Progressive godfather FDR did what progressives do best, hijacking the crisis at hand, the Great Depression, and molding the U.S. government into a pseudo-god. Although both New Deals failed on multiple levels, some of the programs and subsidies permanently persuaded people that an interventionist government is good. That was not enough. Progressives understood the "God-factor" must be removed to accomplish their goal of secularization, wherein religion loses cultural and social significance. In 1947, the Supreme Court, largely packed with FDR appointees, decided the First Amendment instituted a "wall of separation" between church and state in Everson v. Board of Education. In so doing, they were able to separate morality and ethics from government and daily life. Hence, the immoral mess we see today.
I would argue that the decline actually began well before that, with the pietism movement that took the same position, only from the church's point of view. That's about my only complaint with this otherwise excellent article.
Any “ism” is a suspect thing, be it pietism, Arminianism, Calvinism (ouch!), etc.
This is what man presumes to pony up to God for His approval.
Now there may be things in the mix that God can take to His glory and bless. But He isn’t going to pass His glory to founders of an “ism.”
I have brushed up on the pietist movement upon
reading your post, and I think you’re on to
something.
The pietists believed in the supremacy of pious
feelings over facts of a life lived for the glory
of God. I didn’t know it stretched back to the
17th century. It is the antecedent for our post-
modern “truths,” such as “as long as two people
love each other....” I thought this phenomenon
started in the Romantic Era of the early 19th century,
but that Era had its precedents also, apparently.