Revolutions
The French Revolution, for example, began in 1789, and the revolutionaries were so hostile to the Catholic religious practices that they killed about 17,000 people by guillotine, many of them clergy. Several atheistic philosophers hostile to Christianity led the charge. Their goal was the destruction of those practices and of the Catholic Church itself. The dictator who followed in the wake of the revolution, Napoleon, was no better.
Forty-one years later, the Virgin Mary appeared in France to Catherine Labouré in Paris and later to Bernadette in Lourdes. Mary appeared again, fifty-seven years later, at LaSalette to Mélanie Calvet and Maximin Giraud. These warnings from Mary were not only meant for the French people but for the whole world. The French government did in time stop persecuting the Church, and the Church is now at peace in France.
A revolution in Portugal in 1910 ousted the constitutional Catholic monarchy and installed a Masonic republic, which immediately attacked the Catholic Church, confiscating church property, persecuting religious, killing and expelling some clergy from the country. Seven years later, the Virgin Mary appeared to the three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. This was a major warning from heaven.
The Communist revolution in Russia took power on October 27, 1917 when Lenin proclaimed that all power belonged to the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants Deputies. The brave new world of Communism then tried to destroy religion in every country they conquered.
Mexico, under the influence of the Masons, won popular support by vote to form a republican government under President Plutarco Elias Calles in 1924. His government was so hostile to the Catholic Church that, in 1926, the Cristero revolution fought against it for three years. Finally, in 1929, the American ambassador Dwight W. Morrow brokered a negotiated settlement that ended the fighting.
In 1931, the Second Spanish Republic was democratically elected but was essentially dominated by Communist ideology. The new government immediately launched punitive measures against the Catholic Church and tried to diminish its influence over the Spanish people. A persecution against priests and religious known as “The Red Terror” was launched resulting in the killing of 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy. A revolt against this government erupted in 1936 under the nationalist Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The civil war ended in 1939 with Franco victorious against the Communists.
On January 20, 1933, Hitler became chancellor in Germany. He also was harsh against Christian influence in Germany. We all know what Hitler did in Germany and to the world, and we all know what the Soviets did to Russia and to the world.
Value Relativism
Merging all religions into an all-inclusive religion will always result in moral relativism. There is no longer a quest to know truth because truth is considered relative to the one searching for truth. And in this mindset, one person’s truth might differ from another person’s truth.
Governments have destroyed religious faith in their countries by mandating that their citizens must accept government positions that are contrary to what God wants, such as agreeing with the logic and practice of abortion even though abortion is plainly the murder of the unborn.
Relativism can twist the logic to show some supposed benefits in abortion, but common sense would require each one of us not to arrogantly defy God’s plainly worded command, “You shall not kill!” Governments who seek voter approval, and thereby receive endorsement to implement abortion, put their citizens’ salvation at risk. What a far cry that is from what I experienced in my youth.
Life in the Christian Country Where I Grew Up
Life was very good during my youth. My country was Christian, and you could notice that virtually everywhere you went and with almost everyone you spoke to. In my early youth, I joined the Boy Scouts. It was the best experience I ever had. I always loved nature, the woods, and the American Indian.
Everything in my youth was Christian, including the Boy Scouts, my family, my country, and most political leaders. I could see some areas of dissent, but I was confident those would soon become more Christian, like race relations, the way the Indians and blacks are treated and the everyday integrity of the American people.
The Boy Scouts set a good example for me. I still offer to help a woman cross the street and offer my seat to a woman if I am on a crowded bus. One of the saddest days in my life was when I saw an ad by a legal firm offering to fight for compensation from the Boy Scouts of America if you or your child were sexually molested by a scout leader. The ad claimed that there are 12,000 victims of 8,000 pedophiles within scouting. What happened to the Christian backbone of the scouting movement?
Then I put some thought into American history and viewed it differently in my mature years. Evil was always present in my country just like it is all over the world. But now that I’m taking a hard look at it, I wonder how the American people could have practiced slavery for such a long time. I think the United States was one of the last Western nations to abolish slavery, and it took a civil war to do it.
The Trauma of the 2020 Election
Some of the people today want to punish present-day Americans for what was done a hundred or more years ago, but the American people of today are not responsible for what was done in generations past. This is what happens when one gives up fidelity to God. All hell breaks loose. People go after everybody for crimes they did not commit.
My country just came through a very disruptive clash of ideas for forging ahead in today’s world, a clash of conservative mindset verses progressive mindset on how we should guide our country. Conservatism is what I put my faith in because it treasures the influence of Jesus Christ in how we rule ourselves and reminds us that we have to fight to preserve our faith. Don’t kid yourself that God is a medieval myth. He is as alive today as He was 500 years ago.
