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Moral degeneration refers to the process of declining from a higher to a lower level of [[morality]]. The condition of moral degeneration is seen as concomitant with the decline of the quality of life, and the decline of [[nations]]. In the words of Judge Devlin, "an established morality is as necessary as good government to the welfare of society. Societies disintergrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures.<ref>Devlin, in Dworkin pp.76-7, (1977)</ref>
==Moral standards==
In order for morality to be upheld, and degeneration to be effectively measured, standards must exist as points of moral reference. These standards are derived from formal religious sources, or secular ideology. All governments, and their legal and educational institutions operate out some basic beliefs. In America, it was widely held that, in the words of [[Theodore Roosevelt]], "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society", with the morality referred to being historically principally that of the Bible.<ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html Cause and Effect: The Bible, the Educational System, and It's Influence]</ref>
In the realm of formal religion, moral codes are past on via sacred [[scriptures]] and or [[tradition]], which usually transcend time. However, cultural adaptations may be made as needed, while upholding the principal of the original.<ref> An example from Biblical law would be the prohibition in [[Leviticus 18]]:21 (cf. 20:5) of child dedication or literal child sacrifice to the [[Canaanite]] god [[Molech]] While the deity at subject is not an issue today, [[Christians]] may understand this (and like condemnations: (Eze. 16:20-21; 20:31; Jer. 32:35; 2Ki. 23:10; 16:3; 17:17; 21:6, cf. Psa_106:37-38) as forbidding [[abortion]], and or giving their children over to be raised under false ideologies.</ref> This adaptation is an area of [[theology]].
According to the [[New Testament]], conscience and creation reveals essential moral truth, with the Scriptures being the more comprehensive revelation, and the objective and immutable authority by which the truthfulness of any light of conscience is determined.<ref>Dr. John Gill (1690-1771), ''Exposition of the Entire Bible'', Romans 2</ref><ref>B. W. Johnson, ''The People's New Testament'' (1891), Romans 2:1-16</ref>
While all major formal religions usually possess basic moral commonalities, they can critically differ in some areas, including their manner or degree of adaptation, such as are seen in the contrasts between the [[Bible]] and the [[Qur'an]].<ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/JESUS.Vs.Muhammad.html MUHAMMAD VERSUS JESUS CHRIST]</ref>
Under secularism, religiously based laws may be upheld without requiring formal assent to one formal religion, as was the case in most of the history of the United States. However, as changes in spiritual demographics occur, one ideological basis may be exchanged for another, such as is seen in atheistic humanism increasingly becoming the basis for morality in America, and essentially being State-sponsored, and supplanting that which was more Bible-based,<ref>http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html</ref>
In the ideology of atheistic secular [[humanism]], which the most prominent Western form of secularism advances, moral values are highly subject to change, being based upon the presumed superior reasoning of man, who is set forth as the supreme lawgiver. Being basically atheistic, it operates out of a [[materialistic]] foundation, and lacking an objective, transcendent moral authority and its moral absolutes, it offers no assurance of moral stability, and is prone to extremes of [[moral relativism]].
How materialism assesses morality is described by William Provine, a professor from Cornell University,
{{cquote|Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with mechanistic principles. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces that are rationally detectable... Second, modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society. Thirdly, human beings are marvelously complex machines. The individual human becomes an ethical person by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influences. That is all there is. Fourth, we must conclude that when we die, we die and that is the end of us. <ref>from Philip Johnson, "Darwin On Trial", p. 126; Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993</ref>}}
==Causality==
===Biblical theology===
The cause of moral degeneration continues be a subject of study. In the Bible, moral decline was always a result of spiritual declension, that of falling into idolatry (the worship of false, gods), which is evidenced in the Bible to be the ''mother of all sins''. In addition to the transitory and finite nature of such created gods, these are seen to be forbidden due to their being the product of man's corrupt nature, such as is expressed in [[Romans 1]] in the [[Christian]] [[New Testament]]. Man also tends to become more like the object of his highest devotion and allegiance. (Psalm 115) God, who is stated to need nothing, (Acts 17:25) and being omnipotent, omniscient and perfect, (Dt. 32:4) is seen to command man to worship Him as a matter of righteousness, and which works towards man's benefit. (Dt. 6:1-13)
Certain environmental conditions are also seen as being conducive to idolatry and its spiritual and moral decline, these conditions most primarily being that of an abundance of sensual and material satisfaction, as well as ego fulfillment (pleasures, possessions and power). The Bible states that these created things are what the world "lusts" after, (1 John 2:16) and exhorts believers to set their controlling affection upon God and holy things. (Dt. 6:5; Col. 3; Phil. 4:8) The book of [[Deuteronomy]] expresses that after [[Israel]] was blessed for its obedience, then the people "waxed fat" and then "forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." (Dt. 32:15) [[Ezekiel]] 16:49,50 states that the overall sins of [[Sodom]] were "pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness", and indifference to the poor and needy, and who committed abomination, revealed to be fornication, and that of a most perverse manner, resulting in their utter destruction. ''See:'' [[Homosexuality and biblical interpretation]]
2 Chronicles 26:16 records that when King Uzziah increased in power, then "his heart was lifted up to his destruction", after he presumed to priestly powers that were not his. Some of the greatest examples in the Bible of Godly men, are those who maintained their faith and spiritual relationship with God in both adversity and abundance, in affliction and affluence, such as Job, Daniel and the [[apostle Paul]], (Phil. 4:12) in addition to [[Jesus Christ]]. (Heb. 4:15)
In America, the tendency to drift away from faith in times of prosperity was observed early by Puritan preacher Cotton Mather (1663-1728) who stated, "Religion begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother".<ref>Magnalia Christi Americana (The Great Achievement of Christ in America, 1702)</ref>
A latter acknowledgment of this guilt and the need to place priorities where they should be was eloquently expressed by President Abraham Lincoln in his ''Proclamation for a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer'', issued in the midst (1863) of the [[American Civil War]], which reads (in part),
{{cquote|Whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His Divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.<ref>Robert Nicholson Scott, ''The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union...'', p. 106, United States. War Dept (1899) </ref> <ref>Frank Moore, ''The Rebellion record: a diary of American events, with documents, narratives...'', Vol. 3, p. 490</ref><ref>http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/ProclamationNationalFastDay.html</ref>,}}
===Secular ideology===
Moral decline begins when transcendent moral values, which have proven to be beneficial over time, are discarded in preference to various ideas which the man finds more conducive to achieving ultimately destructive lustful desires.
