In this series, I would like to look at what I see as the accelerating moral decline of America in line with parallels to ancient Israel highlighted in the book “The Harbinger” by Jonathan Cahn.
One of the things about living in our time is the decline of a moral America. The founding fathers talked about the need of a moral society at great lengths. They understood that the Constitution will not guarantee a moral society, in fact, they deliberately left most moral issues out of the Constitution. Consider the issue of Gay Marriage. The only thing the Constitution says about it is the 10th Amendment,
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Meaning, this is a State’s Issue. In fact, when writing about the Supreme Court Decision concerning Obamacare, Chief Justice Roberts wrote
We look to the States to defend the their prerogatives by adopting the simple expedient of not yielding to federal blandishments when they do not want to embrace federal policies as their own. The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.
This gives the States an “Out” if they were to choose to take it. Alas, today we live in a country were the states are ruled by Federal Supremacists. But I’m getting off topic.
Words from the Founders On a Moral America
Perhaps my favorite founding father quote sums it up the best. John Adams, Second President of the United States and key contributor at the Constitutional Convention said it this way…
[W]e 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.
Additionally, here are further Founding Fathers thoughts on the nature of a moral people:
[W]e 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 foundation of national morality must be laid in private families…. How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?
The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.
Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government.
If we continue to be a happy people, that happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of reasonable and wise laws, expressed in the plainest language, and by establishing such modes of education as tend to inculcate in the minds of youth, the feelings and habits of “piety, religion and morality,” and to lead them to the knowledge and love of those truly Republican principles upon which our civil institutions are founded.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens… Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for live, in the sense of religious obligations desert and oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education … reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
But it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can surely stand.
We look to the States to defend the their prerogatives by adopting the simple expedient of not yielding to federal blandishments when they do not want to embrace federal policies as their own. The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.
[W]e 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 foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.
If we continue to be a happy people, that happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of reasonable and wise laws, expressed in the plainest language, and by establishing such modes of education as tend to inculcate in the minds of youth, the feelings and habits of “piety, religion and morality,” and to lead them to the knowledge and love of those truly Republican principles upon which our civil institutions are founded.