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Culture Watch:The Josiah Generation
by Lee Warren (Lee's bio)
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There was a time in America when biblical literacy was assumed. But times have changed. According to George Barna's book, The Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators, 84% of American adults "could not even hazard a guess" as to what the Great Commission is. 63% "has no idea what 'John 3:16' refers to." And 41% cannot name the town that Jesus was born in.
Is it any wonder why our culture has sunk to the depths that it has? We are a nation that has drifted so far from God that we don't even see the need to read what the Creator of the universe has to say.
I'll leave it to others who are more qualified than I to explain what happened to bring us to the point where we are today. (One excellent resource I'll mention is Pat Buchanan's new book, The Death of the West.) My question is, can the tide be turned?
Judah faced a similar situation after King Hezekiah died. His son, Manasseh, assumed the throne and rejected his father's reforms in Judah. During Manasseh's fifty-five year reign, he practiced child sacrifice, witchcraft, and he consulted mediums.
After Manasseh died, his son Amon assumed the throne and followed in his father's footsteps. He only reigned for two years before he was killed.
Amon's son, Josiah, became the next king of Judah. One day, the high priest found the book of the Law and gave it to Josiah's scribe, who read it to Josiah. Josiah tore his clothes in anguish when he realized how far his nation had drifted from God.
Then he took action. "The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord" (2 Kings 23:2).
After he read the Book of the Covenant to the entire nation, he made a covenant before the Lord to keep his commandments with "all his heart and all his soul" (2 Kings 23:3.) As a result, he brought great reforms to Judah.
Of course, not all reformations are from the top down—John Knox, a pastor in the 1500's who caught the vision of Luther's Reformation used to pray, "Lord, give me Scotland lest I die" everyday. And God did. The key to reformation for both Josiah and Knox was the scripture.
Some might point to Judah's demise shortly after the death of Josiah as a reason not to worry about cultural reformation. But the demise of a nation is ultimately in God's hands. He draws the moral line in the sand and he decides when a nation has crossed it. Our job isn't to determine where the line is but rather to call our nation back to God.
In the fifty seven years between Hezekiah and Josiah, Judah lost it's way. In the forty years since our nation started it's own moral decline, we too have lost our way. All it takes is the failure of one generation to teach God's Word to the next generation for a nation to slip.
Our moral slide started at the end of the baby boomer generation and continued on into Generation X. Generation X is now starting to have children—who some are calling Generation Y. Wouldn't it be neat if Generation Y was eventually known as the Josiah Generation because we took the time to incorporate scripture into their lives at an early age and in turn, they brought cultural reformation to our country?
Copyright 2002, Lee Warren. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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About Lee Warren: Lee Warren is a freelance writer from Omaha, Nebraska. He has written for various publications and is currently working on a novel. If you are interested in reading more of his work or in receiving his column via e-mail, please go to his website: www.leewarrenjr.com or drop him an e-mail: LeeWJunior@cox.net.
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