In the 1974 movie, Towering Inferno, a massive fire breaks out in the world’s tallest building. The inferno erupted because the man responsible for supervising construction, Roger Simmons, cut corners and refused to build according to code.

There’s a scene in which Simmons is confronted by his wife, Patty, the daughter of the building’s contractor, who was unaware of his company’s shoddy work: Patty: “Roger, if you’ve done anything to Dad’s building, God help you!” Simmons: “Baby I don’t need God’s help, or your old man’s, not anymore.”

Those words – “I don’t need God’s help…not anymore” – aren’t just a line from a Hollywood script, but they are a mantra being voiced by many in America today.

Earlier this year, the Committee on Natural Resources in the United States Congress moved to strike “so help me God” from oaths administered to witnesses. While the effort failed, it’s sobering that lawmakers even considered it in the first place.

In May, a Pennsylvania elementary school principal said “God Bless America” following the Pledge of Allegiance. A parent filed a legal complaint, the school district issued a gag order and “God bless America” disappeared.

What is going on in America? Is God really that unwelcome? Should authorities erase any acknowledgement of him on coins, in Congress or any public place?

True to human nature, when things are going well, people – including government officials – tend to forget God. But the second a disaster like 911 strikes, suddenly members of Congress are standing on the steps of the Capitol singing “God bless America.”

Virtually every U.S. president since George Washington has invoked Divine assistance. President John Adams said it best: “…the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgment of this truth is an indispensable duty which the People owe to Him.”

If Adams is right, then it’s not just American presidents who need God’s help; it’s the American people.

But Americans seem to be drifting away from such a world view. Instead of depending on God, many prefer to depend on themselves. Like Frank Sinatra, they choose to “do it my way,” or more specifically, “man’s way.”

This is pretty consistent with a humanistic world view, which says that man is the measure of all things. We don’t need God, and we certainly don’t want him to tell us what to do, think or say. We prefer to build our lives using our own substandard code, not his.

This strategy of evicting God from public view has been tried before in other countries with sad results. Officially atheistic lands like the Soviet Union, North Korea or Cuba aren’t exactly famous for their high living standards or other “blessings.” There was a time in Israel when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” and the results were disastrous.

If we take God out of the public discourse, if we try to put him in a box where only people can mention him in limited places, if we no longer seek God’s blessing for our nation, then we’re basically saying, “thanks, God, but we’ll take it from here.” We might as well be singing, “Man bless America.”

History has shown that those nations that reject God shouldn’t be surprised if he lifts his hand of blessing and says, “have it your way.” As the Oxford and Cambridge don C.S. Lewis said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” Shun God, and it won’t take long for us to reap what we’ve sown—a towering nation ablaze, hurtling toward destruction.

America celebrates its independence soon. Instead of seeking independence from God, this might be a good time to declare our dependence on him with a renewed commitment to freely say anytime and anywhere, “God bless America.”