Will America Conserve Its Conservatism

Seth Draper
Mr. Pauley
English IIIA
28 Nov 2004

Will America Conserve Its Conservatism
Introduction- What will the affect of the growing sentiment of liberality be on Christian conservatives in this country?
I.	Countries constant liberal shifting
A.	Always new more liberal parties
B.	Rise of individualism
C.	Values today, values yesteryear
II.	Liberal conflicts with Christian conservatism
A.	Liberal values vs. Conservative values.
B.	Individualism vs. Religion
C.	Conservatism vs. Progress
D.	Politics
III.	Why Christian conservatism is on the verge of collapse religiously
A.	New denominations
B.	Value system changes
C.	Rise of individualism, self gratifiers
D.	Atheists
IV.	Why Christian conservatism is on the verge of collapse individually
A.	Shallow
1.	Christian safe vs. Christian growth
2.	Bible reading
3.	Attendance
4.	Merchandising
V.	Where is Christian conservatism going
A.	No difference between them and secular
B.	Persecuted
C.	Outlawed beliefs
D.	Total disappearance
Conclusion- This countries constant shift towards liberality has strained Christian conservatism to the verge of collapse.

Will America Conserve Its Conservatism?
	Who is God? Where is God? Is there even a God? Such pertinent questions have been reverberating throughout our society since the beginning of time. Many religions have been created to answer these inquiries and many more. In this country however, the predominant religion for this purpose is Christianity. The definition for Christians will be as follows: a person’s beliefs “pertaining to or derived from Jesus Christ or his teachings.” This will include Catholics, Protestants, Mormons and New Age Believers (Christian, 214). The point of interest is the ever growing sentiment of liberality’s affect conservative Christians.
	The United States of America exists in a state that continually becomes more liberal, a state of being “favorable to progress or reform, as in religious or political affairs” (Liberal, 258). Politically, the change has been more strenuous and slow going because our government works on a two party system. This makes it so that of the two parties we have, one is liberal and one is conservative, beliefs “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc.” (Carlin, 4: Conservative, 702). The effect of such a limited scope in party choice makes it so that for a liberal shift to happen one of the two parties or both has to be abolished, so that new ideologies can come in (Carlin, 4). There have been four instances in our history where a change in political parties has happened this way; the country is even now experiencing one. For the revolution to come about, radical, new views and issues must separate the preexisting establishment  so much that it causes new parties to spring up and replace the old ones. An example of this happening was in the election of 1860; in that instance, the original group established was headed by abolitionists. They advocated freedom of slaves, stronger national government, and tolerance of others, especially Indians. Another example was the 1932 election with Franklin Delano Roosevelt; this time the ideology was focused towards government help with the poor and growing individualism (Vlahos, 3, 19, 65). Whenever one regime is succeeded by another, the newest one becomes more liberal (Carlin, 9). Even though politics may not revolutionize quickly, or often, the ramifications of their changes is extreme, as with the last one with the liberal advent of individualism (Vlahos, 19).
	While political change may be slothful in its impact, the recent advent in liberal politics of individualism, characteristic of loss of association with family, religion and even politics, has been rapid (Carlin, 9). A manifestation of this revolution is eminent in just the language people use everyday. There are four types: the language derived from biblical heritage, the republic heritage, a general group type, and expressive individualism. However, three of the types have all but disappeared leaving just one, expressive individualism. To break it down to basics, this single language type is different than the others in that it is not a group type; instead it focuses on how all events encountered are in relation to the individual (Springsted, 15). Specifically in this country, the event in question is religion. The growth started in the 1930s and saw an exponential growth in the 1960s that has continued to today. A thought process induced from the language type, which is derived from individualism, has affected religion in the way that the focus of religion progressed from spiritual texts to a person’s own beliefs. Old systems were destroyed or made to bend in order that the single person can believe what they want, not what holy books teach (Wilcox, 1, 5). These reforms are extreme in nature and seem that they would take much longer to make such radical shifts. The reason for such accelerated growth in individualism is attributed to the many campaigns made by famous philosophers; this includes Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, John Dewey, and Alan Ryan. A unanimous conviction amongst all those named is that they believed individuality should be taken to a higher degree. Each one built upon the last idea of individuality and argued for furtherance of it; thus making individuality the respectable thing, so it could be easily adopted and quickly taken into effect in people’s lives.