The objectively baseless moral foundation of [[atheism]] is seen by many as having allowed atheists such as [[Mao Zedong]] and [[Pol Pot]] to easily justify their atrocities, these being pragmatically ''reasonable'' to them. <ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Atheism1.html ATHEISM VERSUS CHRIST]</ref><ref>http://www.scholarscorner.com/apologia/deathtoll.html</ref> The corresponding responses from atheists, such as invokes Hitler as an example of a Christian, and charges God with immorality, is part of a renewed conflict.<ref>http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45&mode=detail</ref><ref>http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/existence.html</ref>
==Examples of development and decline==
===Biblical examples===
The Bible, containing extensive historical narratives, provides many personal and corporate examples of spiritual and moral development declension, otherwise know as ''backsliding''.[Old Testament]].<ref>http://www.biblegateway.com/topical/Backsliders/Nave</ref> Israel was provided much grace by way of superior laws and leaders such as Moses and Joshua, and and enjoyed blessings of obedience, as recorded in the [[Torah]] (and in such overviews as Psalms 105), but soon they overall "dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not" to God's commandments, as succinctly rehearsed by Nehemiah (cp. 9) and Psalms 105,107, Acts 7, and [[Old Testament]] prophets such as Hosea. by people and also of nations. with [[Israel]] being the primary focus in the [ Psalms 78 and 106, In the [[New Testament]] the [[apostle Paul]]'s letters to the [[Corinthians]] reveals the most manifest example of corporate backsliding of a Christian church. The grace given to men such as Kings Saul, David, Solomon, Asa and Hezekiah, and their subsequent failures, provide examples of souls who whose walked in disobedience, to their and Israel's hurt, though in such examples sas David, earnest repentance enables more usefulness. In the New Testament, a higher plane of holiness is exhorted and enabled, (Rm. 8:4), with 1 John delineating what manner of faith is efficacious to salvation. Examples of backsliding (which presumes a period of growth first) are more incidental, such as Peter's denial of Christ, (Mk. 14:66-72) and (implicitly) of Gentile equality under pressure, (Gal. 2:9-14) and are offset by overall holy lives, while men such as Demas (who "hath forsaken me [Paul], having loved this present world": 2 Tim. 4:10) indicate a more willful spiritual and moral departure.
===China===
China's long recorded history testifies to both various degrees of moral virtue as well as moral declension and its consequences, and to some degree of reform. Recent evidence indicates moral degeneration is seen an increasing problem in China today. One influential contemporary moralist comments, "The problem isn’t that people don’t follow moral standards; the problem is that there no longer exist moral standards.” He attributes the loss of morality to five decades of atrophy under Communist political power, plus two decades of corrosion under the money and wealth brought by the Western market economy. <ref>Jiang Qing, quoted by Xujun Eberlein in ''China Has A Morality Crisis'', NAM, Commentary, Jan 23, 2008</ref>
===Roman Empire===
While pagan Rome evidenced that it yet retained a strong adherence many basic moral values, it gods themselves (mainly being forms of Greek deities) were immoral, and the Roman Empire followed the path of moral degeneration that would be its ruin. The moral deterioration of the Empire is seen to have attained its highest point in the dissolute age of the immoral Roman Emperors,<ref>Prof. Kurtz's church history, p. 25 (1889)</ref> almost all of which were active [[homosexuals]].
J.W. Shepard states,
<blockquote>The religion of the Romans had no power to cope with the degeneracy of the times. The philosophies of the Greeks failed. None of the philosophies could meet the deep moral needs of the times. The emperors were monsters of crime.
Thousands of lives were sacrificed in the arena to furnish entertainment for the Emperor and a bloodthirsty population. Luxury was beyond description. The horrible character of vice and crime is witnessed to by the excavated objects of Pompeii.
