The Decline of Christianity and its Consequences
July 10, 2022
Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
Last Monday, July 4th, we celebrated Independence Day, a night of dread for those of us who want to get a good nights’ sleep J. Of course, the day is meant to commemorate and celebrate our birth as a nation and to take stock of the exceptional nature of our country, for it is truly exceptional in many ways. This year however, many Americans used the holiday to mourn America for not being supportive enough of legal abortion and the LGBTQ+ agenda. When I say many Americans, I mean the Catholic President of the United States and one of our two major political parties, who try to shame Americans at home and abroad for not championing things that only 60 and 30 years ago were near universally held as evil. How did we get to a place where Disney champions abortion and sodomy and shames you if you don’t? The answer to that and many other societal evils is a decline in religious belief and practice.
At the core of a nation’s culture is a cult, a religious belief system. In Europe and the Western Hemisphere that cult was Christianity, then no later than the 20th Century, it changed to the pursuit of happiness in this life – not the next. Why did the majority of Americans and Western Civilization throw off the very thing that made it historically possible to create and sustain equality of personhood, civilization, invention, and industry; categories that have no parallels in human history? The answer to that question is that the majority of people slowly walked away from God over the centuries, and especially in the last 60 years. Those people didn’t want to lose, and still don’t want to lose democracy and wealth, they just wanted to lose the God who would say “thou shall not.” In the process of throwing off God, we will lose our democracy and wealth because we have rejected the laws of the One who made it possible. Don’t worry though, the Jews went through this cycle many times, and God still loved them and allowed each generation to apologize to God, do penance, recommit, and prosper in God’s grace once again. I guess it will be the same for us.
This raises a question though: can we turn this around? Can our country and the other countries of the world return to God, more specifically to Jesus Christ and true Christianity, before it all collapses? Well in God’s eyes it has already collapsed, or at least what is important to Him: our faith and moral life. We’ve already killed over 60 million babies in the past 50 years through legal abortion; not to include all our sins of impurity, the same sins that brought God’s wrath upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Gn 18:16-19:29). Popular culture wants more of that not less (although the Supreme Court was heroic in striking down Roe). All that’s left to collapse is the economy and civilization, and God is okay with that collapsing as long as it brings His children back to Him. God’s children returning to Him is always good news, no matter how God has it transpire. Imagine the world returning to biblical living both temporally and spiritually? What a beautiful thing.
So don’t fear what lies ahead for America and the world. God isn’t interested in destroying us but in saving us. He will let us reap the fruits of our waywardness, so that like the Prodigal Son, in our brokenness and poverty, we’ll make our way home to Him apologizing, doing penance, recommitting, and prospering all over again.
In the meantime, let us strive to be the Christian saints He created us to be. For the saints are the ones who truly change the world in a lasting way for the better.
May Almighty God Bless You,
Fr. Thomas Nathe
