September 21, 2011
Column #1,569
The Young Have Lost Moral
Values
By Mike McManus
We live in an era of moral
debauchery. Every week we read about prominent leaders in
sexual scandals – Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Of greater concern is what is
happening to America’s youth, who seem to have lost their moral
compass according to a new book, “Lost in Transition,” by Notre
Dame sociologist Christian Smith who interviewed 230 adults,
aged 18-23.
They were sexually active, as
might be expected, but “What’s disheartening is how bad they are
at thinking and talking about moral issues,” writes New York
Times columnist David Brooks. “Moral thinking didn’t enter the
picture, even when considering things like drunken driving,
cheating in school, or cheating on a partner.”
As one young person put it, “I
don’t really deal with right and wrong that often.” Another: “I
would do what I thought made me happy or how I felt. I have no
other way of knowing what to do but how I internally feel.”
This is moral relativism and
extreme individualism that’s surprising given the fact that
nearly two-thirds of Americans are members of a church and 43%
attended weekly in 2010 according to Gallup.
Barna Polls have long detected
this trend. In 2006 Barna reported that young adults were twice
as likely to have viewed sexually explicit videos than older
Americans, 2.5 times more apt to have had a sexual encounter
outside of marriage, and three times as likely to see sexually
graphic material online.
Just two years later things
were worse. A 2008 poll found that those under age 25, which
Barna calls “Mosaics,” are nine times more likely than Baby
Boomers to have engaged in sex outside of marriage (38% vs. 4%),
six times more likely to have lied, and three times more likely
to have gotten drunk.
“We are witnessing the
development and acceptance of a new moral code in America,” said
George Barna. “Mosaics have had little exposure to traditional
moral teaching and limited accountability for such behavior. The
moral code began to disintegrate when the generation before
them, the Baby Busters – pushed limits that had been challenged
by their parents, the Baby Boomers.
“The result is that without
much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral
system based on convenience, feelings and selfishness.”
Princeton Professor Robert
George agrees, “There has been a massive cultural loss of faith
and in the power of reason to grasp or attain moral truth.
There is a loss of trust in institutions and in our ideals.”
Asked how that could happen,
given the high percentage of Americans who are active
church-goers, he replied, “A lot of churches have reduced
theology to a matter of feeling, particularly in liberal
churches. Even conservative churches began moving in the same
direction, looking to feeling and emotion as a source of
validity for moral judgment.
“Where one’s feelings and
emotions have been shaped by a moral tradition that is decent
and sound, one will do the right thing. For a while, we were
living on the capital of the Judeo-Christian faith with its
rigorous moral teaching. But that capital is being depleted, and
what substitutes, is a Hollywood cultural ethos, of
non-judgmental moral relativism.”
Of course this is particularly
true of the youngest generation, who denounce advocates of moral
absolutes as “rigid, self-righteous and homophobic.”
What can be done? Three
answers:
First, remember the importance
of intact married families and regular church attendance.
Children with married parents are twice as likely as those in
stepfamilies to go to college. Adolescents attending church
regularly complete more years of school, reports Family Research
Council’s Patrick Fagan. Children of broken homes who don’t
attend church are six times more apt to repeat a grade than kids
with married parents worshipping regularly.
Second, all institutions must
do better with youth in “getting them interested in making a
difference, in seeing how they can be a gift to the culture,”
says Barna President David Kinnaman. “Young people aspire to
make a difference In the world. We have to expose them, show how
their skills can be used, push them beyond their narcissism.”
Third, churches must teach that
we cannot rely on our emotions, but must recover the teachings
of the Judeo-Christian faith. Robert George warns, “Too many
clergy fear giving people meat, and preach against cohabitation,
for example. They don’t want people to say, `My daughter is
living with a young man, and they are living with integrity.’
They don’t want people to leave their churches. They must teach
counter-culturally, what it means to be disciplined.”
“Train a child in
the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from
it.” |