America’s Spiritual Adultery: What Solomon’s Fall Warns Us About at 250
Has America Sacrificed Its Christian Moral Foundation
for Political Peace, Power, and Pluralism?
A Personal Word of Gratitude and Grief
Before I speak about America’s spiritual decline, I want to explain why this country means so much to me personally. I was born in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1966. I came into this world as a sick baby, and my biological mother eventually realized that she could not provide the medical care and stability I needed. She brought me to the United States in the hope that I might receive the care, protection, and opportunities she could not give me in Mexico. Had she remained there with me under the conditions in which I was born, I might not have survived. My mother then made one of the most painful decisions a parent can make. She released me into the care of the state so that I might have the possibility of a better life. After the necessary paperwork was completed, I entered the foster-care system as a ward of the state.
In 1972, I was adopted. The couple who adopted me provided for my needs and gave me opportunities that might never have been available to me otherwise. I attended private and public schools. My adoptive parents were college-educated and hoped that I would also pursue higher education. Because of my adoptive father’s health and other circumstances, that did not happen when I was young. Much later in life, however, I returned to school and pursued the education I had long desired. My studies included psychology and theology. I have always wanted to understand human behavior more clearly, but even more than that, I have wanted to understand the heart of man—our souls, our spiritual condition, and our relationship with God. My adoptive parents raised me within the Catholic faith, and that was the perspective through which I first came to understand God. As I matured, I began to desire a closer relationship with the God revealed in Scripture. That desire eventually led me into deeper study of psychology, theology, and the Word of God.
I share this because my life might have been very different had my mother not brought me to the United States and made the heartbreaking decision to surrender me for adoption. Because of my poor health at birth, she chose what she believed would give me the best chance to live and have a future. It is my hope that, if she is in heaven today, she knows that the hope she carried for me came true. I remain mindful of the many children who entered foster care as I did but were never adopted. Many aged out of the system and struggled to survive without the family support, stability, and opportunities I received. I do not take lightly the fact that I was adopted when I was. I know that my story could have ended very differently. The United States became the only home I have truly known. It provided me with safety, education, opportunity, family, and the freedom to seek God, study His Word, and speak openly about my faith. That is why my heart is breaking as I watch this great country decline from within. I do not write because I hate America. I write because I love her. I write from gratitude and grief.
Patriotism does not require silence when a nation is drifting toward destruction. Love tells the truth, especially when the truth is painful. As America commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026, I am not writing merely to celebrate what our nation has been. I am asking what we have become. A country may retain its flag, Constitution, institutions, patriotic ceremonies, wealth, and military strength while losing the moral convictions that once gave those things meaning. America’s greatest danger is not only an enemy attacking from beyond its borders. It is the spiritual decay that develops within when leaders and citizens reject God’s moral authority, divide their loyalties among competing gods, and still expect the nation to remain free, just, stable, and united.
What Spiritual Adultery Means
Spiritual adultery occurs when people who have received truth, blessing, and moral instruction from God transfer their highest loyalty to something else. The new object of worship may be another god, political power, wealth, pleasure, ideology, national pride, personal autonomy, or cultural acceptance. The form may change, but the betrayal remains the same. God is no longer given the first place that belongs to Him alone. James uses the language of adultery to describe friendship with a world system opposed to God. Jesus declared that no one can serve two masters. Spiritual adultery is therefore divided worship: professing loyalty to God while allowing another authority to govern the heart. This diagnosis must first be applied to individuals and churches. Yet the same spiritual principle helps us understand what happens when a nation abandons the moral convictions that once restrained its public life. America’s founding was not the establishment of a national church, nor were all the founders identical in doctrine or Christian commitment. Nevertheless, religion—especially Christian belief—exerted substantial influence on the Revolution, early civic life, public morality, and the belief that republican government required a virtuous people. The founding also protected religious liberty: the First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing religion or prohibiting its free exercise, while Article VI forbids religious tests for federal office. Religious liberty is not the enemy. The deeper problem is expecting liberty to survive after rejecting the moral responsibility necessary to preserve it.
