Scripture describes a process a person undergoes who has "suppressed the truth in unrighteousness," denying the God who made them, embracing self-idolatry instead. It's a grim description of the path of reprobation that ends ultimately in the torment of eternal hell. Since a nation is constituted of individuals, it stands to reason that what is true of the individual will reflect itself in some measure in the society of which they are a part. A single individual won't, of course, have the same degree of reflection within their society as a large group will. A great numbers of individuals within a society taking up the same or similar philosophies and behaviours will result in a profound effect upon that society.
In the case of western nations, there has been a widespread and sustained departure from God and so what Romans 1 details of the fall of the God-rejecting person can now be seen taking place within these nations as a whole. Forty years ago the ideology of Critical Theory was still considered relatively fringe, the silly, irrational notions of the foul and fiendish Karl Marx. But a prolonged process of dumbing-down the population through a variety of means has left modern nations (generally) without the wherewithal to properly discern and dissect the convoluted language through which Critical Theory manifests its destructive notions today. Championed by the modern, popular media (news, Hollywood, music, etc.), to which several generations now have been conditioned to carefully attend, Critical Theory has been widely and aggressively disseminated throughout these nations, invigorating the process laid out in Romans 1, accentuating the irrationality and danger of it.
The heart of the problem, though, isn't Critical Theory in all its warped forms, but a rejection of God. Inasmuch as God is the Ground of All Reality, the Source of all Truth, to depart from Him is necessarily to move away from reality and truth into illusion, delusion and darkness. This journey away from God, whether it be on the individual level or the national, always involves what Paul in Romans 1 explained:
Romans 1:21
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Denying God, refusing His will and way, is its own judgment. God knows that the route away from Him that a person or society takes leads always to delusion and destruction (James 1:14-15; Romans 6:23; Galatians 6:7-8) In order to judge and punish a wicked, God-hating nation, He need do nothing more, then, than allow the migration from Him to proceed unchecked. The farther the nation moves from Him, the more delusion and its resulting harm manifest and deepen.
This is what many Christians are observing these days. The "Christian nation" has disappeared and in its place the great "secular nation" has arisen, thinking to exist apart from the One who is the Source of all Truth and Light. But God has warned that the human heart is "desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). In a secular nation, however, the apex of all things is the human being. What nation can grow from such awful ground? Well, we're in the middle of finding out. And, so far, what Romans 1 delineates is what is happening. Gratefulness (to God, first of all) has been overtaken by an inordinate sense of entitlement. Most North Americans feel they are owed an education, a good job and comfort and ease; they deserve wealth, success and happiness. The futility and foolishness of North American society generally is astounding! Denial of the reality of the two sexes, dissolution of the God-ordained institution of marriage, assault on the nuclear family, rampant infanticide, hyper-violence, gross sexual perversion, and bald-faced Satanism in entertainment (movies, music, t.v.), refusal to face China and defend against the war it has openly declared upon the States in particular, and the world in general. And so on. North American societies are quickly unravelling and in the increasing vacuum and tumult of the absence of a God-centered stabilizing core, these societies will grasp at anything for a solution, however evil, if the promise of peace and security is held out. Enter: Totalitarianism, either religious or secular, and the horrifying death and oppression that always follows. Think of Stalinist Russia, or any conservatively-Islamic country, or North Korea, or Cuba, Venezuela, the CCP in China - the list goes on.
Romans 1:22-23
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
The examples of fools claiming to be wise these days are myriad! Whether its Stephen Hawking claiming that nothing can produce something, or Bruce Jenner claiming he's a woman, or some obscenely-wealthy, world-famous, black, NBA star claiming America is basically racist, or a politician claiming she's a completely different race than she is just because she feels that she is, foolishness masquerading as wisdom abounds.
Idol worship, too, has never been more common than in today's western cultures. Not figures carved of wood or stone, but multitudinous expressions of the worship of Self. Food, sports, fashion, travel, money, sex - the list of things people worship today goes on and on. At bottom, though, the real "god" of modern, western nations is the individual.
Romans 1:24-28
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
What Paul the apostle described here is perhaps no more clearly observed than in the music industry. Never has popular music been more rife with demonic foulness than it is today. Sexual filth, violence, and open worship of demons is now common in mainstream popular music. Two recent prominent examples are: Cardi B's "WAP" and Lil NasX's "Call Me By Your Name." I have not watched nor listened to either of these vile songs (and videos) but the reports I have heard about them made me gape in horror. Both are prime examples of the "debased mind" and "dishonorable passions" that grip those who have walked away from the Ground of All Reality, Light and Truth. And it's not just these two disgusting "artists" who demonstrate the deep depravity of the person caught in the process of Romans 1, but all of their fans, too, who idolize them (Cardi B actually performed her vile song at the Grammy Awards), and the rest of the nation that shrugs their shoulders at them in passive, careless indifference.
Romans 1:29-32
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
A nation that is filled with the sort of people Paul described here cannot cohere, it cannot sustain itself. A nation of evil, covetous, malicious, murderous, deceitful people, slanderous, hateful, arrogant and foolish, is a nation that can't help but dissolve, the individual members of it unavoidably at vicious odds with one another as a consequence of their pathological reprobation. And so, North America is boiling with riots, murder and mayhem; with totalitarian politicians; with lying propaganda machines posing as reliable sources of news; with racist black academics writing editorials calling for the eradication of all white men; with rising anti-Semitism; with mass-shootings; with invasions described as "mass migration," with the legal murder of babies that survive abortion.
And the devil laughs.
The remedy for all of this is a return of the people of western nations to the One who made us, in repentance, humility, confession and dependence. Half-measures will not do. It is not enough merely to look God's way, to give Him token acknowledgement; we must yield anew to His will and way every day, all day, calling upon Him to rule in our hearts, lives and nations. First, though, the Church, the Bride of Christ, that has played the adulteress, making friends with the World and its evil god (James 4:4; 2 Corinthians 4:4) must cleanse and fully separate itself unto Christ, forsaking its deep compromises with the Great Enemies of the saints of God: the World, the Flesh and the devil. (Ephesians 2:1-3)
