“Where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18--1599 Geneva Bible).
“Where there is no vision, people cast off restraints; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.” (Proverbs 29:18--New International Version Bible).
IF FAITH FADES AWAY, FREEDOM WILL INVARIABLY DIE!
I am indebted to Joe Wolverton 11, J. D., Constitutional Law Scholar for The John Birch Society, for the inspiration to write this article, much of which mirrors or amplifies his wisdom as he expressed it in an article titled: “The Manger & The Republic”, published in the December, 2025 issue of “The New American” magazine, the best and most informative and TRUTHFUL magazine being published today (by American Opinion Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society). With apologies to other writers, past and present, I consider his article to be the most introspective, the most insightful, the most accurate and wise, and perhaps the most disturbing one I’ve read for many, many years. All of the “quotes” and ideas are from Joe’s article, in his own words or in my ‘amplification’ of his thoughts. When one confronts the wisdom distilled from experience and truth, further comments only serve to “nail down” that truth, and reinforce it. That’s what I’ll try to do in the words that follow.
It should be obvious to all people whose I. Q.’s are above the ‘moron’ level that our nation---our once-Godly, relatively patriotic, Christian and Bible believing land, populated by mostly decent and hard-working people and by Constitution-honoring and thrifty citizens who were always willing to help others---is going downhill rapidly, politically, spiritually, morally, financially, and especially patriotically; sliding down that calamitous hill toward perdition—toward the end of all that we Americans have long believed made us unique among the other nations of Planet Earth—and all that has made the U.S.A. a nation in which the majority of us would want to live and raise our families.
JOHN ADAMS WAS 100% CORRECT
Wolverton opened his article with a blast from “both barrels”. He wrote:
“…(a) light…broke into human history on the night the Savior (Jesus) was born. The world was transformed not by an emperor’s sword…but by a Child lying in a manger. That child reordered the universe of men. He revealed the true hierarchy of power: first God, then man, then government. When man exalts government above God, freedom dies; when man exalts himself above both, chaos reigns”.
The Founders of our nation knew those truths well. They knew that the best constitution ever drafted could NOT preserve any nation—any people—who rejected its basic moral foundation. That was reinforced by President John Adams in an address to the Massachusetts Militia on October 11, 1798, in which he said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Of course he was absolutely correct! Is that why we have been essentially abandoning adherence to that venerable document for over a century, as our “national morality” degenerated?
OUR NATION IS BEING DESTROYED. WHO IS AT FAULT?
Has this been a PURPOSEFUL destruction of the vision of our Founders of free people living in a free nation? YES--without any doubt, it HAS been a planned, mostly surreptitious attack by globalist/Marxist socialist/anti-God vermin who began infesting our new nation shortly after it was born in Philadelphia in 1787. The war against our precious American liberty has been unceasing from the early days of our Republic, and it has only been intensifying since then in the hatred directed against “Americanism” by disgusting haters of freedom who posture as “concerned citizens” but are actually dedicated “back stabbers” whose evil collectivist philosophy mandates that they destroy that which our Founders—at a very high cost to themselves—gave to us. And if these enemies of God and freedom are successful, whose fault will it be, my fellow patriots? Theirs---or OURS?
Reread John Adams’ quote, above. How right and far-seeing he was. Don’t you agree? Essentially he was suggesting that without a strong foundation in Biblical morality and strongly practiced faith, the principles of our “republican” form of government will be in jeopardy—greatly endangered—perhaps doomed to extinction by the neglect and uncaring of the very people our nation was founded to nurture and protect—a people that were ONCE moral, relatively religious, and patriotic, but who are increasingly turning their backs on those virtues!
It has often been claimed, and probably correctly throughout American history, that “politics is downstream from culture”. If that is so, then it can also be claimed, with a great degree of accuracy, that “culture itself must flow ‘downstream’ from FAITH”. As Wolverton said, “The life of a nation flows from what its people worship. If they worship the living God, they will honor His image in one another. But if they worship themselves, they will soon trample one another in pursuit of power and pleasure.” Well, if those words don’t hit you right between your eyes, then no words will.
WHAT IS IT THAT CAUSES NATIONS TO COLLAPSE?
Many formerly great and strong cultures over history—Assyria-Egypt-Greece-Rome-cultures all over Asia, the middle east, and Europe over many centuries, collapsed after a period of national fervor, faith, expansion, and then a slow (or rapid) collapse of MORALITY—of how their citizens treated each other and those around them—the degradation of basic morality that they allowed through carelessness or deliberate design to creep into their existence. It’s very apparent throughout the history of mankind that as “morality” decreases, as societies degrade and decay, the amount of “laws” passed by the governing powers greatly increases in order to try to “put off” the inevitable collapse of their culture.
The increasing number of laws within a disintegrating society may restrain or control its population’s behavior for a time, but as Wolverton so aptly observes: “when the conscience of a nation decays, even the best constitution becomes a lifeless script. Rome did not fall because its Senate forgot how to legislate. It fell because its people forgot how to live. Bread and circuses replaced duty and sacrifice, and its citizens, once fierce defenders of liberty, begged for rulers who would feed and entertain them.”
Wolverton’s insightful condemnations then proceed in exponentially increasing severity as he details the sicknesses that are debilitating our American society—that are speeding us toward that possibly inevitable collapse. He writes:
“The same contagion infects America today. We have traded temperance for indulgence, reverence for entertainment, and faith in God for self-worship. We call vice “expression”, sin “choice”, and selfishness “freedom”. We drown in information but search for truth.”
CAN LIBERTY SURVIVE WITHOUT FAITH?
