The Collapse of Christianity in the West
One unpleasant reality that twenty-first century Western Christians need to face has already been mentioned, the disappearance of Christianity, and by Christianity is meant Calvinism, from the West. As John Robbins noted in his Trinity Review “Rebuilding American Freedom in the Twenty-First Century,”
When we apply these insights to the United States, we notice several things. In the beginning all America was Protestant – 98 percent of the people. The numbers we have for church affiliation in seventeenth and eighteenth century America show that three-fourths of Americans were Calvinists of one flavor or another: Puritan, Pilgrim, Presbyterian, Baptist, German Reformed, Lutheran, Congregationalist, and Episcopal. There were few Catholics, almost no Jews or Methodists, and no Muslims, Mormons, Moonies, Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, or atheists. Had there been any large numbers of these groups, there would have been no America as we have known it, not because the people who hold these views are somehow inferior, but because the views themselves are inferior: They are logically incapable of creating and sustaining a free society.
Theology, far from being irrelevant to political, social, and economic affairs, as economists have pretended for 50 years, has consequences. In fact, in order to make my argument contrast as starkly as possible with those of the secularists, I shall put it this way: Unless one is heavenly minded, one is no earthly good. As the numbers of Americans who subscribe to anti- and sub-Christian beliefs has grown, the freedoms of Americans have diminished. One can trace it by looking at church membership figures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as by noticing how churches themselves have abandoned the theology of the first two hundred years of America. Like it or not, religious, political, and economic freedom depend on a certain collection of ideas, and when those ideas are no longer held by a majority of the people, it is only a matter of time before religious, political, and economic freedom disappear.
James Madison, a student of Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon at Princeton and architect of the Constitution, wrote: “We have staked the whole future of the American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future…upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” And, of course, none of us has the capacity to obey even one Commandment, even in a merely civil manner, apart from the power of God.
Despite what the polls say, most Americans today do not believe in the God of the Bible. However they may answer when pressed for an answer by some pollster, they live their lives as if God did not exist. Now unless people believe the theology that underlies the Ten Commandments, the Commandments themselves mean nothing. They are simply ten suggestions offered by some nomadic farmer or tribal deity.
Now Robbins’ assertion, and he is correct in what he says, is entirely out of step with the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy of the early twenty-first century, which constantly lectures us that “diversity is our strength.” But contrary to the teaching of the diversitycrats, the strength of colonial America and the early American nation was not in its diversity, but in the unanimity of it is belief. To sharpen that statement a bit further, the strength of early America was in its near unanimous consent to the truth of Christianity. This, of course, is entirely unacceptable to hordes of wokesters who populate American universities, even those claiming to be Christian schools, government offices and corporate executive suites. In fact, the diversitycrats seem to have an almost instinctive hatred of Christianity and weary themselves in doing the evil work of attempting to extirpate what remains of it from this nation.
But as bad as the wokesters are, we who are heirs to the Reformation need to face our own responsibility in the matter of the collapse of West. We were handed a glorious heritage of Christian faith from our spiritual forebears but, as did Israel and Judah of old, we have strayed far from the old paths. Perhaps the rise of anti-Christian and sub-Christian belief systems in this nation is God’s judgment on America’s Calvinists for their failure to guard their doctrine.
A quick assessment of Presbyterian and Reformed churches in America shows very clearly just how far once faithful denominations have derogated from the faith once delivered to the saints. The Mainline Presbyterian Church (PC USA) long ago abandoned any pretense of being a Christian church and now rejoices in grossly unchristian doctrines and practices.
But serious doctrinal errors are not found only in the liberal PC USA. Even so-called Bible believing Presbyterian and Reformed churches find themselves embroiled in controversies that, had their doctrine been sound to begin with, likely would not have arisen. Neolegalism (works righteousness) flourishes in supposedly Bible believing seminaries and denominations. If we conservative, supposedly Bible believing Presbyterians can’t get the gospel of Jesus Christ right 500 years after the reformation, how can we possibly stand against the satanic forces arrayed against the civilization built by our forefathers? Why should we expect God to hear our prayers and crown our work with victory when we have forsaken his Word?
Closing Thoughts
Sinful men have always sought to deflect responsibility for their evil deeds by blaming others. Those of us who stand in the line of the Protestant Reformers have need to repent of our own sin of blaming others for the sorry state of our nation in the year of our Lord 2020. Yes, the antichristians who are out there burning down cities, pulling down monuments and pushing socialism are workers of iniquity, deserving of condemnation and, in some cases, arrest. But is it possible that their rise is God’s judgment on American Christians for their failure to guard their doctrine and to believe and faithfully teach the doctrine once committed to the saints? As difficult as it is to say, in this author’s opinion the answer is yes, this is an unpleasant reality that twenty-first century Western Christians must face. If God overthrew faithless Israel in the Old Testament, ought we to be surprised if he should deal likewise with the modern day nations of the West, the political expression of the Protestant Reformation, whose people have rejected Christ in favor of secular philosophy?
Lord willing, next week we will look at another unpleasant reality, the failure of political conservatism as a bulwark against the rising tide of atheism, feminism, environmentalism, homosexualism and Marxism that threatens to destroy America, and the West more broadly, as we have known it.
Lux Lucet 
Leave a comment