Seneca testified that children were considered with great disfavor and infant exposure was prevalent. Tacitus said that the spirit of the times was "to corrupt and to be corrupted."
Paul gives a picture in the Roman epistle of a people who had departed from the God revealed in nature and conscience, to set up for themselves, through vain independence, gods like unto creatures. From this idol worship they had gone on into moral degeneracy and crime until they were lost in a world of darkness and destruction.
This was the condition of the world morally when Jesus came, who was to "overcome the world" with His Gospel."
<ref>J.W. Shepard, "The Christ of the Gospels" Reprint, p. 15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982) </ref></blockquote>
Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889) adds,
<blockquote>Slavery was not even what we know it, but a seething mass of cruelty and oppression on the one side, and of cunning and corruption on the other. More than any other cause, it contributed to the ruin of Roman society. The freedmen, who had very often acquired their liberty by the most disreputable courses, and had prospered in them, combined in shameless manner the vices of the free with the vileness of the slave. The foreigners - especially Greeks and Syrians - who crowded the city, poisoned the springs of its life by the corruption which they brought. The free citizens were idle, dissipated, sunken; their chief thoughts of the theatre and the arena; and they were mostly supported at the public cost. While, even in the time of Augustus, more than two hundred thousand persons were thus maintained by the State, what of the old Roman stock remained was rapidly decaying, partly from corruption, but chiefly from the increasing cessation of marriage, and the nameless abominations of what remained of family-life.<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edersheim/lifetimes.vii.xi.html Edersheim, ''Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah'', CHAPTER XI.]</ref>
</blockquote>
''See also [[Roman Homosexuality]]
===The United States===
[[America]] is seen to be somewhat unique in the degree of strong moral foundation which was founded upon, with a strong Biblically based influence, which was strengthened as a result of religious revivals, and which affected a strong union of faith and civil life in the new [[Republic]]. French historian Alexis de Tocqueville commented,
{{cquote|The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.<ref>Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII (1835)</ref>}}
The [[Puritans]] in [[New England]], and other Christian groups were instrumental in forming a country with a distinctive Christian character. Though the extreme of creating theocracies ruling over those without (contrary to the charter given to the church in the New Testament<ref>John 18:36; 1Cor. 5:12,13; 2 Cor 10:4; Eph. 6:12; Romans 13:1-5; 1Pet. 2:16</ref>) was resisted by men such as [[Baptist]] [[Roger Williams]] yet all 50 states referred to God in their Constitutions,<ref>http://www.whateveristrue.com/heritage/preamble.htm</ref> and the effect of a Bible based Christianity is credited with working to bring souls to be ruled from within by God and a sound conscience, thus helping to enable relatively small government and yet promote stability in a vast and fertile country with multitude of different peoples, and to endure and overcome many serious negative consequences of the abuse of freedom, and the iniquity of unjust bondage.
While not all the Founders were Christian, none were known atheists, and Deists such as [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[James Madison]], and [[Thomas Paine]] upheld general Christian morality.
Primary in establishing a strong moral foundation was [[education]]. In elementary schooling in early America, the overtly Christian ''[[New England Primer]]'' was used in [[New England]], which is estimated to have sold upwards to 3,000,000 copies from 1700 to 1850. Introduced in 1690, this reader was used in what now would be the 1st grade, and taught multitudes of children how to read for 200 years, until 1900. The [[Alphabet]] was taught with Bible verses that began with each letter of the alphabet. Lessons had questions about the Bible and the Ten Commandments. An example of the Primer is, A = In Adam's fall, we sinned all. B = Heaven to find, the Bible mind."<ref>[http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.htm The Honorable Judge Robert Ulrich Chief Justice, Missouri Court Of Appeals, Western District]</ref>
In addition, approximately half of all American children (beginning in 1836 to approx 1930) learned from the ''[[McGuffey Reader]],'' of which 122 million copies were published (during a time when the population was much less than today, and books were passed on more). This was an advanced teaching system for it's time, written by a man who later became a Presbyterian minister, a work which earned him the title, “the Great Schoolmaster of the Nation.” He exalted the Lord Jesus Christ, and used the Bible more than any other source. It became a unifying force in American culture, instilling basic Christian-based morality, giving America a common value-laden body of literary reference and allusion,<ref>Cranney, A. Garr, 'Noah Webster and William Holmes McGuffey: The Men and Their Contributions to Reading''</ref> and “a sense of common experience and of common possession”. <ref>Historian Henry Steele Commager</ref> McGuffey Readers were used widely in America until just after World War I.
