4 Signs that America is Ending

Here is a pop-quiz…

Can you name a country that has:

1. a mounting love of show and luxury
2. an obsession with sex
3. freakishness in the arts…pretending to be creativity
4. an increased desire to live off of the government

…and has 50 states???

Had to add that last detail for anyone reading outside the USofA who might think the list describes their motherland…and it very well might. I am not saying these only describe America, yet these certainly do describe the USofA.

The list above is 4 of the 5 traits provided by Edward Gibbon in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire“.

Repetitious History Continued

In my previous post regarding the circular nature of history I mentioned Francis Schaeffer. We specifically noted how he brings his book “How Should We Then Live” to a close by noting the parallels we see not only in America (in 1976, the time of the books publication), but also in Western Civilization. The West has become a people who love luxury (aka “peace and personal affluence” as described by Schaeffer), sex, freakish arts, and live more and more off of the state. It is not everyone to a man, yet these things you don’t have to squint to find as you look across society. These facets of culture don’t whisper but shout at us:

• Comfort over freedom, safety over liberty.
• The art of story telling in song or in film have become pornographic in nature.
• The arts do what they always have in displaying the health and content of the surrounding culture.
• And it is becoming harder and harder to not depend on the government (i.e. my wife and I tried to opt out of the stimulus checks that come from Big Brother….it was next to impossible and we never figured out how).

These traits within Rome were the precursor to the slow and painful demise of that world empire. Now we look around and see these traits intertwined in almost every sphere of our nation. Yet what Schaeffer explains is that we did not get here overnight from the 1960’s…that is to say, the sexual revolution was not the beginnings of our down fall.

In this post I will review and overview Schaeffer’s classic book ‘How Should We Then Live’. This review will be in two parts. Yet even so this read will be slightly longer than most. Grab a drink, get comfortable, and enjoy a condescend version of a Christian classic. My hope is that you close this computer tab feeling informed yet wishing to be further informed about where we have come from.

The Road Map of Our Journey

The four traits named above that we see and recognize as the characteristics that arose before Rome fell, have been developing and arising for literally centuries within Western culture..

I learned from Schaeffer that as Rome rose and fell so also the culture it left behind (commonly called Western Civilization) began another similar cycle:

1. Recovery from Rome’s disappearance
2. Culture Peaking in the Renaissance and Reformation
3. Two Paths away from this Peak Moment
4. Reform: Resistance vs. Revolution
5. Renaissance unto Modern Humanism
6. No God. No Reason. No Hope.

1) Recovery from Rome’s Disappearance

I won’t say much to this first point because I will expound it more in a later post. However, it suffices now to say that as Rome deteriorated…and a lengthy process it was…the central authoritarian government was divided up. The political power of the known world was no longer found solely in the hand of the emperor but was now wrestled over by other rising kingdoms and warlords. Rome, for good and bad, had held the known world together. As it broke apart and other nations rose, power redistributed and many governments formed. Thus began what Schaeffer calls The Middle Ages in his second chapter.

2) A Peak Point of the Renaissance and Reformation

How we get from a world in political collapse to a high point will be discussed in a later post (where we will primarily consider what the church today can learn from those events with regard to how we live now).

One of the paths which led to the Renaissance (1300-1400’s) and Reformation (1400-1500’s) was men returning to writings of the past: Greek philosophers and Augustine. In my own opinion we have two lessons to learn from this:

1. Progress in society does not mean progressing into what is new or novel. History shows us that one of the most stable paths forward is to have an eye on history, both its events and writings.
2. We must be careful who we look to and how we use it. There will be a noticeable difference between those who looked primarily to Plato and Aristotle vs those who looked to men like St. Augustine.

As Western Civilization developed in the 13, 14, & 1500’s the arts, politics, and economy developed. The values amid these developments differed between the south of Europe where the Renaissance was occurring compared to the Reformation that began shortly after in the north of Europe. Nonetheless, both parts of Europe saw progression. A progression that had a foundation set on what had been taught in the past by the Greek philosophers and later church fathers.

3) Two Paths away from this Mountain Peak

The differences between those who gave weight primarily to the Greek Philosophers and those who gave ear more so to the church fathers (i.e. Augustine and others) was manifest in how they thought about life’s big questions. Without sorting through the various questions that Schaeffer identifies it suffices to say that the men of the Renaissance (southern Europe) who had more readily heeded the Greek Philosophers looked inward for answers. By in large those of the the Reformation (northern Europe) who had pursued answers from the church fathers looked outside himself to God in scripture for the answers.

A quick personal note:

Even before the Reformation was done we see two clear examples of the differences:

1. The Reformation nations (i.e. Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands) were in the north of Europe while Rome was in the south of Europe. Two different beliefs about truth and life battled it out in the Reformation. It was a war of the north and south.
2. On a smaller scale we see Luther and Erasmus going to great lengths to argue for and against man’s severe sinfulness and absolute need for God’s grace. Erasmus was of the Renaissance mind where as Luther was a Reformer.

Luther and Erasmus are small examples of how each mindset dealt with life. Schaeffer’s point in the difference of worldview is seen in Erasmus and his friends who began with man in the pursuit of truth. They considered what can be learned from experience, the senses, and the material world around him. Luther and the reformers sought to look to God’s word to understand who he is and what God expects of man. From scripture the reformers sought the Creator and knowledge of the creation. The first was man-centered while the latter was God-centered.

So What?

We will pause our survey of these six large steps which have occurred over the past 1500ish years. We will continue on to the four traits I listed at the top of this page in the next post. I wish now to give us food for thought in the moment.

I stated above that We must be careful who we look to and how we use it. History again and again has shown that when the church follows in the steps of pagans the church begins to deteriorate. During the 1400-1500’s there were members of the church reading and trying to utilize the writings of Greek Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle for church function and doctrine. It is true that a man of God might learn a thing or two from an unbeliever, yet we must be cautious how we use it. Today’s various Critical Theories that have been embraced by much of the American church is rooted in Karl Marx. Today’s Critical Theory seeks to challenge absolute divine truth of the Creator and Lord for no other purpose than just to ask another question. It is an unhealthy system that does not seek to discover truth but challenge any and all that claim truth.

When pastors and churches of the 13, 14, & 1500’s tried to merge Greek Philosophy with theology, the results were catastrophic as we will see in the next post.

So also today it is dangerous for churches and church leaders to look to writings and ideas that flow from Marx and other men with similar minds. These must not be used as “analytical tools” for Bible study as the Southern Baptists moved for in 2018. When a denomination is curiously toying with Marx and woke ideas the local church needs to speak up. Email and write, as a local church, to the leaders of that denomination. The repetition of history shows that such practices of godless ideas leads to demise and destruction.

The ideas of Marx and friends are the Greek Philosophers of our day.