Let Us Build for Ourselves a City: A Biblical Look at the Correlation Between Secularism, Liberalism, and Urbanization in America

Abstract

A map of the 2022 U.S. mid-term election results per House district shows a vastness of ‘Republican red’ engulfing most of the country’s landmass in comparison to small pockets of ‘Democrat blue’ that is concentrated upon the most urbanized metropolitan population centers. Such a unique phenomenon begs the following question: ‘What has happened within the most urbanized metropolitan populations to cause them to overwhelmingly vote for the politically liberal Democratic party, a party whose platform is antithetical in many ways to what is expressly taught in the Bible?’ This question also spawns another: ‘Why have the most populous areas in the country also become bastions of paganism, hedonism, and liberalism?’ This paper demonstrates that past human behavior detailed in biblical narratives is being replicated in today’s modern urbanized culture. As is seen in Scripture, for a large city or metropolitan area to obtain and maintain a consistent and achievable level of peace and prosperity, a compromising layer of tolerance towards immorality and evil must materialize. Subsequently, the sustained tolerance of evil and violence will eventually lead to the approval, propagation, and adoption of evil and violence. Then and now, to the degree an urban population ‘goes along to get along’, the further it drifts from the Lord and plunges downward into paganism, hedonism, and idolatry. Thus, when a society consciously usurps the sovereignty of God and thinks it possesses the highest level of authority, then it has arrived at the point where it believes it has the freedom to redefine societal rules according to what it determines to be “right in its own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). By dismissing God’s existence or discounting His holiness, justice, and power, a population cognitively thinks it has effectively shaken off the yoke of sin, guilt, and shame, and has achieved the human right to “call evil good and good evil” (Isa. 5:20).