America, the Beautiful?
When I was a schoolgirl, we used to sing “America, the Beautiful.” Remember that song? I suspect it’s not sung in public schools anymore. The first stanza goes:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
When I was a schoolgirl, we believed God had indeed shed His grace on America. We knew America was the best place to live, and we appreciated that fact. We learned American history and studied how the early settlers thanked God for making it through the hard times.
When I was a schoolgirl, the civil rights struggle was in full force. Thank God people finally realized how stupid it was to keep someone out of a place because of their race. To be sure, prejudice still exists, but no longer on a grand scale. Hello? We have a black president.
When I was a school girl, some people lived together before they were married, and they might have been friends of our parents, but it was still considered shameful, and not something people normally did. And it was not common to have a child “out of wedlock.” Now it’s totally commonplace to do both. 40% of babies are now born out of wedlock.
When I was a schoolgirl, they barely showed people kissing on TV, now they practically have sex right on prime time TV. And things shown in R rated movies today would not have been allowed in regular theaters back then. I remember the first time I saw a scene on TV where a woman was in just a bra and I was shocked. Now it doesn’t even phase me. We have been desensitized to such things.
To be sure, there are many things I’m glad are different today. I love the gadgets and the ease of communication, but I’m sad how low our morals have slipped. More and more couples live together without being married, they have babies out of wedlock, and it’s cool to be gay.
Our society has been transformed from a once primarily Judeo-Christian one, to one that is so accepting of anything that anyone who tries to speak sanely is considered to be hateful. No just wrong – hateful. Discourse is no longer allowed, we are to accept whatever society comes up with.
There is a tremendous amount of debate on both sides of the major issues. Will gay marriage destroy our society? Does it matter whether couples live together or not? Do children need a mother and a father?
But that brings us to the song I first mentioned. I believe God once did shed much grace on America. We were the city on the hill. Now, in our efforts to please everyone, and be politically correct, we have turned our backs on God.
And He has turned His back on us.
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