After requiring literacy in Latin (in which language the Scripture were then mostly written), the second requirement in “Harvard Lawes” of 1642 was that "Every one shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. (Joh. 17:3) The overall religious nature of colleges and universities continued at least until the Civil War. Even State colleges had significant religious (most always Christian) components, such as mandatory religion courses and attendance at chapel services, while large numbers of their faculties had formal religious training. <ref>Ringenberg, 1984; Marsden and Longfield, 1962; Ronald W. Fagan and Raymond G. DeVries, ''The practice of sociology at Christian liberal arts colleges and universities''; The American Sociologist, June, 1994</ref>
The first elementary schools also taught Christian morality, and even the [[Unitarian]] (see note:<ref>Unitarianism at the time was a means of being called Christian and overall upholding a god degree of Bible morality, while denying the divinity of Christ and plenary Divine inspiration of Scripture, and thus it has become a strong hold of immoral liberals today.</ref>) ''Father of the Common School'', Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 — August 02, 1859), who became Massachusetts Secretary of Education in 1837, not only understood the impossibility of separating education from religious moral beliefs, but held that it was lawful to teach the truths of the general Christian faith, asserting that the “laws of Massachusetts required the teaching of the basic moral doctrines of Christianity.” Mann, who supported prohibition of alcohol and intemperance, slavery and lotteries, (http://www.famousamericans.net/horacemann) dreaded “intellectual eminence when separated from virtue”, that education, if taught without moral responsibilities, would produce more evil than it inherited. (William Jeynes, “American educational history: school, society, and the common good,” p. 149, 150)
While iniquity was always a significant part of America, it was generally held as shameful and overall resisted by Church and State. Early on, in a pamphlet for Europeans titled ''Information to Those Who Would Remove to America'' (1754), Benjamin Franklin wrote, in part:
{{cquote|...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems...pleased to favor the whole country.<ref>John Gould Curtis, ''American history told by contemporaries ...'', Volume 3,p. 26 </ref>}}
During certain periods of America's growth moral degradation increased America, and a strong correlation was felt between loss of Christian religious devotion and the increase in iniquity. America's faith saw revival as a result of the [[First Great Awakening]] in the 1730s and 1740, and which is held to have began the [[Evangelical Christian]] movement. During the period of approximately 1800-1830 the [[Second Great Awakening]] took place, and the [[Third Great Awakening]] occurring from the late 1850's to the early 1900's. These revivals had a profound spiritual and civil impact on Christian faith within America and [[England]], and worked toward the abolition of the well-entrenched historical institution of slavery.
While not preventing the [[American Civil War]], a heightened moral sense of guilt and accountability is seen expressed by President Abraham Lincoln's ''Proclamation for a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer'' (1863).
The 1800's also saw a notable increase in the charitable work by private persons and agencies. In 1835 De Tocqueville<ref>Democracy in America</ref> noted that early America had no distinct class of wealth that could be turned to in times of need to relieve suffering. Associations necessarily formed to create the means to deal with problems and reflected a compassion for all those in trouble. Many agencies created during that time exist today. <ref>http://74.52.60.18/~npt/index.php?page=1800-s A Chronological HISTORY OF PHILANTHROPY in America.</ref>
====Early to mid 20th century====
Religiously, the early 1900's saw a revival of [[Pentecostalism]], as well as the rise of Evangelical Christian ''[[Fundamentalism]]'' as a distinct form. The latter was manifested in response to the growth of ''[[liberal Christianity]]'' and doctrinally labored to combat its move away from historical Christan faith, especially as concerned Christ and salvation, and strong emphasis upon personal morality. Liberal theology also placed primary emphasis on a [[social gospel]], and in its commendable commitment to uphold the primacy of basic doctrine, and tend to the spiritual needs of souls, opportunities to meet social needs of those without tended to be marginalized, an overreaction that some later recognized as an imbalance.<ref>Frank E. Gaebelein, ''Evangelicals and Social Concern'', March 1982 </ref>
Educationally, the rise of [[Darwinism]] worked against the view of man as being made in the image of man and reduced him to being simply a higher order of primates, with morality having no firm foundation.
Economically, post [[World War 1]] capitalism and the ongoing [Industrial revolution]] helped enable more goods and funds for the general public.
Morally, much effort was expended in passing [[Prohibition in the United States]] (1920 to 1933), while the [[Roaring 20's]] manifested a marked degree of cultural rejection of traditional moral decency. The following [[Great Depression]] (1929-1940's) signaled an end to the economic boon, and post [[Word War Two]] saw the traditional family focused on, as many men and women [[married]] and raised children.
In the 1950's, the danger of [[Communism]] worked a renewed affirmation of America being a basically Christian nation, though no significant religious revival was evident, and [[liberal ideology]] increased its influence through colleges and universities, as well as the film industry.
====1960 and beyond====
The decade of the 1960's would begin the most dramatic moral change in America's history. While a more developed moral social consciousness helped to effect beneficial and needed changes, such as in the area of civil rights, based upon non-moral aspects as race and color, this recognition of basic equality was used by liberal moralists to advocate liberty for immorality, most predominately in the area of sensuality. The 1960's culminated with [[Woodstock]] 69, with the decade being marked by rebellion against authority in general (though usually not to living off it) and against capitalism, and the promotion and practice of pre-marital [[sex]], recreational drug use (seeking to escape, or find reality), the rise of [[feminism]] and the advocation of liberal ideology in general.
While most of the [[main stream media]] and University professors in America are seen to treat this ''revolution'' and its foundational ethos as liberating and beneficial, its effects have been manifestly deleterious, as evidenced by multitudinous studies. <ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html REVEALING STATISTICS]</ref>
Religiously, a notable number of young persons honestly seeking for reality became part of what some term a [[Fourth Great Awakening]], out of which evangelical churches such as [[Calvary Chapel]] began and grew to be significance denominations.
