The War on Christians: A Deliberate Assault and Its Fallout
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The decline of Christianity in America since 1970 isn’t some random shift—it’s the result of deliberate forces chipping away at its foundations. A picture says a thousand words, and the numbers paint a grim one: Christians, once the bedrock of the nation, have been steadily eroded by secular agendas, cultural decay, and internal failures. What’s left is a society grappling with moral chaos, broken families, and a fractured identity.
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The Forces Behind the Decline
Secular Education
It started with a bang in 1962—Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court decision that yanked prayer out of public schools. That ruling kicked off a domino effect. By the 1970s, classrooms ditched Christian values for humanism and relativism. Out went biblical teachings; in came sex ed, evolution, and later, ideologies that clash head-on with scripture. Schools stopped raising kids with faith and started turning them against it.
Liberal Propaganda and Hollywood
The 1970s saw TV, movies, and music take a hard turn—sex, drugs, and individualism over family and piety. MTV in the ‘80s and the ‘60s counterculture hangover made sin look cool and Christianity look like a relic. By the ‘90s, shows like The Simpsons were openly mocking religion, and the media’s leftward tilt cemented the idea that being devout was for squares. Hollywood didn’t just reflect the shift; it drove it.
Government Overreach
Roe v. Wade in 1973 legalized abortion, spitting in the face of Christian sanctity-of-life principles. It was a gut punch to believers and a green light for moral decline. Fast forward to 2015 with Obergefell v. Hodges—gay marriage became the law of the land, forcing secular values on a nation rooted in faith. Religious liberty took a backseat, and living biblically got harder.
Collapse of the Traditional Family
Divorce rates hit 50% in the early ‘80s, fueled by feminism pushing women out of the home and into the workforce. The church-going family unit—once the pipeline for raising faithful kids—crumbled. Fewer intact Christian households meant fewer kids in pews, plain and simple.
Church Failures
Inside the walls, liberal denominations watered down doctrine—contraception, women priests, LGBTQ inclusion—driving away conservatives who wanted the unfiltered truth. Then came the Catholic priest scandals in the 2000s, shattering trust. The church shot itself in the foot while the world piled on.
The Fallout: Moral and Cultural Decay
Family Collapse
Without Christianity’s anchor, marriage and kids took a backseat. Divorce rates soared in the ‘70s and hover at 40-50% today. Single-parent homes doubled from 13% in 1970 to 27% by 2020. Biblical values—fidelity, sacrifice, procreation—got traded for selfish individualism. Kids from these broken homes are more likely to end up poor or in jail. The religiously unaffiliated (29% of adults now) have fewer kids (1.6 per woman vs. 1.9 for Christians), shrinking the population and workforce over time.
Crime Spikes
Violent crime exploded in the ‘70s and ‘80s, peaking at 758 per 100,000 in 1991—way up from 161 in 1960. Even after dropping, it’s never gone back to pre-1970 lows. Without a “fear of God,” people justify theft, violence, and drugs—look at the opioid crisis, with 80,000 dead in 2021. Less church influence in cities means more gang culture and lawlessness.
Moral Vacuum
Christianity gave America a shared playbook—the Ten Commandments kind. As it fades, ethics splinter. Crime spikes in the ‘70s and cultural clashes over right and wrong show a society unmoored from a single moral compass.
Abortion Explosion
Post-Roe, over 63 million abortions by 2020 turned America into a “culture of death.” A less Christian society shrugs at life’s value—Planned Parenthood’s growth and “choice” rhetoric prove the moral rot.
Sexual Deviance
The ‘60s sexual revolution, gay marriage in 2015, and trans debates trace back to rejecting biblical norms. Out-of-wedlock births tripled (13% in 1970 to 40% in 2020), and porn’s a billion-dollar beast. Without Christian guardrails, it’s a free-for-all.
Economic Laziness
Christian charity and work ethic gave way to welfare—spending ballooned from $77 billion in 1970 to over $1 trillion by 2020 (inflation-adjusted). Churches once handled community support; now it’s a bloated state. Meanwhile, denominations bleed cash—Catholic parishes down 11% from 2000-2017, Southern Baptists losing 2.3 million members since 2006. Less money in the collection plate means less for food banks or disaster relief.
Cultural Division
Christianity unified America—E pluribus unum with faith at its core. Now, with 73% of Republicans vs. 4% of Democrats identifying as Christian by 2020, it’s identity politics and polarization instead. Church attendance tanked—Catholics from 55% in 1970 to 20% today—leaving rural communities isolated and the Rust Belt hooked on drugs.
Political Shift
The Christian Right’s peak in the ‘80s and ‘90s faded as evangelicals dropped from 23% to 14% of the population by 2020. Secular voices now dominate abortion, marriage, and education debates. The faithful who remain cling to MAGA-style Christianity, doubling down on identity over consensus.
The Bigger Picture
Christianity’s erosion didn’t just shrink church rolls—it gutted America’s moral and cultural spine. From family collapse to crime waves to economic stagnation, the data screams cause and effect. Diversity of thought sounds nice until it fractures a nation’s identity—some argue it’s why civilizations fall (see How Diversity Destroys Civilization at amerika.org). Love it or hate it, the numbers don’t lie: America’s less Christian, and it’s paying the price.