How to Lose a Generation

The problem Liz outlines is, as David suggests , not limited to the Church. In reaction to over-reaching orthodoxy, everyone that used to offer normative claims – let’s call it “morality” for short – defers nowadays, instead playing guitar and trying to entertain. The problem is in other American religious communities, for sure, and also in schools, in colleges, in theaters. There’s much to be said here – and I hope to say more in the future – but let me just suggest that by failing to offer morals, even wrong morals, these institutions have failed their flocks. Before, if the Church told me something was wrong, it preserved the idea of wrong, even if it misapplied that idea. Now the very ideas of right and wrong, of good and evil, have withered away. Our moral muscles have atrophied from misuse, and no one trusts anyone, least of all herself, to evaluate anything. This is untenable and dangerous in ways I hope we can discuss.

By Michael Pomeranz  |  September 25, 2007; 7:42 PM ET  | Category:  Lox et Veritas
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