	The effect of political realignment and a rise of individualism are exposed by the symptoms of the severe contrast of values from even fifty years ago to now. One Dr. Dobson, a Christian right leader, has noticed this slide of values towards liberality. Because of his observations, he created magazines for conservative Christians. The intent of these magazines was to counter the general trend of society as a whole (Buss, 3). One of the minor manifestations in our transformation is in dress and the attitude it represents. In less than half a decade, the students of universities went from the formality of jackets and ties to the colloquial look of just pants and t-shirts. A few more years passed and the attitude of dress lent itself towards more of an erotic nature. Although the significance may be hard to see, it is truly important; a slack in dress and a move towards ideas once considered taboo shows that people are forsaking responsibility and are taking up endeavors of a liberal nature (Wolfson, 7). Research by Daniel Yankelovich also has shown that America’s values are changing. At one time, the Judea-Christian ethics of remaining a virgin until married and the sanctity of marriage have been compromised. “Moral and social statistics” on subjects such as premarital sex, illegitimate children, and divorce show an increase from anywhere from five percent to two hundred and fifty percent (Wolfson, 6). On top of the fact of people renouncing their responsibilities, and lacking a respect for sacred institutions there are more ideologies changing with greater impacts on society, such as feminism, increase of pornography, banning of Christian festivities, use of drugs in date rapes, and parenting without use of discipline. All of these just described are direct results of liberality on an increase in this country (Buss, 8).
	While this country is always on the perpetual slide towards liberality, it is destroying Christian conservatism because the two of these are in conflict. The two are polar opposites and cannot exist in harmony; one must wipe the other out. This rift between the two is caused by the rigid differences they each hold in their values. They are so different that they cause attacks to be waged on one another’s beliefs. One attack was by a liberal author on patriarchal families, a value held by Christianity. Kimberly Blaker went on to attack this value by attributing it to be the cause of abuse, incest and physical abuse. Also, having a father being head of the family will disallow those involved with the family to fully actualize themselves and understand why they do what they do. Such conflicts just serve to expose the raging differences in their value systems (Blaker, 11). Another exposure of this division of the two sides is their stance on the hot topics of abortion and homosexuality. Liberals have been firmly arguing for the promotion while conservatives have attempted abolition; since the public criticism of these two subjects has come out into the open, conservatives standing by their convictions have dwindled. In just three years, the amount of people against abortion dropped twenty eight percent, and those against homosexuality dropped three percent (Real). Once again, the conflict between the two becomes known with the victor, and their furtherance of their agenda, being liberals.
	As the discordance grows worse, and liberal values take over, the rise of individualism is inevitable which has its own contentions with Christianity. The real core of the issue of this difference in these two beliefs is simple; it rests in who is the leader and creator of the religion. Dr. Frizzel outlines what Christians should believe and strive to attain. They are the ability to be certain of salvation, growth in Christ on a daily basis, overcoming self wants and ideals, is able to lead others in their Christian lives, and to possess the ability to convert unbelievers into Christianity (xiii). Christ is the main center of Christianity, but the person is the authority in individualism; this is evidenced by this recurring quote from individualistic people, “I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. It’s Sheliaism. Just my own little voice.” A rather typical quote from an individual goes to show the self-absorption and disaffiliation from the community that runs rampant in people of this belief type (Wilcox, 1, 5). It is impossible to get any more opposite in the core values and goals in these two faiths; one rests upon one teacher the other on their own self. While Christianity is driven towards a set of values, individualism, however, only strives to do what the individual feels. An increase in the liberal sentiment has led to this individualism, which is serving to undermine Christianity.
