Revival and Decline

[MATTHEW MENGE]

Revival and Decline in the United States Most parts of the world at present are obviously in decline in some form or other. In Europe there is widespread secularism. In the Middle East there is religious fanaticism. In the Far East there is Communism and a tendency towards secularism as well. Even in South America there seems to be widespread and growing corruption. But there are a few places in the world where decline is not so obvious, and I am talking about North America, Australia, and perhaps parts of tropical Africa. However, I want to focus in particular upon the United States of America. Even a cursory reading of “The Promised Day is Come” by the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith will tell you that he believed every part of the non-Baha’i world was in decline. For example, he quotes Baha’u’llah as saying “The vitality of men’s belief in God is dying out in every land….The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society.” (p.113) Likewise, in this book, he devotes several pages to the decline of Islam and Christianity, not in particular places, but rather in the entire world. But the actual statistics and data about America seem to be less than indicative of this decline. Since I am not actually writing a paper I am not going to gather all the relevant data; rather I am just going to give a summary of things I have read. Crime has been going down in America since the 70’s. From the mid 80’s a group called Barna has watched church attendance since that time and discovered that it has, overall, remained pretty constant during this period. There was a slight decrease in premarital sex in the 90’s. And, according to NIDA, since the mid 80’s use of some of the more well-known drugs, like marijuana or cocaine, has gone down slightly. Even entertainment, which admittedly appears to be worsening of late, is in some respects better than it was at one point in the past. Billy Graham in his book Just as I Am, remarked how, in his childhood, movies had no censorship and people would frequently appear in the nude. So it would appear that the United States has been rising, not only as an economic power, but even in the sense that its morals seem to be improving and its religiosity is at least meta-stable. I would argue that there is a reason for this. While it may be true that Christianity is in general declining, there are certain countries that, over the last century and a half, have been able to build what I call infrastructure. And I would say that these parts of the world are primarily Australia, parts of tropical Africa, and North America and especially the United States in North America. By infrastructure I mean that there was “space” enough in society to build institutions which did not exist before. For example since the middle of the 19th century in the US the Pentecostal and Latter-Day Saint churches have been on the ascendant in the US. New kinds of evangelistic behavior were developed in the South (and elsewhere). The separation of church and state (a move which greatly helped the churches) was cemented. Various Bible and Christian colleges appeared. American Christianity tried to get away from European Christian intellectualism and scholarship and focus more intensely on interpersonal relationships. Likewise there was a greater overall spirit of tolerance developed in the US than in Europe. In general, while American Christianity may have been declining in some sense over the past 150 years, in another sense it was building. So did Shoghi Effendi actually anticipate this kind of infrastructure-building phenomenon? At first glance it would appear not, but he did in fact remark on several occasions that America was on the ascendant. For example, in “The Goal of a New World Order” the Guardian refers to the “growing prosperity and prestige” of the Unites States of America. I am going to suggest that in some respects it would be impossible for any country to have such growing prosperity and prestige unless it had a strong morality and solidarity to go with it. How otherwise could a country, unless it happened upon some kind of treasure, be on the ascendant? In history, the growth of any country seems to largely devolve upon the strength of its morals and religious conviction. I would suggest that Shoghi Effendi actually realized this. Any thoughts? Matt ---------- You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Baha'i Studies is available through the following: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.jccc.net/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=bahai-st news://list.jccc.net/bahai-st http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist (public) http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (public)