Consider how my country today reverences the God who created all of us. He made a very clear revelation to the world about how He created the universe and man and angels, but our political leaders, intrigued with modern thinking, argue against God. They now mandate public education to no longer teach that the world was created by God but mandate the teaching of the Theory of Evolution as an alternate way the universe came to exist along with man. (Evolution has no explanation for angels).
Our country no longer defends the sanctity of the family but sponsors the slaughter of unborn children even against the objection of a very large percentage of Americans who are convinced that abortion is murder. Our country no longer defends the sanctity of marriage but now promotes, through law, same sex unions, and our culture encourages expensive surgical procedures of transgender operations.
The Way Nations Should Be
In my youth, I found it comforting that that my government believed the same Christian faith I believed, the same Christian faith my parents taught me. But in recent years the government’s position no longer endorses the faith I recognize as absolutely true. Apparently this value relativism was meant to protect the beliefs of all citizens, but it got out of hand when my government decided that all conflicting faiths are equally true (or equally untrue). This is what relativism does to a government.
My government should not have abandoned the Christian faith our forefathers recognized as absolutely true. If our forefathers were wrong, of course, our perception of what is absolutely true has to be reexamined. But relativism is not the way to do it. My country should be like a father to me, zealous for my safety and welfare, and, of course I should love and honor my country as I love and honor my father.
Our country today has abrogated the love and concern it owes us and has compromised us by requiring us to conform to laws that dishonor God. I know where we stand in our government’s regard. I wonder if our country knows how much distress this erosion of values has caused since we all can see what they have been doing, and many of us do not approve of it.
Conclusion
I think remedy for this is that our government should recognize what absolute truth is and its citizens should be free to discern the correct way to worship. I think a country that started out as believing that Christianity is absolutely true should try to stick to that faith and not be receptive to all the other religions in the world because they all can’t be correct.
I really think God wants everybody to embrace Christianity. But I do think it would be much more wholesome and beneficial for a government to encourage its citizens to search their consciences to determine how to worship God. That’s what freedom of religion should be and the very point of the First Amendment which prohibited the establishment of one particular religion as a state religion.
This world would be much holier if all governments and all people at least understood what absolute truth is and then made an honest effort to search for it and live according to it.
13 thoughts on “We Were Once a Christian People”
Just a quick question.
Didn’t the founding members of the US Constitution make it clear they wanted a separation of Church and State?
If they were truly ‘Christian’, why would they want this? What did they see that concerned them so much that they wanted no truck between the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, and religion (notwithstanding that the latter now permeates the former)?
And, noting that politics in the USA tends to be aligned with religion (not dissimilar to Northern Ireland), is this not evidence that religion, by its very nature, is political and, therefore, is subject to the same limitations? What it does do is inflame sectarianism and encourage murder, in the name of a God that has preached ‘Thou shalt not kill’.
I do wonder that if i wanted to ask this question in AD400-1500, what would happen to me. I guess I would not even be in a position to ask it, since the Church had a near-monopoly on reading/writing, used a language that no one (except its acolytes) could use, refused to even entertain other notions (regardless of the subsequent proof given, resulting in belated, and forced, apologies) and was ‘active’ in its persecution of ‘heretics’. Sounds like repression to me Mind, what matters is adherence to dogma. Dissidence from the ideal is to be met with repression and, moreover the case, worse. Think Galileo (he eventually got an apology but it took some time!…), Mind, why would any organisation tolerate anything which might undermine it, regardless of the ‘rightness’ underpinning that stance?
Oh, and why did the 10 laws not include ‘Thou shalt not rape’. Because, at the time, the status of a woman was worthless, so why would it have been included.
The ‘book’ may contain ‘truths’, but it was written in a time that reflected the time. And that time has passed. Do not tell me that the worshippers of Ra believed any less devoutly in the ‘God Sun’ as you do. And yet they have gone. Catholicism will eventually subside too; it relies on human fallibility and, by definition, must fail.
No, the Founding Fathers did NOT want a separation of church and state. This is a progressive/secularist lie that has been taught in many public schools for decades now. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Because the Founders were of different Christian denominations, their intent was that there would be no official, government mandated Christian denomination.
Thanks for your reply. I’m not saying that the USA is worse than any other country; in many respects its record is better. I am saying that you must be careful not to buy into the myth of American exceptionalism. The continuing sin of racism, the continued abuse of minorities, the continued use of American power to bully other nations, all suggest that modern America has much to repent for; abortion and other sins are true (if not the only) expressions of real Americanism.