Solomon’s Divided Heart
King Solomon offers a sobering warning. Solomon began his reign with wisdom, privilege, prosperity, and an extraordinary calling from God. Yet he gradually exchanged wholehearted devotion for divided allegiance. Scripture records: “For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God” (1 Kings 11:4, NKJV). Solomon did not fall merely because he encountered people from other cultures. Scripture does not condemn human beings simply because they came from other nations. His sin was that he knowingly entered into alliances that introduced idolatry into the center of Israel’s leadership. He accommodated foreign gods, built places for their worship, and eventually participated in spiritual practices that violated his covenant loyalty to the Lord. His marriages may have seemed politically advantageous. The alliances may have promised security and peace. Each concession may have appeared small and manageable. Yet their cumulative effect was the corruption of his heart. Solomon did not awaken one morning and suddenly reject everything he had known. His fall came through gradual compromise. That is how spiritual adultery usually works. First, what God condemns is tolerated. What is tolerated becomes accepted. What is accepted becomes celebrated. What is celebrated eventually becomes protected, promoted, and imposed. Solomon did not cease being king when his heart turned away. The palace remained. The government continued. Israel still appeared prosperous and powerful. But decay had entered the center of leadership, and the consequences eventually reached the entire kingdom. The king’s divided heart contributed to the nation's division.
The Central Parallel
Solomon’s fall began when political advantage, personal desire, and religious accommodation became more important than covenant faithfulness. America’s spiritual adultery follows a similar pattern. We have attempted to preserve national peace by acting as though competing moral and religious authorities can all occupy the same throne. But a nation, like a human heart, cannot serve many masters indefinitely without eventually abandoning the true God. America has increasingly wanted the benefits associated with biblical morality—human dignity, moral accountability, fidelity, sacrifice, justice, restraint, and ordered liberty—while rejecting the God to whom those duties are ultimately owed. We want rights without responsibility, liberty without moral restraint, prosperity without gratitude, sexuality without holiness, justice without an objective standard, and government without accountability to anything higher than itself. Those contradictions cannot hold forever. A nation cannot serve God, wealth, political power, unrestricted personal autonomy, ideological conformity, and cultural approval as equally authoritative masters. Eventually, one of them will govern the others. Isaiah warned: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isa. 5:20, NKJV). When a society loses the ability to distinguish good from evil, it does not become neutral. It becomes vulnerable to whoever possesses enough cultural, financial, judicial, or political power to redefine the terms.
Religious Liberty Is Not Moral Relativism
Religious liberty protects the conscience of the individual. It allows Christians to preach Christ, Jewish citizens to practice their faith, Muslims to worship according to their beliefs, unbelievers to reject religion, and people from every background to live under the same constitutional protections. That liberty should be defended. But protecting the right to hold different beliefs is not the same as declaring that all beliefs about God, truth, morality, human nature, family, justice, and government are equally true or equally capable of sustaining the same constitutional order. Contradictory truth claims cannot all be true in the same sense. Every system of law expresses some understanding of what human beings are, which rights they possess, what conduct is permissible, what marriage and family mean, where governmental authority begins and ends, and what obligations citizens owe one another. There is no morally empty public square. When biblical convictions are removed, they are not replaced by neutrality. They are replaced by other moral, religious, philosophical, or ideological commitments. The question is therefore not whether people of different backgrounds may live together as American citizens. They may, and the Constitution protects that freedom. The question is: Which understanding of truth and human nature will shape our laws, schools, courts, institutions, and national character?
Compromise at the Center of Power
Solomon’s spiritual compromise was especially destructive because it occurred at the center of national leadership. Leaders do more than administer policy. Through legislation, judicial decisions, education, appointments, public speech, and institutional power, they help define what society permits, protects, rewards, discourages, and condemns. The proper issue is not an officeholder’s ethnicity, birthplace, or religious label by itself. Neither should anyone be condemned merely for possessing another cultural background. The necessary questions are whether that person honors the Constitution, rejects violence and totalitarianism, protects the rights of all citizens, and refuses to place party, ideology, wealth, foreign influence, or religious authority above the lawful duties of office. That examination must be applied consistently. A leader who seeks to replace constitutional liberty with religious authoritarianism should be opposed. A leader who makes government into a substitute god should also be opposed. A politician who uses Christian language while serving corporate wealth, dishonesty, greed, and personal ambition must be confronted by the same moral standard. The idol of ideology and the idol of money may appear different, but both demand divided allegiance. Micah described leaders who judged for bribes, priests who taught for pay, and prophets who spoke for money, all while claiming that God was among them. Scripture does not allow me to condemn corruption in another political party while excusing it in my own. Political usefulness does not sanctify disobedience. Acts 5:29 gives the Christian’s governing principle: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Our first loyalty does not belong to a party, candidate, institution, movement, or nation. It belongs to Jesus Christ. Only when that loyalty is properly ordered can our patriotism remain principled rather than idolatrous.