''See also [[morality]]
== References ==
{{reflist|2}}
==External links==
[[Category:Religion]][[Category:Ethics]][[Category:Virtues]]
==Moral standards==
In order for morality to be upheld, and degeneration to be effectively measured, standards must exist as points of moral reference. These standards are derived from formal religious sources, or secular ideology. All governments, and their legal and educational institutions operate out some basic beliefs. In America, it was widely held that, in the words of [[Theodore Roosevelt]], "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society", with the morality referred to being historically principally that of the Bible.<ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html Cause and Effect: The Bible, the Educational System, and It's Influence]</ref>
In the realm of formal religion, moral codes are past on via sacred [[scriptures]] and or [[tradition]], which usually transcend time. However, cultural adaptations may be made as needed, while upholding the principal of the original.<ref> An example from Biblical law would be the prohibition in [[Leviticus 18]]:21 (cf. 20:5) of child dedication or literal child sacrifice to the [[Canaanite]] god [[Molech]] While the deity at subject is not an issue today, [[Christians]] may understand this (and like condemnations: (Eze. 16:20-21; 20:31; Jer. 32:35; 2Ki. 23:10; 16:3; 17:17; 21:6, cf. Psa_106:37-38) as forbidding [[abortion]], and or giving their children over to be raised under false ideologies.</ref> This adaptation is an area of [[theology]].
According to the [[New Testament]], conscience and creation reveals essential moral truth, with the Scriptures being the more comprehensive revelation, and the objective and immutable authority by which the truthfulness of any light of conscience is determined.<ref>Dr. John Gill (1690-1771), ''Exposition of the Entire Bible'', Romans 2</ref><ref>B. W. Johnson, ''The People's New Testament'' (1891), Romans 2:1-16</ref>
While all major formal religions usually possess basic moral commonalities, they can critically differ in some areas, including their manner or degree of adaptation, such as are seen in the contrasts between the [[Bible]] and the [[Qur'an]].<ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/JESUS.Vs.Muhammad.html MUHAMMAD VERSUS JESUS CHRIST]</ref>
Under secularism, religiously based laws may be upheld without requiring formal assent to one formal religion, as was the case in most of the history of the United States. However, as changes in spiritual demographics occur, one ideological basis may be exchanged for another, such as is seen in atheistic humanism increasingly becoming the basis for morality in America, and essentially being State-sponsored, and supplanting that which was more Bible-based,<ref>http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/CauseEffect.html</ref>
In the ideology of atheistic secular [[humanism]], which the most prominent Western form of secularism advances, moral values are highly subject to change, being based upon the presumed superior reasoning of man, who is set forth as the supreme lawgiver. Being basically atheistic, it operates out of a [[materialistic]] foundation, and lacking an objective, transcendent moral authority and its moral absolutes, it offers no assurance of moral stability, and is prone to extremes of [[moral relativism]].
How materialism assesses morality is described by William Provine, a professor from Cornell University,
{{cquote|Modern science directly implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with mechanistic principles. There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces that are rationally detectable... Second, modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society. Thirdly, human beings are marvelously complex machines. The individual human becomes an ethical person by means of two primary mechanisms: heredity and environmental influences. That is all there is. Fourth, we must conclude that when we die, we die and that is the end of us. <ref>from Philip Johnson, "Darwin On Trial", p. 126; Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993</ref>}}
==Causality==
===Biblical theology===
The cause of moral degeneration continues be a subject of study. In the Bible, moral decline was always a result of spiritual declension, that of falling into idolatry (the worship of false, gods), which is evidenced in the Bible to be the ''mother of all sins''. In addition to the transitory and finite nature of such created gods, these are seen to be forbidden due to their being the product of man's corrupt nature, such as is expressed in [[Romans 1]] in the [[Christian]] [[New Testament]]. Man also tends to become more like the object of his highest devotion and allegiance. (Psalm 115) God, who is stated to need nothing, (Acts 17:25) and being omnipotent, omniscient and perfect, (Dt. 32:4) is seen to command man to worship Him as a matter of righteousness, and which works towards man's benefit. (Dt. 6:1-13)
Certain environmental conditions are also seen as being conducive to idolatry and its spiritual and moral decline, these conditions most primarily being that of an abundance of sensual and material satisfaction, as well as ego fulfillment (pleasures, possessions and power). The Bible states that these created things are what the world "lusts" after, (1 John 2:16) and exhorts believers to set their controlling affection upon God and holy things. (Dt. 6:5; Col. 3; Phil. 4:8) The book of [[Deuteronomy]] expresses that after [[Israel]] was blessed for its obedience, then the people "waxed fat" and then "forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation." (Dt. 32:15) [[Ezekiel]] 16:49,50 states that the overall sins of [[Sodom]] were "pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness", and indifference to the poor and needy, and who committed abomination, revealed to be fornication, and that of a most perverse manner, resulting in their utter destruction. ''See:'' [[Homosexuality and biblical interpretation]]
2 Chronicles 26:16 records that when King Uzziah increased in power, then "his heart was lifted up to his destruction", after he presumed to priestly powers that were not his. Some of the greatest examples in the Bible of Godly men, are those who maintained their faith and spiritual relationship with God in both adversity and abundance, in affliction and affluence, such as Job, Daniel and the [[apostle Paul]], (Phil. 4:12) in addition to [[Jesus Christ]]. (Heb. 4:15)
In America, the tendency to drift away from faith in times of prosperity was observed early by Puritan preacher Cotton Mather (1663-1728) who stated, "Religion begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother".<ref>Magnalia Christi Americana (The Great Achievement of Christ in America, 1702)</ref>
A latter acknowledgment of this guilt and the need to place priorities where they should be was eloquently expressed by President Abraham Lincoln in his ''Proclamation for a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer'', issued in the midst (1863) of the [[American Civil War]], which reads (in part),
{{cquote|Whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His Divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.<ref>Robert Nicholson Scott, ''The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union...'', p. 106, United States. War Dept (1899) </ref> <ref>Frank Moore, ''The Rebellion record: a diary of American events, with documents, narratives...'', Vol. 3, p. 490</ref><ref>http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/ProclamationNationalFastDay.html</ref>,}}
===Secular ideology===
Moral decline begins when transcendent moral values, which have proven to be beneficial over time, are discarded in preference to various ideas which the man finds more conducive to achieving ultimately destructive lustful desires.
