July-August 1999

But Were They Really the ''Good Old Days?''

by Dean Merrill
Excerpted and condensed by Monte Wolverton from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church by permission Zondervan Publishing House, © 1997.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back to an earlier, more wholesome time in America? Wouldn't it be great to live in a country without gangsta rap and sleazy videos, without politicians defending abortion and squelching prayer in school, a place where people went to church on Sunday and lived throughout the week by what they heard there?

That would be wonderful. How about turning the clock back to 1915? Ford Motor Company turned out its millionth car that year; Alexander Graham Bell managed to get a phone call all the way from New York City to San Francisco; Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) was put in jail; and Woodrow Wilson, the home-schooled son of Presbyterian missionaries, lived in the White House and said things like "America was born a Christian nation for the purpose of exemplifying to the nations of the world the principles of righteousness found in the Word of God."

"Good Old Days"?

While in the "good old days" certain social proprieties prevailed on the surface, the way people actually behaved revealed their true character.

Stephanie Coontz, who teaches at Evergreen State University in Olympia, Washington, writes that in the middle of the 19th century, "New York City had one prostitute for every 64 men; the mayor of Savannah estimated his city had one for every 39." Marvin Olasky says that abortion "was as proportionately frequent on the eve of the Civil War as it is now. There were roughly 160,000 abortions in 1860 in a nonslave population of 27 million. (The numbers among slaves are unknown.) This was almost the equivalent of our current figure."

Moving forward to the Depression of the 1930s, Coontz notes that "divorce rates fell, but desertion and domestic violence rose sharply. Murder rates in the '30s were as high as in the 1980s." Come to think of it, even on the old Waltons television series about days filled with family warmth and love, the father studiously avoided going to church. Religion was for his wife and children only.

Coontz presents her research in a 1992 book titled, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. Among its shocking revelations are the following.

· While 20 percent of American children live in poverty today, 20 percent of kids in 1900 lived in orphanages, often because their parent(s) couldn't afford them. Which is worse -- living with a mom and/or a dad without enough money, or living with neither in an institution?

· In the 19th century, the age of sexual consent in some states was nine or ten.

· Prior to the 1920s, no law required a divorcing father to pay child support.

A friend of mine gave me a unique birthday present a few years ago: a mint-condition copy of Life magazine from the week I was born, near the end of 1943. The most intriguing article is titled, "Our Kids Are in Trouble." Says the subhead: "The phenomenal rise in juvenile delinquency during the war is a problem which concerns everyone in the U.S." Photos show teenage boys smoking marijuana and teenage girls waiting on the street to be picked up. "Too many Victory Girls believe it is a part of patriotism to deny nothing to servicemen," one caption reads.

Example after example runs on for eight pages in small print, documenting the loose morals and transgressions of young people: a gang rape in the Bronx, a 17-year-old in Kansas City who admitted marrying three different girls in less than a year, the Navy having to build a fence around a Detroit armory to keep out the young women.

I do not point out these things to defame America or its people. In all of the periods mentioned above, there were also godly men and women who raised responsible children and did their best to improve the moral climate of their day.

But it is fundamentally dishonest to pretend that their righteousness was the prevailing lifestyle and that the devil was hard up for recruits until Mick Jagger came along.

Incitements to Virtue

Maybe we should go further back -- back to the founding fathers. After all, their lofty vision shaped this country in the very beginning. They were men of courage and brilliance. We thrill to their ringing quotes today.

"Whosoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"It is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can surely stand."
-- John Adams

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
-- George Washington

"I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."
-- French observer
Alexis de Tocqueville

Unfortunately, four of the above five sound bites (all but the Adams line) are apparently bogus! Eagerness to paint a certain picture has run ahead of scholarship. No less a scholar than David Barton, well- known conservative Christian author and speaker on the Christian roots of America, has published a list of such doubtful quotes -- sayings being passed around in the Christian media these days that in fact were never uttered or at least can't be documented.

The founding fathers did, however, hold a high view of religion, and they welcomed its influence in strengthening the new nation. Jefferson spoke approvingly of all "incitements to virtue" that could help elevate society.

But beyond religion, the founding fathers held an even loftier view of the capacity of reasonable men and women to do the reasonable thing. In fact, you will notice them even capitalizing the word Reason, as if it were a god of sorts. This shows the influence of the Enlightenment, the secular philosophical movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that held that human beings are bright enough to solve most problems if they will only apply their minds.