Hello Bob,
Thank you for reading my essay and for your willingness to discuss our thoughts. I see that we have a much different view of the evils in this world and in our country. Of course there is evil operating in the United States and in the world as well, but there is also good. We humans get caught up and ensnarled sometimes in evil. And when we recognized what we are doing is evil we must bite the bullet and discipline ourselves not to do evil anymore.
This is a Christian website so I’m sure we both realize that the only way to do away with evil is to follow the path of Jesus Christ..
You warn me not to buy into the myth of American exceptionalism, and the continuing sin of racism, the continued abuse of minorities and the continued use of American power to bully other nations. . . . and other sins [that] are true expressions of real Americanism.
I do not think they are the true expressions of real Americanism. Real Americanism is expressed in the efforts of some Americans to try to alleviate the woes of this world by helping those in need by struggling to get governments to abolish unjust laws that oppress others, as well as doing the best job they can in their work and the products they make for sale,
I can see what I call real Americanism in action when I see documentaries of free hospital ships sailing the world to correct harelip in children, to help out in natural calamities like hurricanes and tornados. Some of this is done at government expense, but very much of it is done by what I call real Americans who donate their time as well as resources.
I see it in the affirmation of the American people in expressing their faith in God and in His Son Jesus, by the words some want included in the national anthem and on our coins. I have heard of many instances where monuments showing faith in God are erected and later torn down because someone in this country might object to them.
There is a struggle in this country between those who want to build America into something worthwhile and those who want to tear it down and destroy it. I want to build it up. I want to encourage all Americans to show that they believe God and are willing to follow His will.
I am an American that likes to recite the Pledge of Allegiance including the words “One Nation under God with liberty and justice for all” and see “in God we trust” stamped on our coins as
well as in my heart.
Can I induce these thoughts into my fellow Americans? Of course not, but God can, and that is my fervent hope in what I do to help out.
Mr. Williams–I’m not sure which Bob you replied to; but the facts about modern America that you point out are not surprising. In reality, the USA has never been a “Christian country”:
1) Its government is founded substantially on Enlightenment principles.
2) The vast majority of its population has never been more than nominally Christian (if that). If you need proof, look no further than African-American slavery and Native American genocide.
Modern America is merely being more open in expressing its longstanding nature; you should not idealize the past.
Bob
Hello Bob,
Thanks for your comments. I see now that you have reservations about the United States being considered a Christion country.
You say the USA has never been a Christian country. Its government is founded substantially on Enlightenment principles Its people have never been more than nominally Christian. If I need proof: look no further than African-American slavery and American genocide.
Wow! Our positions have suddenly crystallized. I hope I can persuade you to view our past through a different lens.
First of all, it doesn’t matter that much what the first generation Americans had in mind. There was always a strong Christian undercurrent in our country. What the first generation American have in mind is no longer is no operating in this country. They have left this life. They are dead!
What is important for America now is what the present generation has in mind: you and I and two hundred thirty million other Americans alive today. Our Lord has passed this country to our mantle. We are at now the helm. We can make this country anything we want if we were confident in what we are doing. Many people in my generation want America to be righteous, far more righteous than they were in the slavery era or the conquest era.
I think we are all ashamed of what some Americans did in the past, but we didn’t do it. The crimes you cite were done a couple hundred years ago. I’m sure God has punished the guilty far more than laying their quilt on us.
We should pray for our predecessors and their victims that God might cure their fallen nature, restore all the departed back to vibrant lives and make His peace reign over everything. Most of them, especially the victims, are with God now, awaiting resurrected bodies where the human race will be able to live in the total peace and harmony, love and contentment that they failed so miserably to establish when they were on Earth.
However, I do see evidence that we Americans always wanted to be Christian when I see many of our coins have “In God we Trust,” engraved on them, when I hear patriots like Billy Graham and his son Franklyn preach to hundreds of American eager to hear the words of Jesus.
I can see the groundwork that was done when the nation was beginning to form by the missionary work of Father Isaac Jogues, Kateri Tekakwitha in Canada and Junipero Serra in southwest USA and Josephine Bakhita patron of slaves. We all now own their work as part of the heritage we should want to preserve in America.
It wasn’t just America that practiced Slavery, the whole world practiced it, every Christian nation in Europe and North and South America, and even the Muslim nations capturing and selling people into slavery. Slavery is endemic to the innate wickedness of man, and Our Lord is the only one who can redress it and cure the wounds. Even some animals make slaves of other animals.
Blaming us who are alive today for crimes we did not commit and could not prevent only makes our lives more miserable.
