A societal shift, pushed heavily by liberal elites in the media and in political power, has moved the United States off its mooring in the values and heritage that made it great — so say experts who study America’s culture.

A decline in the teaching and appreciation of American history is a major factor. Americans simply have less of a cohesive national identity in a world where primary education is dominated by teaching global citizenship and the ills of America’s past.

“Instead of requiring the teaching of American history, universities are more likely to prohibit free speech. When American history is taught, it becomes a tale of oppression.”

At the same time, the nation is becoming more and more divided along secular vs. religious lines. The increasingly open prejudice shown toward Christians in the media, popular culture, and in politics is driving a major wedge between Americans of faith and those who’ve bought into the liberalized, sexualized culture being sold by Hollywood.

But there is opportunity for change — some experts point to the increasing failings of liberal public policies and the decline of the United States and say there could be the spark of a revival.

LifeZette asked the experts to answer the question of whether America’s culture is truly in decline. Here’s what they said:

Chuck Donovan
America’s decline is in many ways self-evident. Measured by whether we are a force in world affairs, an economically strong and free nation, a cultural powerhouse, and a storehouse of virtue, our nation is not faring well. What’s more, the fact that these trends are negative is either being obscured or deliberately ignored by a seemingly dominant elite who thrive on the dissolution of civil society and the growing dependence of millions on towering government. But it would be wrong to surmise from these facts that decline is immutable or inevitable.

Clearly, an awakening is underway. Demands for freedom of speech, respect for conscience, and a recovery of virtue are growing. The liberal project, in ascendance for decades, is producing manifest failures in health care, the economy, national security, and the family. The American people have obviously noticed — and they are restless. Now is the time to summon our energies for the task of restoration — to see what a future of freedom, life-affirming science, medicine, and education can do to better our lives. But first we must embrace again the ideals in the Declaration of Independence that tell us God, not government, is the source of our rights.

Charles A. “Chuck” Donovan is the president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the education arm of Susan B. Anthony List. He served as a writer for President Reagan, helped lead the Family Research Council and National Right to Life Committee, and was senior research fellow in Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

Penny Nance
Something that I and other Christians are concerned about, especially during this election cycle, is this division within the church. We’re seeing Christians coming after one another, and it’s just wrong. At the end of the day, there needs to be unity within the body of Christ, as a believer, and we must give each other room for conscience.

Many of us Christians plan to vote based on what we know is going to happen should Hillary Clinton be elected president. There are between one and four Supreme Court justices likely to be appointed by the next president, there are about 500 lower court judges, and 5,000 leaders that are governmental appointees who make huge decisions.

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There are serious issues that affect the lives of the church and religious freedoms. You’re forced to bake the cake. Can you practice your faith just inside the walls of the church, or can you live it out in every area of your life? The government is getting between us and our ability to do what we believe, and frankly I think it’s going get worse under a potential Hillary Clinton administration.

These issues aren’t restricted to “moral issues” like abortion, which not only ends the life of the baby, but it harms the soul, and sometimes the body, of the mother. But I also can talk about just the pocketbook issues. We have seen the devastation — there has not been the recovery that there should have been. The African-American community has suffered so much under this. Minorities have certainly suffered.

Do we want to herd everyone on to Medicaid and onto the welfare rolls, food stamps? Is that the answer? No, a job is the answer. Work is meaningful. It is redemptive. And what is important is we grow the economy, and we uncuff the ability for the free market to roar back to life and to be able to innovate. We reduce regulations so there can be new entrances to the market.

The stakes are high come Election Day, and the moral fabric of our country is in the balance. It’s important that us Christians get out and vote for the preservation of our values.

Penny Young Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), is a recognized national authority on cultural, children’s, and women’s issues.

John Fonte
American culture is a product of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. Its foundation consists of the Platonic-Aristotelean tradition of reason, the Roman respect for law, and the biblical religions of Christianity and Judaism. Our culture is also a product of the moderate wing of the Enlightenment (John Locke and Montesquieu) and the impulse toward self-government found in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, the Magna Carta, the British parliament, and colonial legislatures. We have been shaped by the imprint of Shakespeare and the masters of the English language.

Alexis de Tocqueville noted in the 1830s that even modest American households had a few volumes of Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Unlike continental Europe at the time, Tocqueville commented that in America, religion and freedom were not enemies but allies. He further observed that our future success or failure would depend upon our mores (our customs and habits.) For two hundred years, foreign visitors have been particularly impressed with the robust patriotism of Americans.

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Is American culture in decline today? How well are the guardians of our culture in the universities and schools nurturing this precious patrimony? How well are they preparing young people for citizenship in American constitutional democracy? To ask these questions is to answer them. Instead of requiring the teaching of American history, universities are more likely to prohibit free speech. When American history is taught, it becomes a tale of oppression. Learning about the heroism of Gettysburg is replaced with paeans to global citizenship. Instead of fostering patriotism, our universities and public schools emphasize what they call “diversity,” which realistically means the promotion of divisive ethnic, racial, and gender group antagonisms. Immigrants are told not to assimilate to the American way of life, but to embrace an adversarial multiculturalism that promotes Balkanization.

The blame for this decline rests squarely with the leaders of American cultural institutions, the men and women who run our universities and schools. Whatever their motives, they are guilty of degrading our culture. What is needed is new leadership that will enact, not “reform,” but revolutionary change that will restore and renew our American heritage.

John Fonte is a senior fellow and director of the Center for American Common Culture at Hudson Institute. He is the author of a best-selling book about international law, “Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or be Ruled by Others?” (Encounter Books, September 2011), for which he won the 2012 ISI Henry Paolucci/Walter Bagehot Book Award.

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This analysis of the state of America’s culture is the fifth and final installment of a series on the question of whether America is truly in decline. The series also features leading experts on the state of U.S. foreign affairs and national security, the U.S. economy, crime in America, and America’s system of immigration.