As to why this cultural breakdown has taken place, a statement first

published in 1836 in the old McGuffeyÕs Eclectic Reader seems prophetic:

If you can induce a community to doubt the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures; to
question the reality and obligations of religion; to hesitate, undeciding, whether there be any
such thing as virtue or vice; whether there be an eternal state of retribution beyond the grave; or
whether there exists any such being as God, you have broken down the barriers of moral virtue
and hoisted the flood gates of immorality and crime. . . . Every bond that holds society together
would be ruptured; fraud and treachery would take the place of confidence between man and
man; the tribunals would be scenes of bibery and injustice; avarice, perjury, ambition and
revenge would walk through the land and render it more like the dwelling of savage beasts than
the tranquil abode of civilized and Christianized men.

Richard C. Halverson:
In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women, centering on the living Christ.
Then it moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it
became an institution. Next it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. Now it has moved to
America, where it has become an enterprise.

To be perfectly honest, some laws seem to apply to me, some I disregard. Some tenets of the
Catholic Church add up, others are absurd, or even insulting. I don’t need the Pope, the press, or
some lowly cop to tell me how to live my life. That’s the way I honestly see it, and I don’t think
I’ve ever actually verbalized the thought before.
A woman lawyer from Washington, D.C., quoted in
The Day America Told the Truth, p. 27.

The trouble when people stop believing in God is not that they thereafter believe in nothing, it is
that they thereafter believe in anything. G.K. Chesterton

The gospel is not a tranquilizer for worried weaklings to help them sleep at night. It is not a mass
of dead dogmas, deep frozen in some ancient cathedral to be carried as a burden through life and
thawed out five minutes before death. The gospel is not a list of religious rules and regulations to
be strung around the soul like a lucky charm in case of accidents. No, the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ is a message; and what a message! It is a living message from the living God for
living people with sins just like us, for people with sorrows and heartaches just like us. It is the
only message on the face of the earth with concrete promises and absolute assurances of an
eternal inheritance that will withstand the impact of death and the collapse of the universe. J.
Boyd Nicholson in Uplook, Nov. 1997, p. 11.

If any man be a dumb Christian, not professing his faith openly, but cloaking and colouring
himself for fear of danger in time to come, he giveth men occasion, just and with good
conscience, to doubt lest he have not the grace of the Holy Ghost within him, because he is
tongue tied and doth not speak. John Jewel in 1571.

I think seeker-sensitive churches use a completely wrong strategy. A person who comes into a
Christian church for the first time should feel out of place. He should feel this community
engages in practices so important they take time to learn. The best thing we can do for seekers is
to create an environment where newcomers feel they are missing something vital, that one has to
be inculcated into this, and that it’s a discipline. Few people grasp that today. But the early
church grasped it very well. History professor Robert Wilken in Critique, 1997, No. 9, p. 7.

Some churches are like malls, offering everything under a single roof, from overeaters
anonymous to joggers for Christ. Pastors feel pressure to act like businessmen whose goal is to
attract the most customers. The church cannot model the kingdom of God if it is conformed to
the kingdoms of man. Charles Colson in A Dangerous Grace.

No deity will save us; we must save ourselves. Humanist Manifesto II.

Under the phony canopy of what is deceptively described as value-free education, public school
students are being...indoctrinated in all kinds of value-charged ideas. The only thing we can
know for certain is that only one set of values is deemed out of bounds in this process, and that is
the values of the Christian worldview. Roland H. Nash

As ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend
the smallest foundation to falsehood. Oliver Goldsmith

Christianity is a “religion for losers.” Ted Turner

“Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”
Augustine, The Confessions.

“There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully

maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.” Will Durant, historian.

“Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning, an endeavor to find our place on a
cloudy sea.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Why have law and order deteriorated so rapidly in the United States? Simply because for many
years it has been commonly taught that life is a random, accidental phenomenon with no
meaning except the purely materialistic one. Laws are merely a matter of human expediency.
Since humans are allegedly accidents, so are their laws. A. E. Wilder-Smith, The Creation of
Life (Costa Mesa, Calif.: TWFT Publishers, 1970), ix.

The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. Francis
Bacon

The equal toleration of all religions...is the same thing as atheism. Pope Leo XIII

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle. George Washington

The West appears to have said its definitive farewell to a Christian culture. Our secular
colleagues are happy to recognize the debt our civilization owes to the Christian faith to the
extent that the faith, having been absorbed by culture itself, has become simply another cultural
artifact. Christianity has become a historical factor subservient to a secular culture rather than
functioning as the creative power it once was. Yale professor Louis Dupre (quoted in Christian
Century, July 16, 1997, p. 654).

The best “public relations” for the church is authentic sanctity [on the part of all its members,
but] when virtue may be sadly lacking, the only appropriate response is honesty. John Foley

Giving same-sex relationships or out-of-wedlock heterosexual couples the same special status
and benefits as the marital bond would not be the expansion of a right, but the destruction of a
principle. One can no more expand the definition of marriage than one can expand the definition
of a yardstick and still use it as a reliable measure. Robert Knight in testimony before the
Maryland state legislature (in At the Podium, March 12, 1997, p. 3).

