What's the most pressing danger facing America today? Is it terrorism? How about global warming, super viruses or some other medical pandemic? While all these things are truly worth thinking about, the real threat to America is not pending from an external source. Friends, the enemy is within.

Think about it like cancer. Cancer cells are not like viruses or bacteria that come from outside the body. Cancer cells are inside the body. They are cells that have ignored the standard protocols of how the body works and have selfishly begun to grow unchecked. They have no regard for the body as a whole, rather they multiply and consume the nutrients the rest of the body needs until the body starts breaking down and eventually cannot function as designed.

In a way, this is the very essence of what is happening to our country and to all Western civilization today.

Recently, I was given a copy of Patrick G. Smith's new book Are We Losing America? The Erosion of Our Freedom and How It Can Be Stopped. The book is extremely challenging. Smith does a great job of outlining how everyday citizens can identify how our society is changing, how slowly over time our rights have been eroded away, and, most importantly, what we can do about it.

The greatest thing about Smith is that he is just like you and me. He's just an average, go-to-work-every-day man who got tired of watching his country be wrested from him. The book is the inspiration for the series of commentaries we plan on doing these next few weeks. I encourage you to get a copy of the book and read it in its entirety. This week we're examining how traditional American culture is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

For more than 120 years of its history, America was unashamed about its Christian heritage, our capitalist system, ideas of morality, right and wrong, and individualism. Our history was filled with godly men and women who were guided by biblical principles in governance, education, business, entertainment-every facet of life. So what happened?

Here's one major cause. It used to be that Americans had a focus on history, especially in our schools. It used to be that immigrants to this country, while welcome to keep their native cultures, were required to embrace American culture, starting with history and language. Today, we hire teachers to teach immigrant children in their native tongue, and everything from ordering a pizza to voting comes with the option, "for English, press 1."

And history? Forget about it. We are barely teaching it to our own citizens anymore. Think about this for a minute. At the University of Wisconsin, regardless of the degree a student is seeking, there are five degree requirements consisting of a writing requirement, a reading requirement, two math requirements and an ethnic studies requirement. Noticeably absent from this list is any sort of American history requirement. But that's no shock, really. You won't find an American history requirement at a single one of America's top 55 colleges and universities.

The American ideas of this country being a land of opportunity, individualism, dedication to duty, integrity, morality, family and even God are being washed away, but how? Friends, I submit to you that like the cancer cells that grow unchecked with no regard to the body as a whole, an ideology grounded in its opposition to God has been slowly working to push Christianity into the margins of society. This is being accomplished through our most important institutions: schools, government, the media and even the church. This ideology takes many forms, most notably secular humanism, socialism and communism.

The philosophy driving communism and other diabolical "isms" has given birth to the concept of post modernism, a philosophy that claims there are no absolutes, no right and wrong, that everything is relative. It's given us atrocities such as eugenics, euthanasia, and genocide. The ideology is summed up in the words of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "God is dead, and it is man who killed him." Our society is beginning to epitomize what happens when the general citizenry accept this false proposition.

Now we know, or have been reminded of, the root of the problem. In subsequent commentaries, we will look at how far the problem has worked into the fabric of American life and how we as individual Christian citizens can be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Take heart, friends. In spite of what we see and hear, our great God is not dead. He is very much alive and is still working in the hearts and minds of individuals and nations-including America!

For Wisconsin Family Council, this is Julaine Appling reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."