“Is the death of a religious-based culture inevitable once a society reaches general affluence? When a nation has overcome the hardships of its infancy and the struggles of its adolescence and manhood, and begins to produce a life of ease and luxury, does it naturally succumb to a disease of the soul that leads to decadence, decline, and death? “America is the only country that has gone from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between,” said Oscar Wilde.42 Did the man have a point?”
