The way is clear

It was sometime in the early 1980s that I first began to speak about the destruction of Western civilization. I had been confronting the decline in American culture for several years already, but I was slow to admit it was anything more than drift. That seemed easier to say than to admit there was something deeper or more sinister at work.

It seemed small because what first caught my attention were the symptoms: sex and violence on network television; pornography on the newsstand; profanity in entertainment; abortion declared a human right; the bitter fruits of the sexual revolution; and the cheapening of human life itself.

Then I came to understand that beneath it all was a worldview – one that placed man at the center and pushed God to the margins. Once I saw it, I could never unsee it: secular humanism.

Many dismissed the concern – even when there was evidence that the tastemakers of American culture were actively embedding their worldview within the television shows, movies, books, news stories, curriculum, and art being fed to the masses. I was constantly told it wasn’t happening.

I’ll let you judge for yourself.

As great as that burden was, I was met with another: the silence of the Christian church. You see, even many Christians dismissed the concern as irrelevant or misguided. Most would acknowledge the basic problems but insist there was no need for alarm.

We have now lived through several revolutions in communication – from television to the internet to the smartphone, and now artificial intelligence. Each step brings amazing access to information, opportunities to raise awareness, and the ability to speak. But it also multiplies confusion, falsehood, and temptation.

Technology, like freedom, reveals rather than reforms the human heart.

We cannot say we have lacked information or opportunity. Thankfully, there are more voices today calling for truth and more avenues for Christian involvement than back in those days. Yet we must ask: Has there been a corresponding increase in repentance? In humility? Has there been an earnest turning back to God?

Despite our advancements, integrity remains in short supply. Leaders rise and fall with alarming regularity – some as hypocrites, others merely as hollow and worthless. But what is true of them was first true of us. A nation does not become something apart from its people.

It is the America we have made for ourselves – you and I and all the rest of us together have made it this way. We are responsible.

I once preached that message to three country churches in Northeast Mississippi. It was as true in Mississippi as it was in New York, California, and Washington, D.C. It was true in 1966, and it’s still true today. (See sermon in sidebar.)

We have seen the fruit of what we have sown – the coarsening of culture, the weakening of the family, the loss of reverence for God. These are not mysteries; they are consequences. But here’s the hard truth: We have wanted the gifts without the Giver.

The question before us is not whether America can survive another decade, another century, or another 250 years. The question is whether we will turn.

“[If] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

We know the way. The only question is whether we will take it.

Editor’s Note: M.D. Perkins, research fellow for American Family Association (AFA), has studied extensively the life and legacy of the late Don Wildmon, founder of AFA. He directed the documentary Culture Warrior: Don Wildmon and the Battle for Decency, and authored Wildmon’s biography For Such a Time (2027). Perkins, who knows the mind and heart of Wildmon well, wrote this commentary in the voice of Wildmon reflecting on America’s 250th birthday.