If only it were that simple.... Perhaps this helps us to understand why the beloved United States Constitution, cherished as one of the most brilliant documents of the ages, does not mention the name of God even once. The 55 very intelligent statesmen who gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 felt they had all the wisdom they needed to chart the shape of a government of checks and balances. Only late in the proceedings, when they became deadlocked, did the venerable Benjamin Franklin suggest that maybe they should pause to pray.

When someone questioned Alexander Hamilton about the omission of God's name in the text, he reportedly answered, "We forgot."

Personal Views

Were the founding fathers perhaps just being coy? Were they trying not to wear their faith on their sleeve so as to avoid needless arguments, but deep down firmly holding God at the center of their worldview, at the center of their personal hope for eternal life?

In some cases, yes. Patrick Henry's faith was undeniably deep. John Jay of New York, first chief justice of the Supreme Court, was equally devout, as was John Witherspoon of New Jersey, the one minister to sign the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin, however, liked listening to preachers such as George Whitefield but never got much further than seeing Christ as a good moral teacher.

John Adams, our second president, read the Bible and led a moral life. But on the subject of the incarnation and deity of Jesus Christ, he was downright blunt. "This awful blasphemy" needed to be gotten rid of, he wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

Someone asked James Madison late in life to explain his views on the being and attributes of God. He answered that he had essentially stopped thinking about those subjects fifty years before, while a student at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). His life had been too occupied with the excitement of the Revolution.

George Washington was more circumspect in his remarks, to the point that it is hard to know where he really stood.

In the decade before his life got hectic during the Revolution, he showed up at his Anglican church only about ten times a year -- even though he was a vestryman there. Says one biographer: "His religion, though no doubt perfectly sincere, was a social performance.... He seems never to have taken communion."

Once in leadership of the Continental Army, Washington took a laissez-faire attitude toward his soldiers' morals. Church historians tell about a chaplain to Washington's troops, the Reverend Alexander MacWhorter, who inspired everyone on December 7, 1776, with a blistering sermon attacking the "Papist Highland barbarians" (Scottish troops on the other side). "But the irony was that, full of condemnation for British evil as the sermon was, MacWhorter never said one word about the 200 or more camp-following women, perhaps the largest gathering of prostitutes to that day on American soil, who with the troops listened to his sermon" (The Search for Christian America, Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, George Marsden).

Finally, what about Thomas Jefferson? He read the New Testament daily. Yet, with his Enlightenment loyalties, he could not stomach the "unreasonable" parts. So he actually went to the work of getting his scissors and cutting out the verses that offended him. Out went the miracles of Jesus and the apostles. Out went the Resurrection. Out went all mention of Christ as divine. He pasted together what remained into his own truncated version, 46 pages "of pure and unsophisticated doctrine," with a title page that read, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French & English." You can go and see it in a museum today.

He denounced the idea of the Trinity as "mere abracadabra." The deity of Christ, his resurrection, the divine authority of Scripture -- all were the "deliria of crazy imaginations." Near the end of his life he admitted, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."

The Holy Commonwealth

When American Christians today cry for a return to the founding principles, what they have in mind, without realizing it, is less the philosophy of Washington and Jefferson than that of the Pilgrim settlers 150 years earlier. There one finds the up-front, openly Christian proclamations:

"In ye name of God Amen. We whose names are underwritten doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye presence of God, and one of another, covenant, & combine ourselves togeather into a civill body politick."
-- The Mayflower Compact, 1620

"We shall find that the God of Israel is among us when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations: 'The Lord make it like that of New England. For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill.'"
-- John Winthrop, on board the Arbella, 1630, en route to become the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

All right now! Here we have a politician with guts. No squirming around with tolerance talk, no fuzziness about eternal truth. This would be the New Israel, a called-out people dedicated to serving Almighty God as earnestly and completely as possible.

Thus it was entirely logical, according to a 1641 Massachusetts law, that "if any manshall have or worship any other god, but the Lord God, he shall be put to death." A person could also get capital punishment for witchcraft, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery and kidnapping.

