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Religion: The Demise of a Prodigious Power
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18830 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
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12 / 1991 |
5,296 Words |
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Jude P. Dougherty
Jude P. Dougherty is the dean of the Department of Philosophy
at the Catholic University of America. |
The recent shift in North America from a dominant Protestant to a secular or humanistic outlook has created for the Protestant and the Catholic a new set of problems. Neither is any longer faced with the task of defining its vision of the contemporary meaning of Christianity against the other; each is now called to defend Christianity itself in the face of major secular attack, hostile to all religious belief and practice.
It may take considerable learning and analysis to recognize the full extent of the secular threat to religion, but little reflection is required to recognize its negative social effects: a general disintegration of religious commitment has led to a startling increase in promiscuity, divorce, and abortion, the widespread acceptance of pornography and homosexuality, and a growing tolerance of deviant behavior ranging from impiety to drug use. The loss of a central loyalty to family values immediately reflects the displacement of a Christian morality. One of the most important signs of the loss of sustaining values is the classroom where the underpinnings of the Western Christian perspective have been neglected or abandoned, namely, classical learning, ancient and modern languages, history, philosophy, and theology, all disciplines which provide the materials through which the Christian deposit is receive and developed. Furthermore, in the interpretation of the religious mission, the secular mind has all but convinced the Christian that the latter's role is primarily that of tending to the needs of the disadvantaged, in the narrow sense of physical and economic needs. As a result of the neglect of its intellectual heritage, in favor of a social activism, mainstream Christianity has failed to teach with sufficient clarity and unity of voice to be a sure guide to believers.
As many have observed, a community cannot long exist without a core of common convictions. Some of the social tensions evident in North America are but a reflection of a deep conflict between religious and secular outlooks. If the secular is not to eclipse the religious totally and become the standard for the measure of conduct, representatives of religious institutions will have to consciously confront the challenge. The reflections that follow are an attempt to understand the causes that have led to the present impotence of the religious mind and its prospects for the future.
Demise of Religion
Skepticism with respect to Christian convictions has been forming among the Western intelligentsia for at least two centuries. Nietzsche already
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