	Individualism is just one aspect of a bigger idea, progress, the identifying credence of liberalism; this also is in conflict with conservatism, which tries to remain the same. The reason progress is always on the increase is because that liberals believe
Those most notably affected by Christian extremism are children, women, African-Americans, and gays and lesbians. These groups suffer from violence, emotional trauma and injury, economic hardship, violations of their civil rights and (...) recruitment into damaging sects and cults, crime and violence, militia activity, media control, and (...) the AD/HD-Ritalin scare (Blaker, 7, 8).
Just to clarify, an extreme Christian is one who openly voices their beliefs (Blaker, 5). That is why liberals strive so hard to abolish Christian conservatism in favor of progress. And progress was noticed to bring a country away from religion by Christopher Dawson, the greatest historian of the early twentieth century (Russelo, 7). Progress and religion cannot exist at the same time; when one is pursued to the fullest, the other is abandoned. Proof of that statement is shown in that progress advocates inclusion and integration of all those, including their cultures and religions, who enter this country. When this happens, there is an acculturation on both sides. What this means is that a conflict of interest arises in faiths and causes the pre existing belief system to change certain beliefs (Neely, 1, 2, 3).
	With liberals gaining a larger following of people wanting progress, the politics of this country changes. Excluding Christian values and beliefs is the main change in government institutions. Blaker voices her opinion and the opinion of other liberals on the minor government system of school boards. There is a unanimous vehemence against the idea because Christians would not want to teach subjects such as evolution, instead wanting to teach creationism. Also, they would avoid sex education in public schools and leave it to be taught at home by parents (24). She, and the others she speaks for, is also against the idea of Christians in politics because they will transform our “democracy into a Christian theocracy.” Her reason for this is that she believes that politicians have no right to voice their faith in religion and that it violates our first amendment rights (9). Even Reverend Nieset, a catholic priest and teacher for many years, has his opinion on having religion in public institutions, “don’t.” Even our religious leaders do not want Christianity in the government; his reasons are that they will not work. He feels that any attempt for secular people to monitor religion will fail, and he states this because the Catholic Church has not been able to keep control of it (1, 3). Even those who should be the greatest advocates of Christianity in politics do not want to anymore, and it is this sentiment that has allowed it to be viewed as a target. This is evident in the event where NPR issued a story on its national radio program claiming that TVC, Traditional Values Coalition, sent out anthrax laced letters. Their reason for proclaiming TVC as the culprit is that TVC commented on the fact that senate witness’ no longer say, “So help me God.” It is because TVC was a fundamentalist group that the vitriolic remarks were made (Elvin, 1, 2). Politics has made a drastic change from the withdrawal of Christian beliefs from it, advocated by both liberals and Christians, and has allowed Christian conservatives to become political targets.
	All of these clashes with liberalism have led to the Christian conservative church to begin to decay. Denominations have allowed this degeneration to happen because of their number. Today, many denominations exist; they can, however, be summed into sixteen larger groups. There are different groups because in these groups there are different ways to be saved, become a true Christian. They include, but are not exclusive to, by baptism, calling on God, belief in God, faith, works, keeping the law, predestined, any who want to, and by God’s Grace (Secular). These types of divisions and disagreements have been around since the advent of Christianity. The most notorious one is the Trinity. The Trinity is the idea of the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, and God. To clearly define and agree on this subject it took 1274 years. On top of that, it only lasted a few centuries until it was brought to question yet again (Secular). Not only do these arguments pertain to major doctrinal issues, but also they can be petty and exist even today, continuing the dissolution of Christianity. Harry Fosdick noticed this attribute of denominations and said
Christian history lies in the way the church has so often misrepresented and obstructed vital Christianity. Our multiplied and meaningless denominations are doing that today. In one of our American communities, a congregation called itself the Church of God. They could not agree among themselves and having split asunder, the split called itself, the True Church of God. They in turn divided, and the new division called itself the Only True Church of God. The tragedy (...) is that none of these divisions has any imaginable relationship with the one supreme business of religion: the creation of private and public righteousness (16, 17, 18). 
