Ever anxious to create controversy, Newsweek, in its April 13 cover story, has proclaimed “the decline and fall of Christian America.” The number of Americans who consider themselves Christians has fallen 10 percentage points in two decades, Newsweek’s Jon Meacham reported with scantily-disguised glee. “Our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago,” Meacham wrote. “I think this is a good thing — good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance.”

Fair enough. But Meacham and Newsweek (not to mention ideological fellow-travelers like atheist Christopher Hitchens — mentioned approvingly in the Newsweek article — and crusading secularists of many stripes) do not share the Founding Fathers’ enlightened detachment. As decades of militant secularism have shown, today’s apologists for a religiously and morally neutral commons are not merely interested in ensuring minority religions and unbelievers have an equal voice. They want to wipe Christian religion and culture from the American landscape and replace it with a sort of diluted, nonthreatening, big tent spirituality that embraces everything from Native American shamanism to New Age earth worship.

All of these alternative spiritualities have in common a rejection of “binding authority,” pointed out R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to Newsweek. “The post-Christian narrative is radically different,” Mohler said. “It is based on an understanding of history that presumes a less tolerant past and a more tolerant future, with the present as an important transitional step.” To which Meacham, with a rhetorical smirk, responded that “the present, in this sense, is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods.”

Actually, Meacham is more correct than he is probably aware. What would now be acclaimed as exemplary tolerance was a conspicuous feature of polytheistic religion in pre-Christian classical Greece and Rome. Many polytheistic belief systems maintained (and maintain) that unknown gods from other faiths are perfectly acceptable, inasmuch as they may simply be one’s own gods by different names. In this way were foreign cults, such as those of Isis, Cybele, and Mithra, easily introduced into the classical world.

A recurrent theme in the narrative of Roman history after the advent of Christianity was the Romans’ difficulty with the notion that there could be only one true God. The deity of the three monotheistic religions has never brooked any spiritual competition, something that the pagan mindset has always been unable to grasp.

But then paganism (speaking in general terms; there are of course exceptions) has always been less about a unifying moral authority than about pageantry and transcendence. There are no Ten Commandments for Hindus or Zoroastrians, any more than there were for their counterparts in the ancient world. The unifying, normative force characteristic of monotheism is very dilute in pagan societies: there are no churches are such; there are only the gods, and they are to be venerated but not acknowledged as purveyors of moral order. That role, in the pagan world, is relegated exclusively to the state.

State and religion in the pagan world have always complemented and reinforced one another, whereas in the Judeo-Christian tradition, they have usually been perceived as rivals, the state seeking ever to encroach on the prerogative of the church or to absorb it altogether.

American Christianity in particular was religion born of dissent — minority faiths like the Puritans who wanted no truck with established churches. Even Catholics in early America — like the original American ancestor of this writer — typically came not from majority-Catholic countries but from parts of Europe where they had become a persecuted minority. Consequently, most of the Founders were robustly opposed to the mingling of sectarianism and government, although several states had established churches until decades after independence.

But Meacham, like so many of the secularist persuasion, confuses sectarianism with morality. It is one thing to assert that government ought not to impose doctrinal conformity — to insist, for instance, that only the sacraments of a particular strain of Christianity be acceptable. It is quite another to inveigh against a moral code that has its origins in religious belief, as those now crusading on behalf of so-called “same-sex marriage” are doing. In point of fact, all morality, even outside Christian civilization, has its roots in religious belief of some sort; for unless there is something spiritual, divine, or transcendant in man, what possible basis can there be for moral behavior? The very word “culture” comes from Latin cultus, “religion,” and, as Spengler, among others, has observed, all of the world’s high cultures originated with religious belief. The very notion of “secular culture” is therefore a contradiction in terms.

So, on the eve of Easter weekend, what are we to make of Newsweek’s latest screed? Only that Christian religion, morality, and culture are indeed in decline in contemporary America, in no small measure because of decades of tireless effort on the part of entities like Newsweek to persuade Americans that Christianity is a moribund belief system associated with a false and ineffectual god.

But America — like her parent European nations, at least formerly — is predominantly a Christian nation, in the moral if not necessarily the doctrinal or sectarian sense. Those of other faiths, or no faith at all, who reside here, have always enjoyed the benefit of living under a system of laws and institutions that arose from her Christian foundations. The very notion of a separation of church and state, though not the strict separation so exaggeratedly celebrated and exploited by the enemies of faith, is a profoundly Christian idea, even though seldom put into practice before the inception of the United States. For it was Christ — not the Buddha, not Confucius, and not Ashoka — who counseled his followers to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” It was the God of Israel who warned his people against idolatry, including worship of the state. And it was Christ who upheld religion as something liberating, whose sweet truths had the power to free men from bondage — a notion that would-be secular autocrats still find abhorrent.