The Church Must Examine Herself
America’s spiritual decline cannot be blamed only on politicians, immigrants, secular institutions, other religions, universities, corporations, or cultural movements. The church must examine herself. In many places, we surrendered our influence through compromise, silence, scandal, shallow teaching, political idolatry, and failure in the home. We sometimes preached prosperity instead of repentance, pursued influence instead of holiness, protected institutions instead of wounded people, and treated political victory as though it were the kingdom of God. Some churches feared offending people more than they feared dishonoring God. Others spoke loudly about public sin while concealing private corruption. Before we condemn the nation for rejecting Christianity, we must ask whether the Christianity we displayed was faithful to Christ. Jesus rebuked people who honored God with their lips while their hearts remained far from Him. A nation filled with outward religious language but lacking inward obedience is not spiritually healthy. First Peter teaches that judgment begins at the house of God. Second Chronicles 7:14 begins not with unbelievers, political opponents, or citizens of other faiths, but with God’s people: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways…” In its original context, God spoke to Solomon concerning Israel, the temple, and the covenant land. The United States is not ancient Israel, and America does not possess Israel’s covenant status. Nevertheless, the spiritual order of the passage remains instructive. God calls His people first to humility, prayer, seeking His face, and turning from wickedness. The verse does not begin, “If everyone else will change.” It begins, “If My people.” Before I ask God to repair Washington, Sacramento, Albany, the courts, the schools, or the culture, I must ask Christ to rule me. Does He govern my thoughts, speech, money, sexuality, marriage, family, work, voting, and treatment of other people? Do I condemn public corruption while tolerating private compromise? Do I ask God to heal the land while refusing to surrender my own sin? National repentance must begin personally.
The Family and the Nation
National decline does not begin only in legislatures, courts, or executive offices. It also begins in the home. The family is a foundational institution of society. Government cannot manufacture what faithful parents, disciplined homes, healthy churches, and morally formed communities fail to produce. Judges 2 describes a generation that arose without knowing the Lord or remembering what He had done for Israel. The tragedy was generational. Truth, worship, gratitude, and obedience were not faithfully carried from one generation to the next. When marriages collapse, fathers and mothers abandon their responsibilities, children grow up without moral formation, and churches imitate the surrounding culture, the nation eventually reflects that disorder. A society cannot continually weaken the family and expect the government to compensate for everything the family once provided. The repair must therefore begin close to home: within the individual heart, then the marriage, the family, the local church, the community, and the broader areas of influence God has entrusted to us.
The Warning Is Certain Even When the Timing Is Not
I do not claim to know the exact timing or final form of America’s decline. Scripture has not given me that knowledge. The Bible does not clearly identify the modern United States in prophecy. Attempts to equate America with the “young lions” or other indirect references remain speculative. We should not claim certainty where God has not spoken clearly. But the moral principle is certain. A nation that continually rejects God, calls evil good, corrupts justice, destroys the family, abandons truth, and celebrates rebellion cannot escape the consequences forever. Judgment may unfold gradually through social disorder, institutional corruption, economic instability, the loss of liberty, internal division, external defeat, or the consequences of being given over to our own desires. Whatever form it takes, rebellion eventually produces loss. Scripture declares: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34, NKJV). America has no biblical guarantee of permanent prominence, military power, prosperity, protection, or continued national existence. No nation is indispensable to God. Billy Graham recalled that his wife, Ruth, once reacted to his description of America’s moral decline by warning that if God did not judge America, He would have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. He repeated that warning in his 2012 message, “My Heart Aches for America.” The remark was intentionally startling, but its essential point was that no nation should presume upon God’s patience while continually rejecting His standards. Our wealth will not save us. Our military will not save us. Our technology will not save us. Our history will not save us. The Constitution cannot preserve itself if those entrusted with it no longer believe in the moral responsibilities necessary to sustain it.