These divisions truly are not accomplishing the goal of religion. Instead, they are causing ruin for Christianity by confusing people. Steven Matthies is a man seeking a religious, spiritual truth. He consulted many people and narrowed his search to Christianity. There was a problem though; he still does not know what to believe. The extreme differences and greatly numbered denominations just confused him. It confused him to the point that he no longer wishes to believe anything at all (Secular). Christianity is destroying itself by creating new denominations that have extreme differences in their doctrines and values.
	These new factions of Christianity confuse and confound believers and unbelievers, and this allows change to happen when people are not sure of what to believe in; thus, the conservative Christian values come to collapse. These new denominations were allowed to be created and confusion allowed to ensue because mass teaching in churches does not offer anything substantial to stop them. There has been a massive deficit on the idea of iniquity of man, or judgment, but only sugar coated messages of love are preached. Whatever the reason is for it happening, it has created a vacuum of good teaching and has allowed confusion (Frizzel, 88, 89).  This time of confusion has allowed people to come into leadership positions that maintain a liberal perspective. Harry Fosdick is one example. His career centered on Christians finding a new truth. He states that taking the Bible at its literal translation is archaic, so people need to revise what the Bible means. Revising the Bible would include remaking God, Christian history, and the events of creation, and maybe even the abolition of creation. This would be an extreme change of Christian doctrine (5, 6, 8). Praise and worship music is another area that has succumbed to a shift towards liberality. They no longer serve the purpose of preparing people for worship, or lifting their spirits in God, but now some Christian contemporary singers say, “I’m not trying to change what goes on in Church. I just want to make entertainment more worshipful.” Their goal is to be played like any other music; they do not want to be played in churches; they want to stay out, and they have succeeded. POD, the most popular selling Christian contemporary group, tours repeatedly with Ozzy Osborne in his concert Ozzfest. The man, who all preachers once came against as advocating worship of Satan, now is side by side with Christians (Powell, 5, 14). But music is just a symptom of a greater liberal idea that has come into Christianity. People lead a double life; on Sundays and when people from their church are around, they are Christians, but when at work or out for fun they are just like everybody else. Christianity is a life change, and it needs to be expressed at all times or there will be dissolution of Christianity altogether (Frizzel, xii). 
	These changes in our conservative values to liberal ones has been centered on the drive to gratify the individual. The past forty years have been experiencing the greatest increase in this sentiment. It has been such an increase that sociologists have predicted that the time is coming for a major reformation to take place. This new regime adjustment will forget the traditional Judea-Christian values and the doctrinal texts. It will have new standards that Christianity will be altered, or destroyed to suit a person’s wants (Wilcox, 5). Christianity transforming so is inevitable because people just are not happy any more. In 1993, 41% of Christians were happy; then, five years later that number dropped to 38%. In turn, in 1997 only 44% of Christians even practiced any sort of the religion whatsoever. The truth is that people are not finding joy and happiness in Christianity anymore, and now they are leaving it behind to pursue new religions and faiths (Real). 
	Just as dangerous as those who pervert Christianity into what they want are those who attempt to abolish Christianity; those in question are atheists. An atheist is a person who does not believe in any deity, but only believe in science and knowledge. Not all atheists attack Christian, but those who do, do so vehemently. And they do just attack Christians; they may make mention of other belief systems such as Islam or Judaism, but if they do, it is only to talk about how Christians harm their religions (Blaker, 2, 3: Harwood, 48, 49). The effectiveness of atheists is really because of where atheism presides. Surprisingly, atheists are even in church. In this day and age, it has become rather simple to be able to attend church and not hold to any values or faith. Many of those in there seem to profess to be Christian, but they do not maintain the beliefs or goals of Christianity; they are in effect, atheists (Frizzel, 87). Many atheists spend their lives researching how Christianity is to blame for all the problems in this country. If they cannot find a way to blame Christians for the problem, they put the responsibility on us to fix it, and publicly proclaim that Christians cannot. Simply put, they are looking for ways to blame Christians (Blaker, 8, 68). When they are done attributing societies downfall to Christians, they move on to making accusations of Christians being stupid. They say that fundamentalism in Christianity teaches the sky is solid, the earth is flat, Christians are polytheistic, and there is no afterlife. Their main goal here is to make Christianity out to look as an archaic, out of date idea that no one should believe in (Harwood, 1). Religion cannot stand against such attacks from within and outside of the church; atheism is a great contribution to Christianity falling apart as an organized religion.