Christianity may be in decline, but America is still a far more Christian society than most of old Europe. While Newsweek and its epigones are doing their utmost to marginalize believers and even to extinguish belief, the flame of faith still burns brightly in many hearts. This may not be evident from the secular environs of Washington, D.C., New York City, and Hollywood, but it is very much on display on Main Street America where — as in my modest home town — church bells still ring every morning, noon, and evening.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (18)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Charles Byrd said:

	Newspeak Christianity has survived persecution at the hands of the Romans, the Moslems, the Nazis and the Communists and it will most assuredly survive the onslaught of the vitriolic "New Atheism."
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 09, 2009
Votes: +5

..., Lowly rated comment [Show]

Brian L. Burleson said:

	... "[....} The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;{...} Psalms 14:1
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

Jaru's Alves said:

	Content deleted The New American does not tolerate religious bigotry of any kind, regardless of the religion being attacked. Just as we do not tolerate anti-Semitism, neither do we provide a forum for anti-Christian comments.
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009
Votes: +6

Ivan Price said:

	No revenue, no business. If you read Newsweek, stop. If you have a subscription, cancel it. Encourage others to do the same. When they aren't selling magazines and have no readers, they'll go out of business.
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009 | url
Votes: +9

Thomas Paine said:

	NWO wants to extinguish religion See the interview Henry Kissinger did with Charie Rose on You tube. He says clearly,"on one side is globalization, and on the other side: Religion ". Religion scares the NWO as it has strength in character to stand up for values, and truly believes the 10 commandments. "The world and heavens will pass away, but my words will never pass away."-The Son of God.
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009
Votes: +10

Warren the writer said:

The pack howls! Notice that any article about Christianity, whether here or elsewhere, brings out the pack of howling rabble who enjoy the benefits of Christian civilization, yet still — in their miserable ignorance — persist in biting the hand that has fed them? Freedom is not a norm, but rather an exceptional state in the history of mankind, practically unique to those lands formed under the guidance of our Judeo-Christian culture. In non-Christian lands, people have traditionally been accorded a status just a little above brute beasts, perhaps explaining why those who are so vehemently anti-Christian tend to revert to the only status allowed them in pre-Christian, pre-Jewish times.

report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009
Votes: +3

let's be honest, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Maat said:

People are starting to wake up Christianity is evolving, spiritually, and so are we. In Christianity, there are some core concepts that are true, such as the divinity of Jesus, but there are some core concepts that are not true, such as the exclusivity of that divinity. A big part of religion has been and continues to be control - control of the masses by the few. Now that the control has shifted to the media and has infiltrated government institutions, religion is no longer needed. Plus, the majority of Christians will not stand for the kind of corruption that many pseudo-Christians are masking, all in the name of Christianity. It has long been a tool for the powers that be, but now it is more of a threat. What will Christianity evolve into? Probably what Jesus planted the seed for 2,000 years ago -- the awakening in each and every one of us to our own divinity.

report abuse vote down vote up

April 10, 2009
Votes: -4

lp said:

	... Persecution is often overlooked by the media today and its massive results. The press often prefers ham sandwiches to politeness to such topics as the relentless assault on the rights of true believers by cults. The other element: those who re write history to forget the christian enlightenment was very much the national foundation and it knew what kind of cult a church state is.
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 11, 2009
Votes: -1

kenneth said:

... Believe it or not, a great many of us on the other side of this cultural divide don't want to dismantle Christianity. Be Christian if you want to. Be so Christian that you make the apostles look like slackers. We don't want to covert you to atheism or paganism or anything else. We don't get finders fees or upgrades to first class in the after-life in our beliefs for converts. So Christianity isn't dying, it's "Christianism", the notion that (mostly Evangelical) Christians are the only "real Americans" and get to hold a veto over everything in government and culture. Those days are well and truly over. If Christianity to you is an instrument of power to lord over other people, you're going to have a long and fruitless fight ahead of you. If there's still any room for the service to others and humility that your savior was supposed to exemplify, we'll find a lot of common ground in the years to come.

