I hinted in a previous article that Abraham Lincoln embraced the American jeremiad but later came to refine his views about this subject considerably. Other thinkers and religious leaders, including many who were quite conservative and orthodox in their theology, have done the same since Lincoln’s time. Lincoln is, for me, a model of how we can hold a high view of providence while at the same time we refuse to read our understanding of God’s mind into acts of providence. It is healthy that we have a national awareness of God’s role in our public life, but it is not healthy to act as if we know precisely what he means through his actions in our present or historical past.

During America’s moral decline, spanning now over five-plus decades, a number of prescriptions have been offered. Most of these have been advocated by Christians. Since the mid-1970s the majority came from conservative Christians. These prescriptions grew out of what we’ve defined as the American jeremiad. The jeremiad is a lamentation, a form of complaint that heavily relies on an Old Testament form of rhetoric. Many social movements in America’s history have been heavily influenced by drawing a sharp contrast between a glorious past and a lamentable present.

No Christian I know seriously doubts that America has declined morally. Evidence abounds inside and outside the church. What is to be questioned is the correct way to respond to this decline. Both evangelicals and progressives have commonly responded with political and religious rhetoric that draws heavily on a tradition that is almost universally misunderstood by Christians.