	Just as the religion as a whole is falling apart, the individual people in their beliefs and actions are falling away from Christianity. Finding entertainment, books, music, etc., that was safe for Christians instead of searching for material encourages growth in Christianity is a significant contributor. The content, popularity and availability of such items reflect this feeling. One such book does deal with serious theological issues. A very tumultuous and greatly debated issue that came up was the question of how can a good and just God allow bad things to happen to people. An Irish immigrant brings up the controversy, because she lived during the potato famine and watched many a loved one die. She was even exposed to the sight of green stains around their mouth because grass was all they could get to consume. The inability to believe in God follows her throughout the book until her family and friends help her to see bad things just happen, and that God is not to blame (Pella,34,35,117,283). This material is contained within a Christian romance novel, and while it does have its deep theological thoughts, it does teeter on the edge of explicitness. Inside its covers, there is talk of full body tingles, blood rushing throughout the body, long stares filled with fantasies of kissing, and holding a girl close. That was between the non married people; between the married people, the worse is a kiss and biting at each other’s ear lobes. It has yet to transcend to eroticism, but it does get very close and leaves the eroticism to your imagination instead of saying it (Pella, 68, 91, 95,234,258). Christian fiction is starting to push the limits by suggesting illicit acts while surrounding it with ideas and talks of God. In a venue aside from books, there is music that has lost its usual requirement of encouraging growth. Some new contemporary bands, like D.C. Talk, have great theological statements and elements of worship. A brother in that type of music is Big Tent Revival who leans towards evangelical music; their songs are filled with lyrics like, “the bible talks about a book of names/ Souls reserved from flames/ tell me, brother, when it’s all through/ will you know Jesus, and will He know you?”(Powell, 6, 13). On the other side of the spectrum lie those in league with Third Day. They are one of the most popular Christian contemporary bands yet, on their CD Time there is only one song proclaiming the worship of God. All the other songs on that CD are about the singer’s perspective on life. It may be interpreted as worship of God, but when compared with hymns with lines like, “Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus our blessed redeemer,” it comes up severely short (Third Day, Your love oh Lord: Convention, 227). Aspects of a Christian life, especially entertainment, are slipping towards containing no value or a bad value.
	Songs, worship, and entertainment are no long encouraging growth in Christianity just as bibles have, too. It all starts with the translations of the bible that have been coming out recently. These new revised editions are made to find new words to make it easier to understand the bible. It was said of these new translations, “Thank God (its) been translated into English.” The words that were so hard to understand, even for adults are hallowed, thy will, kingdom, hail, grace, trespasses, and fruit of thy womb. Poor language skills are being allowed to exist because children and adults are no longer challenged to have to learn higher skills (Nieset, 10). Results from this dilemma have made it so that people can no longer read the bible and discern what it means. People like Marcus Borg help to perpetuate this situation by the books he writes. His books are filled with “scholarly insights” and not “scholarly jargon;” the implications of this are that Christians today are reliant upon others to know what the bible says, they cannot do it themselves (Brosend, 12).
	Besides from bibles now letting people continue to remain uneducated, the Bible is just not believed by people no matter the level of difficulty in the language. As of 2003, a Gallup survey showed that only two out of five Christians believe the bible to be the literal word of God and, three out of twenty Americans believe it is fiction written by men. These statements undermine the Judea-Christian belief that the bible is the literal word of God (Real). Now, with this being a growing sentiment, Christians find it much easier not to follow Christian doctrine. The new way is that Christians forsake the old beliefs and the bible; instead, they just seek a relationship with God on their own. When there is no moral standard, Christianity grows to be just individualism (Brosend, 5).
