According to a recent Gallup poll, three-quarters of Americans believe moral values in the U.S. are getting worse. Surveyors say Americans have never given U.S. morality a positive assessment, but the latest results are among the worst Gallup has measured in the last nine years.
Most commonly, respondents cited a lack of respect for other people and a more general decline in moral values and standards. Some blame the perceived decline on poor parenting or the poor examples of U.S. leaders in government and business who find themselves embroiled in ethical or moral scandals. Others cite larger societal factors, such as rising crime and violence, Americans turning away from God, church and religion, and the breakdown of the typical mother-father family.
It seems one can hardly watch the television anymore without being bombarded by profanity, sexually explicit content, the homosexual agenda, or barely clothed women prancing around — and the commercials are often worse! The music industry promotes the same. Ironically, many of our government schools affirm these same immoral values.
The United States of America had its founding rooted in the principals of the Bible. British historian Paul Johnson explained:
Hence, though the Constitution and the Bill of Rights made no provision for a state church — quite the contrary — there was an implied and unchallenged understanding that America was a religious country, that the republic was religious not necessarily in its forms but in its bones, that it was inconceivable that it could have come into existence, or could continue and flourish, without an overriding religious sentiment pervading every nook and cranny of its society. This religious sentiment was based on the Scriptures and the Decalogue, was embodied in the moral consensus of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and manifested itself in countless forms of mainly Christian worship (God and the Americans, Commentary, January 1995, p. 31).
At our foundation, the U.S. based its values “on the Scriptures and the Decalogue” — the Bible and the Ten Commandments. More than 200 years later, we are failing to live by biblical values.
Unfortunately, almost half of our nation’s citizens no longer profess religious faith. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 41.6 percent of all Americans in 2009 said they attended church at least once a week or almost every week. (It is not surprising that six of the lowest church-attending states are in New England — Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.)
The fact that respondents indicate that the breakdown of the natural family is a factor in our society’s decline in moral values should wake up elected officials to the need to protect marriage and the need to promote pro-family policies.
To read more about the poll and view its findings, click HERE.
