Well, there was something else, another “ism,” that came along in the 19^th Century, an enemy that, really, posed maybe a greater threat to biblical belief, to spirituality, to those who were attempting to practice Christianity to be faithful to God, than any of the others that we’ve talked about, and that is, secularism. It still is a great threat.

Secularism. What is that? Well, it is, in short, the substitution of worldly values for biblical, or Christian, values. Sound familiar? That’s really what’s going on today, is it not? It has been going on since the 19^th Century, but it really seems to have picked up a great deal of momentum in the past few years. The values, the morals, the principles that we read about in the Bible, that really, you know, have been and, of course, continue to be relevant to us who are Christians, are cast aside for worldly values. Secularism is so dangerous because it is all-pervasive, penetrating almost every facet of the work of the Lord’s church, and because it is so difficult to recognize.

But, on the broader scale, we refer to our nation as being a “Christian nation,” founded upon Judaeo-Christian principles. Oh, by the way, you heard about the elementary school in California who has prohibited a teacher from distributing copies of the Bill of Rights, because God’s Name is in it? It’s true. So, we [the general use of the world “we”] are attempting in our day to continue to replace biblical values, biblical moral principles, with worldly things. That is what secularism is, and that really had its beginning in the 19^th Century.

The Industrial Revolution that we talked about a moment ago began in England in, actually, the 18^th Century, but it touched every Western civilization before the 19^th Century was over. And, with the Industrial Revolution—we’ve already talked about some of the ills associated with that, of course—but, along with that Industrial Revolution came a rising standard of living. Interestingly enough, this higher standard of living would become accepted as a positive “Christian value,” where in previous generations, in previous centuries, it had been just the opposite. Poverty had been acceptable; poverty had been a sign of piety, and now it’s been completely turned on its head. Once again, this standard of “the more you have, the better you are” was not viewed from just a worldly perspective, but the thinking was that this was an evaluation of how well you were doing as a Christian.

Well, the Industrial Revolution brought rapid urbanization, and millions of people swarmed to the cities, leaving the countryside, leaving the farms, and so on, and in a lot of cases, leaving their religion behind, as well. This phenomenon, as it was taking place in the 19^th Century, really took church leaders (and we’re talking, now, in the broadest sense—denominational leaders, and so on), took religion, by surprise. It was something that took place while the various religious groups quite frankly couldn’t keep up with the urbanization. And so, you have this situation where millions of people are coming to the cities, they’re leaving their religion behind, and the religion that is there in the cities—the values that do exist—are not equipped to quickly assimilate these people. And so, we have a continued degradation in the society.

These things that we’ve been talking about are sort of a “world view” of the 19^th Century and certainly affected young America. We had a situation where, here in America during the 19^th Century there were positive things to be seen in terms of the broad spectrum of spiritual things, where church attendance grew significantly during those 100 years—grew from something like 3% in 1800 to over 40% in 1900. There was not only a growth in numbers, but in the strength of major religious denominations during this period. It was a time of revivals—from the preaching in the brush arbors of something called the Second Awakening to the great urban revivals led by well-known preachers, denominational preachers such as Dwight L. Moody, and so on. The 19^th Century witnessed one surge of revivalism after another.

Some of the major social issues during this time were: The anti-slavery crusade, women’s rights movements, prison reform movements, temperance movements, peace movements, and numerous other reforming ventures.