Sunday.....Christianity.....If It Be Thy Will

Expanding a little bit on Friday's blog, here is a very short summary of my view of the religious history of America. A true Christian faith permeated most of the colonies in the century and a half before the American Revolution. The power of Puritanism was beginning to wain towards the end of the 1600s. Jonathon Edwards and the First Great Awakening of the 1730-40s transformed America such that Benjamin Franklin remarked that it seemed that one could not walk down a street in Philadelphia without hearing psalm singing coming from this house or that. A hardness to the gospel set in and ran through the Revolution. George Washington remarked, towards the end of the century, that he was concerned if religion might even survive in America (or words to that effect.) The Second Great Awakening in the first half of the 1800s saw another resurgence but this time, some very unsound evangelistic methods crept in to the church that would have a disastrous effect as time wore on. There was theological soundness before the Civil War but only pockets of it afterwards. The New England Puritan was no more, now the New England Yankee would rule, and the strength of the church was dissipating fast. It has been downhill after that, but that spark just won't go away. It couldn't be snuffed out through ridicule in the Monkey Trial days, prosperity could not drown it, and the social gospel could not hide it. Higher Education gets a hold of the kids too late to stop it and there are far too many school teachers who are Christian, to eliminate it there. Like Darwin, science wants the glory all for itself and is running out of bushels to put over sparks as they arise in the scientific community. Literature thought it could write it out of the script, no such luck. The heat from the embers is everywhere throughout America but it is often weak and the flame discolored. But still the atheist paces back and forth for he knows the potential there for a forest fire if the conditions are right. God has control of those conditions. We are part of those conditions so would not it be wise to ask of Him to start with us?