report abuse vote down vote up

April 11, 2009
Votes: -1

Flu-Bird said:

	NEWSREEK What else can we ever expect from a commie dirt rag like NEWSWEEK this is by far americas most far left news magazine perhaps as far left or even more far left then TIME i mean this is the same rag that was responible over the false story of the flushed KORAN maybe NEWSREEK should get boycotted into bankrupcy
	report abuse vote down vote up

April 12, 2009
Votes: +2

philipTheEvangelist said:

Decline? Not in my area I teach a small Bible class for homeless peoples. of my class Three were recently Baptized. I spoke of that in E-Mail, a reply came back that their Church had Baptized 115 this year "to date". different Coastlines of the our Country... My point? I doubt the authenticity of the article, the Anti-Christian rhetoric is louder, I will admit that... that just means they are upset.... And speak of timing??? Released the day after Easter? Clue: Jesus Christ is ALIVE and returning soon, get Right with Him before its to late...

report abuse vote down vote up

April 13, 2009
Votes: -1

History Matters said:

American's Biblical Heritage Plus, it's hard to leave behind our heritage. Assuming our citizens are educated about our history (a big assumption, I know), there is a ton of evidence about our roots in the Bible. Then if one reads the writings of our founders, it is hard to not be impressed with their faithful words and deeds. It is well outlined here: http://churchvstate.blogspot.c...tage.html And we should recall that all 50 states' constitutions mention God, the Creator, the Almighty, etc. And if one looks at the Inaugural address of every U.S. President who gave an Inaugural address, you find the same kind of faithful words (regardless of their party!). If you look at the graph in the post below (about media bias) you find that Newsweek is one of the most left-wing of the common news sources: http://churchvstate.blogspot.com/2008/09/do-popular-news-sources-lean-left.html

report abuse vote down vote up

April 14, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Lyn said:

Newsweek Celebrates Christianity's Decline Nice assessment of Newsweek. They are liberal apologists. They would like to come out and openly apologise to the world for America's success. But it's easier for them to write articles like this and tell people America is faltering. This stuff is the kind of "change" Obama voters wanted. You know, it's a change from a society governed by standards to a society governed by comfort. It's more comfortable to live among people who don't have any standards whatsoever, because those people are not likely to judge you. America is becoming those people. Few, if any standards. Little, if any prospect for success. That's what Newsweek wants to celebrate.

report abuse vote down vote up

April 14, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Pathenry said:

Whistling in the Dark Newsweek is whistling in the dark. If numbers are declining in mainline churches, which have absorbed various aspects of secularism and neo-paganism (including the abortion cult) over the last decades, this means nothing for true Christianity. In fact, I believe we are in a Gideon's revival. Newsweek agit-prop is signaling fellow travelers the new lies for old. Much as Obama did when he said in his Inaugural, "Let us summon a new spirit" and praising those who "put their hands on the ark of history" (replacing God with History - very Hegelian; and touching God's ark is blasphemous). And "that timeless creed: Yes, we can" is so Babel-founded as to be laughable enough to tongue-tie me. For those of prayer who will not listen to this siren song, we know there will soon be a restoration of the foundations, as their "new" world order falls under its own top-heavy weight. I will not chime in with their song, but sing a new one. Including Psalm 149.

report abuse vote down vote up

April 14, 2009
Votes: -2

castellina said:

... I don't think the Newsweek people who proclaim with such glee that Christianity is dead have ever been in a Christian church on Easter day, packed with people, raising their voices to proclaim our true Savior...At the end of the day I think they will unwittingly strengthen even the faith of lukewarm Christians as proven by the uproar caused by Obama's speech about America " not being a Christian nation...". Even the money we use tell us that we trust in GOD, and none other...Christianity has outlived many tribulations and it's still triumphant...Christ himself has promised that "...the gates of hell shall not prevail".

report abuse vote down vote up

April 18, 2009
Votes: -1

Jessica said:

Don't like it? What I remember being taught in history class is that the first Americans were tired of being forced to succumb to the beliefs and persecutions of the country they were in, so they left and established a new place for themselves. They left because they didn't believe the same way as their leaders. They didn't stay and try to force their views on the already established country. They LEFT! So if all these anti-christ anti-American Americans don't like our country the way it is and the way it was founded...Why don't they leave? There are lot's of Socialist/Commie countries already established and waiting for them. If they don't like it here, why don't they leave? I am so confused...

report abuse vote down vote up

May 03, 2009
Votes: -2