Less Nuns, More Nones

Less Nuns, More Nones

 

As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, Americans continue to leave religion behind in large numbers. According to Pew Research, the percentage of American Christians has fallen about 12 percent over the last ten years, from 75 percent in 2011 to around 63 percent today. The number who pray every day is even lower, at 45 percent. The demographic rising in its place are the so-called “nones,” those who identify religiously as “nothing in particular.” This group grew to about 20 percent of the US population in 2021, up from 16 percent in 2017. 

 

The surprising thing here isn’t that Americans are leaving organized religion behind. That’s been happening at about the same rate for a while now (In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace). However, it is newsworthy that this trend continued unabated in the face of a global pandemic. Historically, catastrophic events that bring uncertainty, stress, or political chaos tend to draw people to reconsider faith. [1]

 

But of course, Isaiah said that would happen – said he: 

 

Why be smitten further by adding to your waywardness? The whole head is sick, the whole heart diseased. [2]

 

Being “smitten further” sounds rather unpleasant, but to be “smitten” of God—through plagues, misfortunes, natural disasters, and enemies—constitutes Jehovah’s final attempt to bring his people back to a state of blessedness by influencing or stimulating them to repent of evil. Instead, their persistent waywardness compounds their plight.

 

Isaiah continues a bit later – 

 

But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?[3] The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.[4]

 

So here’s what happens--thank you very much Isaiah for giving us a heads up. Illness and disease become rampant, reflecting a society sick in mind and body. Allegorically, the people’s “head” or leadership, and their “heart” or core institutions—in short, their entire establishment, political and religious, has degenerated to a pathological state.

 

Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.[5]

 

You’re probably familiar with this John Adams quote—

 

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

 

That comment, made on October 11th, 1798 in an address he gave to the Officers of the third 1st Brigade of the third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts [6] is very poignant to us now as we see his words being vindicated in our country right before our eyes. They reverberate and resonate with Isaiah’s prophecies from 2,300 years earlier. But that’s not all John Adams said in that address that reflects Isaiah’s prophecies:

 

“But should the People of America, once become capable of…practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness and sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: towards one another and toward foreign nations, 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. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.” [6] (paraphrased and quoted)

 

It’s after that that he delivers his most famous sentence, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

 

So you see, it’s not that hard to predict what happens to a people who abandon the Lord. It wouldn’t surprise John Adams and it shouldn’t surprise you because,

 

Isaiah said that would happen

 

1.  John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander |Break Point, Break Point |Friday, January 28, 2022

2.  Old Covenants Isaiah 1:1; LE Isaiah 1:5

3.  Old Covenants Isaiah 15:10; LE Isaiah 42:22-23

4.  Old Covenants see Isaiah 21; LE Isaiah 59:8-10

5.  Old Covenants Isaiah 4:3; LE Isaiah 9:14-16

6.  From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798 

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102

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