The objectively baseless moral foundation of [[atheism]] is seen by many as having allowed atheists such as [[Mao Zedong]] and [[Pol Pot]] to easily justify their atrocities, these being pragmatically ''reasonable'' to them. <ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Atheism1.html ATHEISM VERSUS CHRIST]</ref><ref>http://www.scholarscorner.com/apologia/deathtoll.html</ref> The corresponding responses from atheists, such as invokes Hitler as an example of a Christian, and charges God with immorality, is part of a renewed conflict.<ref>http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45&mode=detail</ref><ref>http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/existence.html</ref>
==Examples of development and decline==
===Biblical examples===
The Bible, containing extensive historical narratives, provides many personal and corporate examples of spiritual and moral development declension, otherwise know as ''backsliding''.[Old Testament]].<ref>http://www.biblegateway.com/topical/Backsliders/Nave</ref> Israel was provided much grace by way of superior laws and leaders such as Moses and Joshua, and and enjoyed blessings of obedience, as recorded in the [[Torah]] (and in such overviews as Psalms 105), but soon they overall "dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not" to God's commandments, as succinctly rehearsed by Nehemiah (cp. 9) and Psalms 105,107, Acts 7, and [[Old Testament]] prophets such as Hosea. by people and also of nations. with [[Israel]] being the primary focus in the [ Psalms 78 and 106, In the [[New Testament]] the [[apostle Paul]]'s letters to the [[Corinthians]] reveals the most manifest example of corporate backsliding of a Christian church. The grace given to men such as Kings Saul, David, Solomon, Asa and Hezekiah, and their subsequent failures, provide examples of souls who whose walked in disobedience, to their and Israel's hurt, though in such examples sas David, earnest repentance enables more usefulness. In the New Testament, a higher plane of holiness is exhorted and enabled, (Rm. 8:4), with 1 John delineating what manner of faith is efficacious to salvation. Examples of backsliding (which presumes a period of growth first) are more incidental, such as Peter's denial of Christ, (Mk. 14:66-72) and (implicitly) of Gentile equality under pressure, (Gal. 2:9-14) and are offset by overall holy lives, while men such as Demas (who "hath forsaken me [Paul], having loved this present world": 2 Tim. 4:10) indicate a more willful spiritual and moral departure.
===China===
China's long recorded history testifies to both various degrees of moral virtue as well as moral declension and its consequences, and to some degree of reform. Recent evidence indicates moral degeneration is seen an increasing problem in China today. One influential contemporary moralist comments, "The problem isn’t that people don’t follow moral standards; the problem is that there no longer exist moral standards.” He attributes the loss of morality to five decades of atrophy under Communist political power, plus two decades of corrosion under the money and wealth brought by the Western market economy. <ref>Jiang Qing, quoted by Xujun Eberlein in ''China Has A Morality Crisis'', NAM, Commentary, Jan 23, 2008</ref>
===Roman Empire===
While pagan Rome evidenced that it yet retained a strong adherence many basic moral values, it gods themselves (mainly being forms of Greek deities) were immoral, and the Roman Empire followed the path of moral degeneration that would be its ruin. The moral deterioration of the Empire is seen to have attained its highest point in the dissolute age of the immoral Roman Emperors,<ref>Prof. Kurtz's church history, p. 25 (1889)</ref> almost all of which were active [[homosexuals]].
J.W. Shepard states,
<blockquote>The religion of the Romans had no power to cope with the degeneracy of the times. The philosophies of the Greeks failed. None of the philosophies could meet the deep moral needs of the times. The emperors were monsters of crime.
Thousands of lives were sacrificed in the arena to furnish entertainment for the Emperor and a bloodthirsty population. Luxury was beyond description. The horrible character of vice and crime is witnessed to by the excavated objects of Pompeii.
Seneca testified that children were considered with great disfavor and infant exposure was prevalent. Tacitus said that the spirit of the times was "to corrupt and to be corrupted."
