America Then and Now — E.A. Johnston

I grew up in a different America than the one we live in today. America in the 1950s, hemlines were lower, and morals were higher, and sin was called sin and not social disorders. Of course, we didn't have the technology that we have today.

Back then, if you said Microsoft, they thought you were referring to your mattress. And we didn't have Wi-Fi. We had hi-fi. It was a time when only women wore earrings, and only sailors had tattoos.

It was a safer time, a simpler time, a time before cell phones. If you needed to make a phone call back in those days, you did it either from the one hanging on the kitchen wall or at a phone booth down the street.

Public Prayer and Moral Boundaries

And most pharmacies in those days had restaurant counters where you could sit on a stool and drink a cool green river beverage or a cherry coke for the price of five cents. It was a time when television had censors, politicians had a conscience, and schools had public prayer.

It was a time when a parent didn't have to worry what their kid saw on TV, and marriage was between a man and a woman. There was such a thing as shame in society back then, and people actually blushed at sin.

America Before Cultural Upheaval

Women's dresses went from their collarbone to their ankle bone, and public nudity was a crime of indecent exposure. It was a time before the Beatles invaded America, and before America invaded Vietnam.

The Church’s Authority and the Fear of God

It was pre-Woodstock, pre-Watergate, and before the Kennedys and Martin Luther King were killed. It was a period in our country we still trusted our government and had faith in our institutions. I remember America when the church still had authority and there was still a fear of God in the land.

Biblical Principles and Public Faith

I remember a nation that stood on biblical principles and looked to God for guidance and to the church for direction. It was okay to pray in public school back then, and the Ten Commandments were publicly displayed.

Prayer Meetings and Dependence on God’s Power

And if any atheist cried out against it, there were more than enough Christians to shout that person down, because God had the majority in the nation back then. Back then, there was such a thing as a weekly prayer meeting in the church, and people actually came to pray, and they weren't embarrassed to cry when they prayed, and they prayed loud and long and did so until they grabbed hold of God and the fire fell and consumed the sacrifice.

The Cross, Hell, and Future Judgment

The church back then didn't operate on money and manpower, but by God and Holy Ghost power. Back then, the church influenced society instead of society influencing the church. And I remember preachers who preached about the blood and the cross, and they warned that hell was hot and a future judgment awaited all mankind.

Religious Activity Without Spiritual Reality

Those kind of preachers weren't afraid of men, but they sure feared the Almighty. Now, we have professionals in our pulpits and professors in the pews, and the typical church has become just a house of entertainment.

America’s Spiritual Decline in Judges 2

We have religion, but no relationship, activity, but no power, a name, but no reality of God. America then and now is as polar opposite as night and day. The following verse of scripture best sums up America in our day.

In Judges 2 .10, we read,. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers, and there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.