Why the Church Has Failed to Convert Modern Man, by James Kalb

A couple of months ago I noted that we live in a time in which connections like family, kinship, religion, and inherited culture and community are dissolving. The feeling against borders and Brexit shows that even national connections are disappearing in the minds of many people.

But a time of dissolution is also a time of consolidation. People always get organized somehow, so the two go together. When a technological society dissolves into a collection of unconnected particles the particles sort out by simple and standardized functional distinctions, like money and occupational status.

So we’re entering a global order, dominated by global markets and transnational bureaucracies, upon which people rely more and more for their everyday needs and their sense of who and what they are. That’s especially true of the well-educated and well-placed people who dominate public life and are therefore in tune with how things are.

That situation has a profound effect on moral life. In such a setting who we are is most obviously determined by age, career, money, consumption choices, and our orientation toward the society as a whole—that is, our political views. The politically progressive young professional who is rising in his career and knows all about cooking and craft beers becomes the social ideal….Read entire article: crisismagazine.com/2019/why-the-church-has-failed-to-convert-modern-man