Paul gives a picture in the Roman epistle of a people who had departed from the God revealed in nature and conscience, to set up for themselves, through vain independence, gods like unto creatures. From this idol worship they had gone on into moral degeneracy and crime until they were lost in a world of darkness and destruction.
This was the condition of the world morally when Jesus came, who was to "overcome the world" with His Gospel."
<ref>J.W. Shepard, "The Christ of the Gospels" Reprint, p. 15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982) </ref></blockquote>
Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889) adds,
<blockquote>Slavery was not even what we know it, but a seething mass of cruelty and oppression on the one side, and of cunning and corruption on the other. More than any other cause, it contributed to the ruin of Roman society. The freedmen, who had very often acquired their liberty by the most disreputable courses, and had prospered in them, combined in shameless manner the vices of the free with the vileness of the slave. The foreigners - especially Greeks and Syrians - who crowded the city, poisoned the springs of its life by the corruption which they brought. The free citizens were idle, dissipated, sunken; their chief thoughts of the theatre and the arena; and they were mostly supported at the public cost. While, even in the time of Augustus, more than two hundred thousand persons were thus maintained by the State, what of the old Roman stock remained was rapidly decaying, partly from corruption, but chiefly from the increasing cessation of marriage, and the nameless abominations of what remained of family-life.<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edersheim/lifetimes.vii.xi.html Edersheim, ''Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah'', CHAPTER XI.]</ref>
</blockquote>
''See also [[Roman Homosexuality]]
===The United States===
[[America]] is seen to be somewhat unique in the degree of strong moral foundation which was founded upon, with a strong Biblically based influence, which was strengthened as a result of religious revivals, and which affected a strong union of faith and civil life in the new [[Republic]]. French historian Alexis de Tocqueville commented,
{{cquote|The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.<ref>Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII (1835)</ref>}}
The [[Puritans]] in [[New England]], and other Christian groups were instrumental in forming a country with a distinctive Christian character. Though the extreme of creating theocracies ruling over those without (contrary to the charter given to the church in the New Testament<ref>John 18:36; 1Cor. 5:12,13; 2 Cor 10:4; Eph. 6:12; Romans 13:1-5; 1Pet. 2:16</ref>) was resisted by men such as [[Baptist]] [[Roger Williams]] yet all 50 states referred to God in their Constitutions,<ref>http://www.whateveristrue.com/heritage/preamble.htm</ref> and the effect of a Bible based Christianity is credited with working to bring souls to be ruled from within by God and a sound conscience, thus helping to enable relatively small government and yet promote stability in a vast and fertile country with multitude of different peoples, and to endure and overcome many serious negative consequences of the abuse of freedom, and the iniquity of unjust bondage.
While not all the Founders were Christian, none were known atheists, and Deists such as [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[James Madison]], and [[Thomas Paine]] upheld general Christian morality.
Primary in establishing a strong moral foundation was [[education]]. In elementary schooling in early America, the overtly Christian ''[[New England Primer]]'' was used in [[New England]], which is estimated to have sold upwards to 3,000,000 copies from 1700 to 1850. Introduced in 1690, this reader was used in what now would be the 1st grade, and taught multitudes of children how to read for 200 years, until 1900. The [[Alphabet]] was taught with Bible verses that began with each letter of the alphabet. Lessons had questions about the Bible and the Ten Commandments. An example of the Primer is, A = In Adam's fall, we sinned all. B = Heaven to find, the Bible mind."<ref>[http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.htm The Honorable Judge Robert Ulrich Chief Justice, Missouri Court Of Appeals, Western District]</ref>
In addition, approximately half of all American children (beginning in 1836 to approx 1930) learned from the ''[[McGuffey Reader]],'' of which 122 million copies were published (during a time when the population was much less than today, and books were passed on more). This was an advanced teaching system for it's time, written by a man who later became a Presbyterian minister, a work which earned him the title, “the Great Schoolmaster of the Nation.” He exalted the Lord Jesus Christ, and used the Bible more than any other source. It became a unifying force in American culture, instilling basic Christian-based morality, giving America a common value-laden body of literary reference and allusion,<ref>Cranney, A. Garr, 'Noah Webster and William Holmes McGuffey: The Men and Their Contributions to Reading''</ref> and “a sense of common experience and of common possession”. <ref>Historian Henry Steele Commager</ref> McGuffey Readers were used widely in America until just after World War I.
