In my preparation for the Noah series, I remembered some material I found years ago about how "non-Christian" our nation was years ago. We often think - things have never been this bad in America before. But that is not true. Read on...
Below is taken from Dr. J. Edwin Orr, a historian of
revival. You can read the entire
dialogue with Nancy Leigh DeMoss at
Not many people realize that in the wake of the
American Revolution, there was a moral slump.
Drunkenness was epidemic. Out of a population of five
million, three hundred thousand were confirmed drunkards. They were burying
fifteen thousand of them each year. Profanity was of the most shocking kind.
For the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid
to go out at night for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.
The largest denomination at that time was the
Methodists, and they were losing more members than they were gaining. The
second largest was the Baptists. They said that "they had their most
wintry season." The Presbyterians met in general assembly to deplore the
ungodliness of the country. The Congregationalists were strongest in New
England. Take a typical church—the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennox,
Massachusetts said, "In sixteen years they had not taken one young
person into fellowship."
The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed
uniting with Episcopalians, who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal
Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost, quit functioning. He had confirmed
no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other
employment.
The Chief Justice of the United States, John
Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, Bishop Madison, that "the
Church is too far gone ever to be redeemed." Voltaire said, “Christianity
will be forgotten in thirty years time.” And Thomas Paine preached this
cheerfully all over America.
In case you think it was the hysteria of the moment,
Kenneth Scott Latourette, the great church historian said, “It seemed as if
Christianity were about to be ushered out of the affairs of men.” The churches
had their backs to the wall—it seemed as if they were about to be wiped out.
Take the colleges at that time.
•
They took a poll at
Harvard, and they discovered not one believer in the whole student body.
•
They took a poll at
Princeton, a much more evangelical place, where they discovered only two
believers in the student body, and only five that did not belong to the filthy
speech movement of that day.
•
Students rioted.
•
They held a mock
communion at Williams College.
•
They had
anti-Christian plays at Dartmouth.
•
They burned down the
Nassau Hall at Princeton.
•
They forced the
resignation of the president of Harvard.
•
They took a Bible out of
a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey, and they burnt it in a public
bonfire.
•
Christians were so few
on campus that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their
minutes in code so that no one would know what they were doing to persecute
them.
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