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1869), a French diplomat, political philosopher, and historian, touring through the U.S. in the first half of the 19th century, discovered to his amazement that “religion was the first of her political institutions.” Joe Wolverton wrote:
“(De Tocqueville) saw that liberty was preserved (in America) not by force, but by faith. Religion taught men to govern themselves, and self-government is the only soil in which political freedom can grow. But as Tocqueville warned, ‘Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot’. The crisis of our time is not primarily political; it is spiritual. When men cease to fear God, they begin to fear one another. When they no longer look upward for moral authority, they look outward for control. The more corrupt the people, the more power the government must claim to manage them. It is a deadly cycle, and every step away from virtue brings us closer to tyranny.”
Read that last sentence again, because as I wrote above--those of us with suspicious and “inquiring minds” have LONG CONTENDED that abandoning virtue—i.e. trashing our national faith and morality—has been the goal of evil and conspiratorial plotters and haters of liberty from the earliest days of our nation---indeed from the first days of human existence in God’s beautiful garden, as “The Evil One”—the God-Hater--was there, waiting for gullible and trusting humans to believe his LIES. And he hasn’t ceased in his vicious attacks against humanity since the day he tempted Mother Eve with a piece of fruit! He knows he can’t destroy our Creator, so he has focused on destroying that which God has created since the beginning.
I’ve read Wolverton’s troubling article twice, and each time I was tempted to stop reading half way through because I became so depressed over the truth of what he was communicating to his readers. But I continued, because by the time I finished it the second time I had determined to write this semi-synopsis of his thoughts for all of you. And I’ve done so, because knowledge is power, and the evil ones of this time would prefer you to have neither knowledge or power, both of which can overcome the no longer so surreptitious schemes of the evil and despicable globalists who are striving to conquer free people and enslave us within their “New World Order”.
Wolverton continues in his fierce truth: “Modern man stands on the ruins of the moral order and calls the rubble progress. He scoffs at faith while expecting the fruits of it---justice, peace, and dignity---to remain. He replaces reverence with rebellion and wonders why the world trembles. Schools that once began the day with prayer now begin it with propaganda. And that once celebrated beauty now wallows in blasphemy. Families that once gathered around Scripture now gather around screens…. Even the birth of Christ has been buried beneath a mountain of wrapping paper and noise.”
“This is not mere nostalgia. The loss of sacred meaning always precedes the loss of freedom. A people that forgets the difference between the holy and the profane soon forgets the difference between the lawful and the lawless. (Read Proverbs 29:18).”
Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), a signer of our Declaration of Independence, echoed John Adams’s warnings when he said: “Without religion there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty”. The Founders of our nation were not “perfect” people. They had their strengths and weaknesses as we all do. But in the matter of “national virtue” among their countrymen, they all realized that there can be no true liberty in a society in which “virtue” is under attack, or indeed has been purged out of existence. National morality, or national “virtue”, is THE essential ingredient for the long and healthy life of any republic, especially our American Republic! All Americans, particularly American patriots, should realize by now that a population that has sold its soul to corruption will surely vote for CORRUPT leaders at almost all levels of government, and as surely as the sun “rises” in the east, those corrupt leaders will devise corrupt political and financial systems that will enslave the people, who often will “encourage” their own enslavement. To deny that this is happening to our increasingly socialist/authoritarian nation is to be purposely blind to reality!
Wolverton also wrote: “Look around. We kill the unborn and call it compassion. We mutilate children and call it medicine. We turn marriage into a contract of convenience and call it equality. We have enthroned confusion and exiled truth. SUCH A NATION CANNOT ENDURE, FOR LIBERTY CANNOT LIVE LONG IN A CULTURE THAT CELEBRATES BONDAGE TO SIN.” (Emphasis mine—whl). I find myself wishing that Wolverton hadn’t written those words, because they are both depressing and condemnatory! But he wrote those words because they are true, and I must report his warnings.
I’ll conclude this foray into societal condemnation by a “Master of Revelation”, as Joe Wolverton pierces our souls with a flaming dagger of truth:
“Every tyranny begins within. The freest man in the world can be a slave if his heart is captive to sin. Christ said, ‘Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin.’ A society full of such servants cannot remain free for long. The man who cannot control himself will soon be controlled by others.
“We call ourselves free, but we are bound by invisible chains: e.g. addiction, envy, pornography, anger, fear, debt. We have traded our birthright for indulgence, and the price is servitude. The modern man brags of autonomy while being governed by appetite. He cannot rise early, hold his tongue, or keep his word, yet he declares himself sovereign.” He further reminded us that “The moral collapse of individuals invites the political domination of tyrants. The state grows large as the soul grows small.”
Old Benjamin Franklin, one of our wisest Founders, clearly foresaw the dangers of losing national virtue. He reminded us:
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” America, in the Year of Our Lord, 2026, is swiftly becoming such a nation!
Franklin surely was wise, and right! All of us, Christians, People of Faith, conservatives, liberals, young and old, love to blame “others”—government bureaucrats—people with conflicting opinions that differ from our own—people with perceived sinister agendas, etc. for making our society into one of incipient chaos, of rebelliousness toward authority or long established moral order, of trashing all that was considered good, honorable, moral, and worthy of respect. It really wasn’t our “lawyers” of all stripes who made honesty optional. It really wasn’t “politicians” who made immorality respectable. Those things are always OUR CHOICES, aren’t they? The cause of the destruction of our culture and its corresponding loss of liberty can be found by each one of us looking into our mirror. THAT’S where the “guilty party” can be found!