After requiring literacy in Latin (in which language the Scripture were then mostly written), the second requirement in “Harvard Lawes” of 1642 was that "Every one shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. (Joh. 17:3) The overall religious nature of colleges and universities continued at least until the Civil War. Even State colleges had significant religious (most always Christian) components, such as mandatory religion courses and attendance at chapel services, while large numbers of their faculties had formal religious training. <ref>Ringenberg, 1984; Marsden and Longfield, 1962; Ronald W. Fagan and Raymond G. DeVries, ''The practice of sociology at Christian liberal arts colleges and universities''; The American Sociologist, June, 1994</ref>
The first elementary schools also taught Christian morality, and even the [[Unitarian]] (see note:<ref>Unitarianism at the time was a means of being called Christian and overall upholding a god degree of Bible morality, while denying the divinity of Christ and plenary Divine inspiration of Scripture, and thus it has become a strong hold of immoral liberals today.</ref>) ''Father of the Common School'', Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 — August 02, 1859), who became Massachusetts Secretary of Education in 1837, not only understood the impossibility of separating education from religious moral beliefs, but held that it was lawful to teach the truths of the general Christian faith, asserting that the “laws of Massachusetts required the teaching of the basic moral doctrines of Christianity.” Mann, who supported prohibition of alcohol and intemperance, slavery and lotteries, (http://www.famousamericans.net/horacemann) dreaded “intellectual eminence when separated from virtue”, that education, if taught without moral responsibilities, would produce more evil than it inherited. (William Jeynes, “American educational history: school, society, and the common good,” p. 149, 150)
While iniquity was always a significant part of America, it was generally held as shameful and overall resisted by Church and State. Early on, in a pamphlet for Europeans titled ''Information to Those Who Would Remove to America'' (1754), Benjamin Franklin wrote, in part:
{{cquote|...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems...pleased to favor the whole country.<ref>John Gould Curtis, ''American history told by contemporaries ...'', Volume 3,p. 26 </ref>}}
During certain periods of America's growth moral degradation increased America, and a strong correlation was felt between loss of Christian religious devotion and the increase in iniquity. America's faith saw revival as a result of the [[First Great Awakening]] in the 1730s and 1740, and which is held to have began the [[Evangelical Christian]] movement. During the period of approximately 1800-1830 the [[Second Great Awakening]] took place, and the [[Third Great Awakening]] occurring from the late 1850's to the early 1900's. These revivals had a profound spiritual and civil impact on Christian faith within America and [[England]], and worked toward the abolition of the well-entrenched historical institution of slavery.
While not preventing the [[American Civil War]], a heightened moral sense of guilt and accountability is seen expressed by President Abraham Lincoln's ''Proclamation for a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer'' (1863).
The 1800's also saw a notable increase in the charitable work by private persons and agencies. In 1835 De Tocqueville<ref>Democracy in America</ref> noted that early America had no distinct class of wealth that could be turned to in times of need to relieve suffering. Associations necessarily formed to create the means to deal with problems and reflected a compassion for all those in trouble. Many agencies created during that time exist today. <ref>http://74.52.60.18/~npt/index.php?page=1800-s A Chronological HISTORY OF PHILANTHROPY in America.</ref>
====Early to mid 20th century====
Religiously, the early 1900's saw a revival of [[Pentecostalism]], as well as the rise of Evangelical Christian ''[[Fundamentalism]]'' as a distinct form. The latter was manifested in response to the growth of ''[[liberal Christianity]]'' and doctrinally labored to combat its move away from historical Christan faith, especially as concerned Christ and salvation, and strong emphasis upon personal morality. Liberal theology also placed primary emphasis on a [[social gospel]], and in its commendable commitment to uphold the primacy of basic doctrine, and tend to the spiritual needs of souls, opportunities to meet social needs of those without tended to be marginalized, an overreaction that some later recognized as an imbalance.<ref>Frank E. Gaebelein, ''Evangelicals and Social Concern'', March 1982 </ref>
Educationally, the rise of [[Darwinism]] worked against the view of man as being made in the image of man and reduced him to being simply a higher order of primates, with morality having no firm foundation.
Economically, post [[World War 1]] capitalism and the ongoing [Industrial revolution]] helped enable more goods and funds for the general public.
Morally, much effort was expended in passing [[Prohibition in the United States]] (1920 to 1933), while the [[Roaring 20's]] manifested a marked degree of cultural rejection of traditional moral decency. The following [[Great Depression]] (1929-1940's) signaled an end to the economic boon, and post [[Word War Two]] saw the traditional family focused on, as many men and women [[married]] and raised children.
In the 1950's, the danger of [[Communism]] worked a renewed affirmation of America being a basically Christian nation, though no significant religious revival was evident, and [[liberal ideology]] increased its influence through colleges and universities, as well as the film industry.
====1960 and beyond====
The decade of the 1960's would begin the most dramatic moral change in America's history. While a more developed moral social consciousness helped to effect beneficial and needed changes, such as in the area of civil rights, based upon non-moral aspects as race and color, this recognition of basic equality was used by liberal moralists to advocate liberty for immorality, most predominately in the area of sensuality. The 1960's culminated with [[Woodstock]] 69, with the decade being marked by rebellion against authority in general (though usually not to living off it) and against capitalism, and the promotion and practice of pre-marital [[sex]], recreational drug use (seeking to escape, or find reality), the rise of [[feminism]] and the advocation of liberal ideology in general.
While most of the [[main stream media]] and University professors in America are seen to treat this ''revolution'' and its foundational ethos as liberating and beneficial, its effects have been manifestly deleterious, as evidenced by multitudinous studies. <ref>[http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html REVEALING STATISTICS]</ref>
Religiously, a notable number of young persons honestly seeking for reality became part of what some term a [[Fourth Great Awakening]], out of which evangelical churches such as [[Calvary Chapel]] began and grew to be significance denominations.
''See also [[morality]]
== References ==
{{reflist|2}}
==External links==
[[Category:Religion]][[Category:Ethics]][[Category:Virtues]]