What Have We Lost?

Before the election on November 6, a large number of political pundits were expecting and predicting a strong Romney victory.  When the results were in I sat, like millions of Americans, in stunned disbelief, wondering what on earth had just happened.  The outcome should have looked more like 1980, when Ronald Reagan triumphed over Jimmy Carter, but it didn’t.  Analysis of the Romney loss has run the gamut, most of it blaming the candidate or the GOP.   There is a much deeper reason, however, why 2012 didn’t turn out like 1980.  Very simply, we don’t live in the America of 1980.  America has lost something since that time, something that has altered the soul of our nation.  Songs like “American Dream” by Madison Rising and “American Heart” by Faith Hill attempt to convince us that the American spirit is still alive and well, and it is… in a minority of American voters.  The majority of voters that re-elected a failed president to a second term, however, have lost essential elements of the American spirit that would have been required to get this nation back on course.  It’s not difficult to identify what is missing from America 2012 that was far more prominent 30 years ago.  Four elements of that American spirit lacking today are easy to identify. 

The first missing ingredient is faith.  Secularism is on the rise in this nation, as it has been for 50 years.  The secularists have taken over our key American institutions of academia and the media. We see the rise of secularism in the “war on Christmas,” that was lost most recently in a court decision barring churches in Santa Monica, California from setting up a nativity display with 60 years of history behind it in a public park.  We see it in the required evolutionary instructional paradigm in every public school that does away with any need for a “creator” to explain the origin of life.  We see it in the philosophy of scientism that touts the belief that science can solve all our problems, given sufficient time and resources.  We see it in the increasing number of Americans, now almost 20 percent, who claim no religious beliefs or affiliation.  Yes, millions of Americans still profess faith in God, but a large slice of them live as “functional atheists,” going about their daily routine without ever acknowledging God’s existence in word or deed. 

Another element of the American spirit that has slipped away is our heart. There once was a deep sense of community that ran through our nation that could be seen in neighbors sitting on their front porch chatting with one another.  Now suburban Americans open garage doors remotely and close them before exiting the car, only to go out and sit on the back yard deck or patio behind a six-foot privacy fence.  Because of high mobility, extended family relationships are largely a thing of the past that now show up only on the holidays, when we hop in the car or on a plane to visit relatives for a day or two.  Yes, a sense of community still exists in small towns all over America, and in extended church “families” that truly do care for each other.  And this sense of community also resurfaces in times of disaster, like Hurricane Sandy.  But in big cities and suburban enclaves all over this county there is isolation and a sense of estrangement from community that breeds government dependency.  When close family and caring neighbors are not there to step in and help in times of need, the government becomes the primary provider of a “safety net” that grows larger and larger, and increasingly looks more like a snare to entrap us than a cushion to lessen our fall, or a hand out designed to enslave us, rather than a hand up to help us back on our feet. 

A third element of the American spirit that has been lost is a sense of decency.  Over the past 30 years we have witnessed a coarsening of our culture that has robbed us of much of our dignity as human beings.  Only the few who read the writings of our Founding Fathers will apprehend the deterioration of our speech, both in terms of an inferior command of the English language, and the resultant flow of filth from the mouths of so many Americans, that mirrors the language graphically portrayed in movies and pop music.  Respect for human life as sacred and valuable in every instance and at any stage is appreciably diminished.  The Judeo-Christian values that once provided a firm anchor for morality in America have been called into question, or rejected outright as “Puritanical” or “narrow-minded.”  Thus, anyone with the audacity to uphold the ancient societal norm of marriage between one man and one woman is viewed as “hateful” or “homophobic.”  Ours has become a society in which the primary value is tolerance, which results in a stubborn unwillingness to call almost anything wrong or to label anything as evil.  In this America, a candidate with sterling character and high morals is not viewed as any better a choice than is a candidate who is seen to be “hip” and “cool” in the eyes of pop culture. 

The fourth element of the American spirit that has been lost is freedom.  It was a fierce spirit of independence that led our forefathers to make a declaration that could have cost them everything yet just might, by the hand of Providence, result in real freedom in this land of opportunity.  They understood what few Americans today realize.  Real freedom requires both risk and sacrifice.  America 2012 is far too willing to live in bondage, whether that takes the form slavery to mounting debt, both personal and national, or servitude to the government itself, as our tax burden steadily escalates and bureaucratic regulations multiply.  The belief that our rights are inalienable, granted by our Creator, has given way in the minds of too many of us to a belief that we have a “right” to government provided jobs, retirement, healthcare, indeed, security itself.  Thus, we have come to imagine that the government grants us our rights, and by consequence of that same belief, that the government can take them away.  This is not freedom as our Founding Fathers envisioned it!

Without these four elements of the American spirit firmly planted in the American psyche, we cannot hope to be the nation we once were.  The America we have come to know and love cannot survive without faith, heart, decency, and freedom.  No politician can restore these to our souls.  Only by genuine repentance of what we have become, and a heartfelt return to the God of our Fathers can we restore these elements to the American soul and restore our nation to its former greatness.