But Were They Really the ''Good Old Days?''

Dean Merrill offers this fine reality check for those who pine for the "good old days" when America was a decent, "Christian" nation rather than the godless whore it's supposed to have become since. Religion and faith have always played an important role in American history, and continue to do so. However, America has never been, and cannot be a "Christian" nation, somehow chosen by God's own finger. Living in the fantasy world of an idealized past keeps Christians from seeing and addressing the very real mission needs of the present.

Merrill wraps up:

Living today in this land of the free and home of the brave, we may openly say that, despite our shortcomings, we are a blessed people. God has given us everything from a temperate climate to rich soil to bountiful mineral resources to usable harbors to stunning scenery.

But that is not the same as saying we are his chosen people. If we were officially chosen for his special favors, where would that leave the Canadians, the Koreans, the Brazilians and all the other societies with sizable Christian populations? Would they be second-class by comparison?

We would do well to use the opportunities before us and not waste time pining for 'the good old days' of 40 years ago -- or 80 or 220 or 370. Church attendance has not fallen off a cliff; the best available statistics show a more-or-less level line in the 30-to-45 percent zone ever since the early 1800s. Some liberties to preach the gospel have been curtailed (access to public school students, for example), while at the same time technology has invented new ones (radio, television, videocassette, the Internet) that revivalists Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney never had the opportunity to use.

Regardless of contemporary problems, hostile attitudes and trendy relativism, we are not that much worse off than our forebears, and the power of Christ is more than enough to meet the challenge.