Newsweek, Revival and 2 Chronicles

I'm reading 2 Chronicles this week. I've also read the Newsweek article on America not being a Christian nation. Here's some thoughts.

1.Nations fall away and repent and fall away and repent. Israel with more rapidity than the US. They could repent and by the end of a king's reign have fallen away again.

2. It has happened several times in American history. If Strauch and Howe, Generations, are to be trusted, and I think they are, this is not the worst time in American history. There are at least 4 other times when we were less godly than now.

3. James Orr in his history of revivals in America documents: "Take the liberal arts colleges at that time. A poll taken at Harvard had 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, and they put on 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 in the 1790's that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.

4. Out of moral decay and despair comes revival. When the only place to turn is to God, we eventually wake up.

5. Even if America goes away from God, God is still on his throne and will save.