When I read articles and posts about America “going downhill morally,” I get what people are saying, and I don’t totally agree or disagree. But I do have one question with two parts: If that is true, when was America at the “top” of the hill, at its best? What specific time frame? 1776? 1890’s? 1950’s? The 70’s? 2000’s? When? And the second part of my question is and for whom was it best at that time?
I believe mankind has been “going downhill” since the fall of man. Though there have been periods in history when for various reasons our social agreements have changed, the basic nature of people, our inner condition, has been in decline from the beginning. And the biblical forecast for the future condition of humankind looks anything but promising:
“But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
That is a description that can be attached to humans in any period in history, only it is proliferating because we have invented multiple means to spread the virus on a massive scale.
Therefore, while it is good and responsible to be socially active and work to make life better for us and posterity, the hope of believers is not in the world becoming a better place, but that God’s eternal purposes will be accomplished despite the condition of the world. And our job each day is simply to be an instrument of God that conveys His love and light to each person we encounter and in all the ways He directs us.
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