GUEST: SCOTT ANIOL, Professor of Pastoral Theology, Grace Bible Theological Seminary

As we celebrate Independence Day, which commemorates the signing in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of our nation, when the original 13 colonies declared their autonomy from British colonial rule.

John Adams was a signer of the Declaration, one of the framers of the U.S. Constitution (1789), and the second President of the United States. Likely not a born-again Christian but rather a deist (a believer in a supreme being who is uninvolved in the affairs of mankind), Adams wrote the following about the link between morality and civil society:

“…should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [pretending] towards one another…which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance…while it is rioting in rapine [violent seizure of property] and insolence [rude behavior], this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

We are seeing John Adams’ warning prove true in America today. We are at a low point in our nation when laws are passed granting the “freedom” to kill a child anytime during the nine months of pregnancy, when the “degrading passions” of homosexuality are normalized and codified as “marriage”, when adults parade openly and lewdly down the streets in front of children, and when children are led into the sin of cross-dressing and physical mutilation in the name of “gender affirming care”.

Wicked depravity is now tolerated and affirmed in our nation and the predictable results are division, confusion, chaos, violence, harm, and hatred.

So what are Christians to do, who like Lot living in Sodom “felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:8)? (more…)