Leading the warning signs of cultural decay is when a people begin to abandon God in their societal traditions. The first of the Ten Commandments tells us ““I am the Lord your God, . . . You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2-3 NIV). Jesus expanded on this in Matthew when he was asked which was the greatest commandment, to which “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38 NIV) Sadly God is no longer placed as the primary personality, or acting force, in our decisions as a nation or society.
Even though many will not deny that belief in God has been an important aspect of our great history, more and more we see God abandoned in our national discourse. It seems that, as a nation, we no longer place God first. We no longer even consider, let alone love, God with our heart, soul, and mind. This can, to a degree, be traced back to a Supreme Court misinterpretation of the founders idea and reason for insisting on ensuring the separation of church and state. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black wrote: “In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.”
In 1962 the ACLU used Jefferson’s statement as “rationale for suppressing the free exercise of religion,” while arguing before the Supreme Court that prayer in public schools in effect establishing a state religion, and was therefore unconstitutional. (Horowitz). Ultimately the Supreme Court agreed with this argument and effectively banned all prayer in public schools. Even going so far as to rule in 1985 (Wallace v. Jaffree) that allowing for just one minute for “meditation or voluntary prayer” was unconstitutional.
In 1963 the atheist Madalyn Murray, who took pride in the label as the “most hated woman in America,” was able to get her lawsuit before the Supreme Court in Murray v. Curlett. The outcome of this lawsuit was the Supreme Court’s decision “banning mandatory reading or recitation of the Bible at public schools.”
So, in a sign of continuing decay, Justice Black’s 1947 interpretation eventually resulted in taking both prayer and the Bible out of our public school system. It further emboldened many to demand that any reference to God or religion be removed and ultimately banned from any government building or lands.
But the truth is that the “establishment of religion clause” in the First Amendment of our Constitution was written in order to provide that the government would never be allowed to show preference of one religion over, or at the expense, of another. It was not written in order to separate our religious values from our political values.
“A scholar familiar with classic establishments of religion, . . . concluded in capital letters that an establishment had always and everywhere meant . . . ‘A SINGLE CHURCH OR RELIGION ENJOYING FORMAL, LEGAL, OFFICIAL, MONOPOLISTIC PRIVILEGE THROUGH A UNION WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE.’”
Constitutional scholar Edward S. Corbin added, “In a word, what the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment does, and all that it does, is to forbid Congress to give any religious faith, sect, or denomination preferred status.”
Thomas Jefferson shows in his own writings that he never advocated for the absolute exclusion of God from our political discourse. “There is much evidence . . . that the ‘wall’ has been used in ways . . . That it’s architect almost certainly would not have recognized and, perhaps, have repudiated.” (James H. Hutson). The values that come from our religious beliefs, Jefferson and others realized, were vital to the success of the nation. In 1807 Jefferson wrote, “Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that . . . Of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.”
“After 170 years in which prayers were said and the Bible was read daily in schools across the nation, the practice was declared unconstitutional overnight.” By way of these decisions The Supreme Court, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, declared that atheism was now “the one belief to which the state’s power will extend its protection.” (Horowitz) These decisions have resulted in a nation where God is no longer the Lord. We have replaced Him with the gods of government, social proclivities, and cultural depravities.