	This disbelief in the Bible has manifested itself also in who attends and when they attend church. A great number of people are doing Christian acts just because; this includes the Lord’s Supper, baptisms, and studies of the Bible. When asked after the fact about what and why, they were unable to explain anything about what they had done. There was no comprehension of why they did it or what its importance was (Hatton). In a poll, it shows that 83% of people in this country considered themselves Christian, but only 58% attended a church regularly; 53% percent of Americans, however, feel that religion is important. This means that 5% do not feel that they even need to attend, a great compromise of traditional values, and to that number 12% do not live a life that signifies being a Christian, which is required to be a true Christian (Real: Frizzel,7,xii). This was caused by the fact that for the past two decades it was almost a fad to attend church. Many attendees of church now are in church that do not really believe but go only for image, or they feel that they have to (Frizzel, 89).
	Keeping an image of Christianity is not only held up by church attendance, but also by the merchandise Christians buy. Christian merchandise sales are in an exponential growth. Sale figures jumped from just one billion dollars to 4.2 billion dollars; the Passion of the Christ is attributed to having been the biggest reason for such a spike (Howell, 1, 9, 23). In this 4.2 billion dollar market, people can buy anything proclaiming that you are a believer. There is jewelry, license plate frames, stickers, book covers, and pens; however, these items have a sinister nature, also. They allow people to proclaim that they are Christians instead of having to live a life that shows it; there are even those who do not believe in Christianity but wear it because it is a fad. The end results are people who seem to be Christians doing unchristian things and giving the idea that is what Christians do and that is who they are (Beardsley’s,6). There are some items that are not based in doctrine with the message they proclaims; a great example is the “What Would Jesus Do?” items. It seems like a good theological statement at first, but it has the problem that it calls on the person to give a personal opinion on what Jesus might have done. This is the main driving force of individualism, which undermines Christianity (Beardsley’s, 8, 9). Those items of jewelry and stickers are a part of the sales but the highest selling items are books. Two recent books of a Christian nature are Glorious Appearing by Tim Lahaye and Purpose Driven Life. Glorious Appearing is a fictional book about the end days, and Purpose Driven Life is a Christian self help book. The fictional entertainment book is selling much better than the one aimed at Christian growth (Howell, 13). Another Tim Lahaye book, Left Behind, has sold over 60,000,000 copies. It, like Glorious Appearing is a book about the end times. It does talk about salvation, but it talks about salvation through fear instead of faith and love. This is a monstrous difference and clearly represents a change from traditional values (Frizzel, 91). Merchandising for Christians has remained just that, merchandising. It is not a serious venue for those trying to maintain Christian conservatism.
	With these perpetual conflicts with liberality dissolving and decaying the Christian church and Christians themselves, one question has been made pertinent to be answered; where is Christian conservatism going? Dr. Gregory Frizzel has been questing for an answer to this question. He is a ten year director of prayer and spiritual awakening. He also has created prayer strategies that are now employed by many church organizations, and has written twelve books on praying and revival, and leads an interstate radio program on the same subjects. Having spent so much time first hand in the area he feels this is the most debased time of the church, there will be soon no difference in Christians, and secular people (xvi). Music is an avenue that has suffered greatly and has become largely secular. Millions of copies are being sold of music that has no redeeming value in it whatsoever; it has been compared to be a non swearing Ozzy Osborne style of music. This is typical of new up and coming popular Christian contemporary bands (Powell, 14). Also, Christian schools are now teaching in a “value-neutral” style. This is trying to teach without teaching morals mixed in. If that was not enough, the teachers at these schools no longer even want to teach kids about religious beliefs, but are in favor of teaching logic to further individualism. There is no difference between Christian Colleges and secular ones (Springsted, 7, 17, 18). All of this is caused by a lack of fellowship. With today’s society being so demanding on time, people can no longer have relationships that are more intimate so, people are attending churches, teaching in Christian school, and holding Christian leadership positions without anyone knowing whether they are even saved (Frizzel, 89).