Repentance Must Become Practical
Repentance is not merely feeling alarmed about the condition of the country. Repentance means turning. Christians must return to prayer, Scripture, faithful marriages, disciplined homes, honest work, moral courage, local church commitment, Gospel proclamation, and principled citizenship. We must stop excusing corruption because it benefits our party. We must stop remaining silent because truth has become unpopular. We must stop expecting government to repair what families and churches have neglected. We must teach our children why freedom requires responsibility, why truth does not change with public opinion, why every human being possesses dignity, and why no earthly authority is absolute. We must defend constitutional religious liberty while refusing to surrender the exclusive truth of Jesus Christ. We must oppose terrorism, totalitarianism, antisemitism, hatred of the Jewish people, religious persecution, political violence, corruption, and every attempt to place another authority above constitutional law. At the same time, we must continue proclaiming that salvation is available to every person. A Muslim may repent and believe in Christ. A Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, nominal Christian, secular American, Democrat, Republican, immigrant, or native-born citizen may do the same. The Gospel does not assign salvation according to nationality, ethnicity, party membership, or cultural identity. God “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). That includes every political party, every religion, every social class, every leader, every citizen, and every one of us.
Patriotism That Tells the Truth
This warning is not anti-American. Biblical patriotism does not flatter the nation, excuse corruption, or treat America as incapable of wrongdoing. It loves the country enough to tell the truth. I want America to defend ordered liberty, preserve constitutional government, protect the free exercise of religion, resist terrorism and totalitarian ideologies, reject antisemitism, protect innocent life, honor marriage and family, administer justice impartially, and restore moral courage in public leadership. But America cannot preserve these things merely by celebrating its history. The principles of liberty must be believed, taught, practiced, and defended. The Declaration of Independence affirmed equality and rights bestowed by the Creator, and the American republic developed around foundational convictions concerning liberty and government. Yet our history also contains serious failures to apply those principles equally. The presence of an enduring moral standard allowed later generations to expose injustice and call the nation toward greater consistency with its stated ideals. If we abandon the Creator while demanding the permanent security of Creator-given rights, we should not be surprised when those rights are redefined by whoever possesses political power. I love this country because I know personally what it has made possible in my life. But loving America does not require me to pretend that she is spiritually healthy. My gratitude compels me to speak.
The Clarion Call From Solomon
Solomon’s story reminds us that wisdom possessed is not the same as wisdom obeyed. He knew the truth. He received an extraordinary blessing. He witnessed God’s faithfulness. Yet he allowed affection, political advantage, prosperity, and competing worship to divide his heart. America has also received much. We have inherited constitutional liberty, material abundance, extraordinary influence, generations of Christian witness, and opportunities unknown to much of human history. “To whom much is given, much will be required.” Our greatest need on this 250th anniversary is not merely another celebration. We need sober remembrance, gratitude, humility, repentance, and renewed obedience. Elijah confronted Israel with these words: “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him” (1 Kings 18:21, NKJV). That call begins with me. It begins with the church. It begins in our homes. From there, it must reach our communities, institutions, and leaders. True patriotism does not remain silent while a nation destroys itself. It speaks truth because it desires repentance, renewal, liberty, and life. God may grant America renewal, or He may allow judgment and decline to continue. Our obedience cannot depend upon which outcome He chooses. The calling of the church remains the same: preach Christ, make disciples, defend truth, love our neighbors, protect the vulnerable, pray for those in authority, expose darkness, and remain faithful until the end. Our ultimate hope has never been in America. Our hope is in Jesus Christ.
Prayer
Father, I thank You for the freedoms, opportunities, and blessings I have received in this country. Forgive me when gratitude becomes complacency or patriotism becomes an idol. Search my heart and reveal every divided loyalty within me. Bring repentance to Your church, wisdom to our homes, courage to our leaders, and truth to our institutions. Protect our nation from enemies beyond our borders and corruption within them. Teach us to defend liberty without abandoning righteousness and to love our neighbors without compromising the Gospel. Father, God, if You are willing, grant America mercy, repentance, and renewal. Above all, keep Your people faithful to Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior, and final hope. In His name, amen.
Book: I Cannot Give You What I Do Not Have: Finding Unconditional Love in Christ
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQB4MJYW
Study Guide: I Cannot Give You What I Do Not Have: Companion Study Guide: Healing Generational Wounds Through 40 Devotions
