Some good news for a change

This will be the last blog dealing with Michael Medved’s recent book, The Ten Big Lies about America. I wanted to end on a positive note, so I jumped to lie # 10: “America is in the midst of an irreversible moral decline.” The author says this is not true, and that, in fact, improvements are visible in the vast majority of social indicators.

Medved starts by noting that the idea of imminent doom has been part of America’s history for as long as there have been people here. William Bradford, a longtime leader of Plymouth colony, saw evidence of deadly moral decay within 25 years after landing at Plymouth Rock. In the 1740s, Jonathan Edwards wrote that his time period was more degenerative than any before it. About 100 years later the anti-slavery advocate William Lloyd Garrison complained bitterly about his generation’s moral standing.

Medved looks back at our history to discuss several great awakenings that have improved the morality of the people in America. The first, from the 1730s to the 1750s, was led by Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Wesley Brothers. This religious revival helped lay the groundwork for the American Revolution. The second awakening, which occurred between 1800 and1830, brought camp meetings and a new energy for the antislavery and women’s suffrage movements. The third of these awakenings, from the 1880s through the early 1900s, brought the holiness movement, the beginnings of American Pentecostalism, the social gospel, progressive politics, and a new crusade against alcohol. Medved says many sociologists and theologians see a fourth great awakening beginning in the late 1970s and continuing to the present. The results of this last revival can be seen in the power of the religious right, the growth of evangelical megachurches, and a greater Christian influence in popular culture. I have noticed this in the area of Christian publishing--good authors are getting their message out clearly.

One example of an improvement in morality can be seen in New York City. In late 2007 it was reported that the city was on track to have the lowest number of homicides since statistics became available in 1963. Other major cities all show less violence and property crimes from their peaks some 20 years ago.

What are other positive signs? In many attitudes the current generation of teenagers and young adults appears to be more culturally conservative than its immediate predecessors. For example, Americans from 18 to 30 are the most likely of all age groups to oppose abortion. Teenage drug use, which had moved up throughout the 1990s, has declined since then by an impressive 23 percent. Teenage use of alcohol has also fallen greatly in the last 10 years. Fewer high school students today are having sex. Abortion rates have declined by a full 24 percent between 1990 and 2004. The divorce rate has been falling continually over the last 25 years. Even out-of-wedlock births have begun to level off in recent years. One recent survey found that there has been an unmistakable declining in extramarital sexual activity. The number of people on welfare has plunged, overall poverty has decreased, and employment figures for single mothers have risen. Medved also says religious activity is on the upswing—“the most demanding and scripturally rigorous denominations show the greatest vitality of all.” It looks like religion is not in danger of dying out in our secular age, for which I offer a hearty “amen.” Why is that? Religion offers people community, ritual, and support for values they hold, according to Medved.

Medved says there are huge forces out there which threaten these advances. I especially like this thought: “Any effort to roll back immorality faces formidable government bureaucracies, official regulations, the smug assurance of nearly all of academia, and ceaseless special pleading in mass media meant to protect and glamorize the most deeply dysfunctional values.” But the new technologies offer us unprecedented alternatives –cable, satellite, and internet options, for example.

So things are not out of control. We can be encouraged by his findings and resolve to help make our society a “shining city upon the hill.”