On a lesser scale, people also were expected to be diligent in educating their offspring. If they were not, "The selectmen [town councilmen], on finding children ignorant, may take them away from their parents and put them into better hands, at the expense of their parents."

How would you like to put that power in the hands of big government today?

Less than a year after Governor Winthrop arrived, however, a troublemaker named Roger Williams landed. He was a minister, but he didn't buy the idea that this, or any other specific land, could be specially chosen by God. Ever since the coming of Christ, he argued, God had been building a spiritual nation of his born-again people, and it wouldn't work to try to set up a temporal "holy, commonwealth." The Massachusetts populace dealt with Williams for a few years and finally kicked him out. He headed south to start a new colony called Rhode Island.

Williams was not trying to say that doctrine didn't matter or that moral living was unimportant. On the contrary, he believed the Christian walk was so demanding that no community could possibly be made up entirely of true believers, and therefore it was better not to mix church and state. As the decades went by, other people came around to his view, realizing that the "New Israel" just was not working very well.

Post-Christian Culture

In our time, many Christians are decrying the arrival of what they call a "post-Christian culture." Books, speeches, seminars and broadcasts lament the sad state of affairs.

I agree: Our society is post-Christian. But it has been post-Christian for more than three hundred years. If I had to pick a marker date, it would not be 1992, or 1973, or 1962. It would be 1684, when, after much transatlantic arguing, the King of England finally revoked the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter, installed his own governor, and opened up voting to every landowner (white male, that is), whether Congregationalist, Anglican, Quaker, Jew or even infidel.

The Puritan leaders were aghast, knowing full well that this meant the end of the "Righteous Empire."

In 1674, Samuel Torrey wrote: "Truly, the very heart of New England is changed, and exceedingly corrupted with the sins of the times. There is a spirit of profaneness, a spirit of worldliness, a spirit of sensuality, a spirit of gainsaying and rebellion, a spirit of libertinism, a spirit of carnality."

But you can pick any decade you like -- and you will find undeniable evidence of widespread secularism and disregard for Christian morals. Turn the clock ahead all the way to the 1950s, a time often praised today for its wholesomeness and goodwill. The president during that decade, Dwight D. Eisenhower, revealed the shallowness of his Christian understanding when he said, astonishingly, "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith -- and I don't care what it is."

This is indeed a post-Christian society -- no doubt about it. It has been for at least three centuries now. Does this mean we should not respect America? Not at all. I love my country very much. I just do not expect a great deal in terms of moral example. To get a picture of true righteousness and moral living, I must look not to the 1920s, or the 1820s, or the 1720s, but to the Word of God.

James Davison Hunter gives a helpful perspective: "America will never really be a city upon a hill, and if it is, it will be by necessity a city whose walls are crumbling and always in need of repair; America will never be a beacon, except one that is not so bright and that is periodically prone to go out.... America will always be flawed. For Christians and many Jews, this is not compromise but a frank recognition that the world will always be marred by sin, and that the believer's true citizenship is in heaven."

Os Guinness reinforces this last point when he writes: "For Christians of all people, no part of the pastshould be considered a golden age -- on principle. The Christian's golden age, by definition, is in the future. The pride and gratitude that Christians feel toward the past should be balanced with an acknowledgment of its unfinished work and its darker side."

Chosen or Merely Blessed?

Living today in this land of the free and home of the brave, we may openly say that, despite our shortcomings, we are a blessed people. God has given us everything from a temperate climate to rich soil to bountiful mineral resources to usable harbors to stunning scenery.

But that is not the same as saying we are his chosen people. If we were officially chosen for his special favors, where would that leave the Canadians, the Koreans, the Brazilians and all the other societies with sizable Christian populations? Would they be second-class by comparison?

We would do well to use the opportunities before us and not waste time pining for "the good old days" of 40 years ago -- or 80 or 220 or 370. Church attendance has not fallen off a cliff; the best available statistics show a more-or-less level line in the 30-to-45 percent zone ever since the early 1800s. Some liberties to preach the gospel have been curtailed (access to public school students, for example), while at the same time technology has invented new ones (radio, television, videocassette, the Internet) that revivalists Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney never had the opportunity to use.

Regardless of contemporary problems, hostile attitudes and trendy relativism, we are not that much worse off than our forebears, and the power of Christ is more than enough to meet the challenge. 

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