Consider WWII. Hitler certainly was a wicked man and he meant to conquer all Europe and enslave it. I am so proud that I can consider myself a citizen of the powerful Christian country who defeated Hitler, helped the defeated nations rebuilt Europe and helped to launch a much more Christian world society in its place.
Sadly, in recent decades those ambitions are rapidly diminishing. We, who are at the helm, (that’s you and I and three hundred thirty million Americans) should try to bring it back.
Hey, Bob. I hope I didn’t offend you by so vigorously defending my position. We are both American and we should both be proud of it.
Maurice A. Williams
I think it is very questionable to assert that “Christian, biblical principles” formed the basis of American government in the Revolutionary era; rather, enlightenment principles (indeed, Masonic) were at least equally influential. That is why the descendants of the Scottish Covenanters in American (now known as Reformed Presbyterians) refused to “homologate” with American government, and long practiced “political dissent” against American governmental entities.
Hello Bob,
Thanks again for your comment. We might wind up having an informative exchange of ideas here. If you are willing, I am willing. I looked you up on Catholic Stand’s list of writers and see that you are a well-educated man specializing in philosophy math and science. I see that I am already outclassed, but I’m still game.
The whole point of my essay is absoluter truth. I think there is such a thing as absolute truth. It can be defined as truth the way God see truth. From my point of view, God not only knows the absolute truth, He commands use us to always speak the truth.
My issue with our government is why has it chosen to reverse the long standing prohibition against abortion.
One might wonder why so many Americans have chosen to defy God even against the advice of the Church. Pondering over the answers you might get to the above question should take you into a consideration of the activity of Satan and his war against God.
Don’t the American people, and all government officials, know that God is not going to be defeated by Satan?
Respectfully,
Maurice A. Williams
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I agree with the theme of your essay. My comment was very narrow, namely on ‘the very point of the First Amendment’ in its historical setting. I believe the prohibition of a federally established religion was fundamentally pragmatic, the avoidance of picking up the hot potato issue of which church. It’s good that today the first amendment is interpreted as idealistic, guaranteeing religious freedom, even within each state. The last state church was disestablished in 1879.
Thank you Bob. I appreciate you comments. They are very helpful.
Maurice A. Williams
Wouldn’t it be more cogent to interpret the first amendment prohibition of an established religion at the federal level to be pragmatic rather than idealistic, in view of the fact that nine of the thirteen colonies had established churches at one time or another and that the history of the colonies was one of inter-sectarian strife and persecution? (Ref: “The Right to Be Wrong”, K.S. Hasson)
Hello Bob,
Thank you for reading my article, and thanks for your comment. You are much more of a serious minded man than I am, and your question threw me a curve for a while. I am not familiar with the book you referred to or with its author, Kevin Seamus Hasson
You mentioned his book “The Right to be Wrong,” and asked “wouldn’t it be more cogent to interpret religious freedom to be pragmatic rather than idealist.” My essay was not a treatise on religious freedom or how to administer religious freedom in a country; it was primarily a protest about our government’s policy of abortion.
This is not like other sectarian differences in view of what is revealed in religion, of whether Jesus is God Himself or merely a human representing God, or if Mary is Queen of angels and man or just a holy Christian woman. These two issues are actually very important in fixing a person’s relationship to God. God revealed His position on these two issues and expects all of us to believe Him. After all, He is God and His word is good.
But I was not writing about those issues, and I don’t want to broaden my essay making pronouncements about them. The important issue I was writing about is abortion and whether God’s prohibition against murder is also against abortion. I think abortion is murder, and our government should recognize that.
Certainly people have to right to believe whatever they honestly believe. But I do not agree with the author’s statement in the summary of his book: “Thus we can respect others freedom when we’re sure they’re wrong in truth. They have the right to be wrong.” Our legal system does not operate under this attitude in other cases of murder. If someone’s beloved family member is murdered, that person does not have the right to kill whoever murdered his family member. Revenge killing is never acceptable in civilized society.
The same is true for theft and embezzlement. If a person is wrongfully a victim of theft, he does not have the right to kill the thief. There are laws in civilized societies that are set up to redress all moral crimes.
Abortion was always considered murder until 1973 with the Roe verses Wade decision. Since then, the laws protecting the unborn have been relaxed so that a baby can be aborted for any reason at almost any time in the pregnancy. This is wrong, and it is not something trivial. No matter how blameworthy or ignorant people are in their beliefs of right and wrong, governments must protect their citizens as part of their duty toward God, and human beings must avoid murdering each other also as their duty toward God.
Maurice A. Williams
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