	By growing more secular, Christians have become weaker in their voice in this country and have thus allowed persecution to rain upon Christians. Those who persecute us have a simple reason; it is, “I don’t like theism (...) I don’t like racism and sexism, and I think the world would be a better place without them.” Not only do they group us with immoral and illegal feelings, but also they openly state their goal is to get rid of Christians (Godless, 18). One of these attacks they waged against us was calling all Americans godless because there was no such as God. This attack happened on C-SPAN while being nationally broadcast. Vitriolic remarks like that and more are made every day constantly barraging Christians and weakening some resolves (Godless, 3). Persecution that is more serious is going on in states like Illinois, Colorado, California, and Wyoming. These are places where the attacks are of a physical nature and sometimes result in death (Neely, 12). These attacks on Christians are results of militant rallying cries, such as this one published in a national atheist magazine:
We godless Americans are the ones who have to do it. We must act forcefully and decisively. We must expose the fallacies of religious thought both inside and outside of government. (...) We must rebuild the wall of separation. We must restore a semblance of sanity to government. (...) We must not fail (Government, 46-54).
People in this country are out to get rid of Christianity by whatever means, and will continue to persecute Christians.
	As persecution of Christians becomes more commonplace, the next step will be outlawing Christianity, and it has already begun. In Mississippi a principal was fired on the grounds of being “insubordinate, (...) Neglected his duty, had intentionally disregarded school policy, and had shown a lack of professional judgment.” While this sounds quite indemnifying to the point of an atrocious act, it is not so extreme. He allowed a student to pray over the intercom for God to protect and bless all the students, teachers, and this country (Toledano, 4, 5). It was at that time that it was deemed illegal to have prayer in school, even if student led. Another leader being persecuted is President Bush who has come under attack for being Christian and for appointing Christians in positions. It is felt that people who believe in imaginary deities have no place in government, so they want complete removal them from a place of authority or leadership (Government, 7, 9, 14). If people, like the catholic priests, wanted to stand up for Bush and give him their support, it would be difficult to do. There are heavy fines to be paid to the IRS for any religious organization who says who they want elected. It is just one step from heavy fines to being illegal (Morphew, 12). There are more laws being set into motion to further squelch Christian expression. A federal judge ruled that it is illegal to display the Ten Commandments in a government building; this also includes the Declaration of Independence. Any reference to Christianity even if it is a part of our history as a country is being made illegal (Decalogue, 4). Laws are being put into motion to proscribe Christian expressions and soon Christianity altogether.
	Being outlawed is the sign that soon Christianity will disappear. People in this country have stated it is their goal to get rid of Christianity and all other religions. They want the country to be run only by secular man made rules (Government, 41). They are succeeding; over the past forty years, America has been in a spiritual and religious downfall. It has become such a problem that churches throughout the country are infected with “apathy, disunity, immorality and worldliness.” Because of these problems, Dr. Frizzel believes that Christianity will disappear (88, xiii, xviii). If Christians do not disappear because of moral problems, then the dismal amount of money flowing into church coffers will. A lack of membership, higher cost of living, and a change of focus as to where to donate have all contributed to decreasing the amount of money the churches receive. Churches will shrink in number and all but disappear if this trend continues (Amerson, 1). It is a bleak outlook for Christianity, and it will be incredibly hard for Christian conservatism to make a come back. There was an exponential growth in the last half of a century in new ideas and resources to help protect Christian beliefs. In spite of this, America has lost the most believers; if these resources could not help, very little could (Frizzel, 124). It is just a matter of time before Christians disappear.
	In all aspects, it is evident that this country’s constant shift towards liberality has strained Christian conservatism to the verge of collapse. There has always been and always will be a perpetual conflict among liberals and conservatives, and liberals always win. Their winning has caused the debasement of Christianity as a whole down to the individual. Because of this decay, the end product is an inevitable disappearance.

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