America’s descent into secularism ... The way out is not retreat

Forged in the fires of religious persecution, penalties, and pressure for nonconformity in England, our American forefathers refused to bow to an established church corrupted by unbiblical hierarchy, coerced liturgy, imposed ceremonies, and state-controlled religion. Because of this they did not retreat from the battle for ideological supremacy and control of resources in the public square of the New World and the emerging republic.

They neither handed civil government - the making, enforcement, and adjudication of laws - over to Satan and those who serve him, nor surrendered the ministry of civil government to those living in rebellion against God.¹ Modern America has cast aside such truthfulness. Liberty, however, is not self-sustaining. Once cut loose from its moral moorings, the power, right, and opportunity to choose quickly degenerate into license, disorder, and ultimately tyranny.

A simple reading of the charters and constitutions of the 13 original states - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland - leaves little doubt that the Founders embedded Biblically grounded values into the legal and moral fabric of early American culture, understanding that liberty cannot long endure apart from moral order.

America’s descent into secularism and spiritual perfidiousness did not begin in the 1960s. That decade was merely the harvest. The seeds of secular rebellion had been sown 200 years earlier, in the late 18th century, as the American experiment was progressively untethered from its explicitly Christian mission. Before stepping off the Mayflower, the Pilgrims declared that they had undertaken their voyage “for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith...”²

America’s seduction by secular rebellion was set in motion in 1789. From the French Revolution onward, the so-called Enlightenment infiltrated America’s colleges, bearing a bloodstained creed captured in its notorious motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité - liberty, equality, fraternity.

Secularists have reaped a rich harvest from American Christendom’s retreat from culture over the last century. Secularism now speaks with the full authority of the state, in terms of shaping school curricula, disciplining dissenters, and demanding submission to doctrines increasingly hostile to Biblical Christianity.

As we wrote in our last opinion piece, silence is not neutrality, withdrawal is not purity, and the public square does not remain unoccupied. It is always governed by somebody’s gods, somebody’s doctrines, somebody’s values, and somebody’s laws.

Now, 60 years into this spiritual drought, the state’s embrace of secularism has borne unmistakable fruit: prayer driven from public schools [Engel v. Vitale, 1962]; the Bible expelled from classrooms [Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963]; a fabricated ‘constitutional right’ to destroy unborn life [Roe v. Wade, 1973]; the Ten Commandments barred from schools and courthouses [Stone v. Graham, 1980]; same-sex marriage exalted and enshrined in law [Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015]; and ‘special rights’ for homosexuality and transgenderism elevated into legal orthodoxy [Bostock v. Clayton County, 2020].

In hindsight, Barack Obama, his administration, and the U.S. Supreme Court advanced a militant secular orthodoxy no longer content merely to persuade but intent on using law and state power to compel submission. In 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges exalted, normalized, and codified into law homosexual intercourse and same-sex marriage.

In its immediate aftermath, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis was jailed for contempt after refusing, on grounds of Christian conscience, to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Then, in 2016, the Obama administration pushed public schools nationwide toward a transgender-bathroom policy through federal Title IX guidance, directing schools to treat gender identity instead of biological sex as determinative.

The message was unmistakable: Biblical conviction was not only out of step with the new regime; it was becoming punishable within it.

That, of course, was to be expected. Once secular justices enthroned homosexual conduct as state-approved orthodoxy, the social order was inevitably reordered to force the nation, and particularly its children, to bow before a legal regime erected in open rebellion against God’s law.

That is why the stakes in the 2016 presidential race were so high. America was not simply choosing between two candidates. She was choosing between two futures and standing at a fork in the road.

In short, American Christendom has surrendered the culture to secularism, especially over the last 75 years. The Warren Court’s ignominious clincher came in 1963 when it drove the Bible from public education. The result is now plain: Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha have been raised in a culture so severed from Scripture that many no longer recognize the Bible’s clear teaching on homosexuality.

Leviticus condemns homosexual intercourse as a forbidden sexual act: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” This Old Testament teaching in Leviticus 18:22 is repeated and emphasized in the New Testament. In Romans 1:26-27, Paul identifies same-sex relations as a sinful disorder, and in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10, he places homosexual practices among those sins set against the kingdom of God and sound doctrine.

Having said that, the chief blame does not fall on America’s youth. Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha did not bring forth this spiritual barrenness; they inherited the wasteland. They were tutored by schools, entertainment, media, laws, and institutions commandeered by secularism after American Christendom abandoned the battlefield and surrendered the culture.

The way out is not retreat, handwringing, or sanctified passivity. It is repentance and the rebuilding of the foundations laid by America’s Founders. The Church must recover her Biblical identity as ekklesia - a governing moral force in the life of a people, not a chaplaincy captive to the failed ministry model of the last century, where attendance, multiple buildings, sprawling campuses, and massive budgets became the scorecard of success rather than whether a city or region was being reclaimed for the Kingdom of Heaven or surrendered to the domain of darkness.

Parents will have to reclaim their children’s minds and souls. That means leaving secular public education behind and stepping back into the fight, i.e. walking point in the recovery of the nation’s soul in the home, the church, the schoolhouse, the courthouse, the legislature, and the marketplace.

The tide will not turn until the Church stops rationalizing her retreat and resumes her duty before God, such as speaking plainly, organizing deliberately, and acting with conviction in every sphere. Because in the end, somebody’s values are going to reign supreme in the public square.

Thankfully, Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand.

David Lane

American Renewal Project

1. Dr. Archie P. Jones [1942-2024]; Marine Corps veteran, teacher, professor, and librarian who taught political science, American history, literature, and writing for more than 40 years. “Archie’s specialty was our nation’s rich Christian heritage and the governing structures in God’s Providence that shaped our nation. How was it put together? What documents secured our tenuous freedoms and what they meant? Archie knew them better than most.” [americanvision.org/posts/remembering-archie-p-jones-1942-2024]

2. Mayflower Compact, avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp#:~:text=Having undertaken for the Glory,and combine ourselves together into