Almost two-thirds of adults think that ethics vary from one situation to another or that there is no
unchanging ethical standard of right and wrong. Among the 18-34 age group, the proportion of
those who hold that view is even higher 79%. Pastor’s Weekly Briefing, May 23, 1997, p. 2.

Biblical standards no longer matter to most people. A recent Family Research Council survey
found that 56% of Americans believe that there should be no judgment and no reproof for
unmarried couples who have babies. Among 18-34-year-olds the percentage was 70%. Focus on
the Family donor letter, September 1996, p. 1.

Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time: they therefore who are decrying the
Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure, are undermining the solid foundation
of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. James McHenry, Secretary of
War, ca. 1800.

Having forgotten church manners, people are substituting those that would be proper for a
performance. Musicians in church are supposed to play or sing for the glory of God, not the
pleasure of the congregation. That is why there should be no applause in church. Not even for
small children who particularly need to have the purpose of their performance explained to them.
Judith “Miss Manners” Martin (quoted in World, Aug. 31, 1996, p. 26).

The church does not have unlimited freedom to conform the gospel to the attitudes and values of
a culture for the purpose of gaining adherents. Harry Poe, The Gospel and Its Meaning,
Zondervan, 1996.

The danger in a popular democracy is that we may try to democratize God. If we donÕt like
God’s program, we can simply vote Him out and run for office ourselves. Cornelius Platinga Jr.
(quoted in Christianity Today, Sept. 1, 1997, p. 62).

When the church accommodates worldly culture, it deserves both the internal decay and external
contempt it suffers. Andrew Sandlin (in Chalcedon Report, Sept. 1997, p. 4).

Everybody’s always said that the questors for the historic Jesus were peering into a deep,
crystalline pool in which they saw their own reflection and then gasped at how relevant Jesus
was for their day! Actually what happens in the lives of these people is that they lose their faith,
and their quest for the historical Jesus is a response to that loss of faith. [They] started out with a
particular theological agenda. Either, “I’ve lost my faith” or “I’ve decided on a very different
faith from the one I had before,” and “Now I will do a quest for the historical Jesus to justify my
new theological position.” Catholic priest and professor John Meier (Insight, Sept. 22, 1997, p.
20).

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every
member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be
obliged in conscience to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity
towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God. What a utopia,
what a paradise this region would be. President John Adams
It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that
hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is not love and it is not
friendship if we fail to declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the
truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a
power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated. It’s better to stand alone with the
truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with the truth than to
temporarily succeed with a lie. Adrian Rogers (quoted in Berean Call, Dec. 1996, p. 3).

The early church was not market-driven. It did not make Christianity particularly user friendly.
Converts had to go through extensive, lengthy catechesis and examination before they were
accepted for baptism. In the ultimate barrier to new member assimilation, those who did become
Christians faced the death penalty. Nevertheless, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the church
grew like wildfire. Gene Veith (in Modern Reformation, July/August 1996, p. 6).

Christianity in modern America is, in large part, innocuous. It tends to be easy, upbeat,
convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, an other-
worldly outlook, a zeal for souls, a fear as well as love of God. Thomas Reeves (quoted in
Servant, Winter 1997, p. 2).

Berkley church seeks minister for local nondenominational congregation. Position open to
Christians and non-Christians. From a classified ad in Christian Century, Nov. 6, 1996, p.
1094.

Truth is slain to provide a feast to celebrate the marriage of heaven and hell, and to support a
concept of unity which has no basis in the Word of God. The Spirit-illuminated church will have
none of this. In a fallen world like ours unity is no treasure to be purchased at the price of
compromise. Loyalty to God, faithfulness to truth, and the preservation of a good conscience are
jewels more precious than gold. The religious camp followers of meaningless unity have not the
courage to stand against current vogues and bleat for brotherhood because it happens to be for
the time popular. A.W. Tozer (in Milk & Honey, Nov. 1996, p. 2).

I affirm the resurrection of Jesus, but I have no idea if anything happened to his corpse. Jesus
Seminar scholar, Marcus Borg (quoted in Pastoral Psychology, Nov. 1996, p. 97).

We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the
press, the world of sports, or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our
message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum. A.W. Tozer
It behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

By implication, the language of religious belief has been reduced to purely emotional talk,
superstitious inclination, not worthy of academic recognition, or acceptable in public discourse.
As a result, people have been left fragmented and alienated within society without shame and
with no point of reference for decency, and pluralization left society without reason and with no
point of reference for rationality. Privatization ‘born from the union of the other two’ has left
people without meaning and with no point of reference for life’s coherence. The greatest victim
of evil so engendered is the self. We no longer know who we are as people. Ravi Zacharias,
Deliver Us From Evil, p. 108.

At various times, Jesus publicly denounced sinners as snakes, dogs, foxes, hypocrites, fouled
tombs, and dirty dishes. So that His hearers would not miss the point, He sometimes referred to
the objects of His most intense ridicule both by name and by position, and often face to face.
Christ did not affirm sinners; He affirmed the repentant. He well understood that sometimes it is
wrong to be nice. Theologian Michael Bauman (quoted in Tabletalk, June 1996, p. 58).

We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon
doctrine, dull dogma, as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma
that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the
imagination of man and the dogma is the drama. Dorothy Sayers (quoted in New Covenant, Jan.
1998, p. 6).