I Kings 12-14 records the steep decline of morality among God’s chosen people once King Solomon died. It was a sad time for Israel and led to their eventual destruction for breaking God’s covenant. In a single generation the chosen people of Almighty God rejected his covenant, blessing, and protection for worldliness, wickedness, and unfaithfulness.

America is NOT God’s chosen people, and it could be debated that the government of the United States has ever been Christian in nature, but the culture of the American people has been strongly influenced by the Bible and Christian morality. For generations the vast majority of Americans would have declared themselves to be Christian. Even today, polls show that about 70% of Americans identify as Christians.

The numbers continue to fall, and over this next generation, the numbers will fall precipitously. I would propose that the single biggest factor in this decline is the prominence that has been granted to evolution. The grand theory of evolution is a naturalistic origins story that purportedly replaces the Creator, and as evolution has been taught as the only viable origins story in all public schools for the past 60 years, it’s no small wonder that today’s youth find no need for the Bible or a Redeemer. Sadly, many people who claim to be Christians endorse this naturalistic tool without realizing the way it dismantles people’s faith.

Today’s article from the Slate identifies evolution as a primary reason for the decline and fall of Christianity in America:

The increase in younger people embracing evolution is “quite striking,” says Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University and an expert witness the landmark court case Kitzmiller v. Dover, which kicked “intelligent design” out of public school classrooms in 2005. “We’re moving in the right direction.”

Evolution has been used as a bludgeon to beat down belief in the Creator. Youth and adults alike fear the stigma of being identified with creationists if they are not worshiping at the altar of St. Darwin.

Sadly, as Darwinism extends its iron grip on the American culture, certain side effects are inevitable. From the same article:

To turn that cultural tide in such a short period of time, the supporters of gay marriage had to do something far more difficult: change deeply rooted attitudes and beliefs. Similarly, for the movement behind evolution to triumph, younger Americans who have been raised to believe in creationism need to be open to changing their minds. Fortunately, today’s generation is growing up in a time of greater open-mindedness and willingness to listen to evidence-based thinking, Wolfson says. Rather than being blinded by ideology, today’s young adults are open to evidence, facts, and reason.

The author hypocritically or ignorantly attributes ideology to Christianity without showing how evolutionary ideology is tyrannical in its extreme prejudice.

Romans 1 (I’ve included the text at the end) speaks clearly of this cascade of steps in which wicked people engage:

• They suppress the Truth of God as Creator
• Instead of thanking and glorifying God, they claim to be wise
• This causes futile thinking and darkened hearts
• They attribute God’s creative works instead to created things (evolution did it)
• Therefore, sexual impurity becomes rampant and accepted

If anyone ever wondered before about the strength and prophetic power of scripture, reading Romans 1 erases doubt that the Spirit revealed to Paul how quickly a culture could be sabotaged from the inside. The Roman culture quickly crumbled once immorality became acceptable. We’re seeing the same thing in our American culture today.

Where’s the hope? Hope is in Christ alone. Our culture like every other culture that has thought it would last forever will end up in the landfill. But as Deuteronomy 6 stresses, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.”

It only takes one generation that unlike their parents, rejects God’s commands, and the culture will be irrevocably changed.

The only hope for cultures, ourselves, and our children is in the redemption that only Christ can bring. Avoid the cascade of Romans 1 by first of all giving thanks to God as Creator. Don’t let evolution corrode your faith in his creative and redemptive works.

Romans 1

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. ¹⁹ For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.²⁰ Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; ²¹ for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. ²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, ²⁵ because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.