AMERICA IN TROUBLE
The cause of America’s “moral erosion”: Our families are disintegrating, because parents, teachers, the press, even the clergy have ceased to inculcate or defer to God-given absolutes in behavior. Good luck trying to prevent homicide, divorce and dishonesty by appealing to an ethical consensus. If such a consensus were there, the problems wouldn’t exist.
You cannot isolate a few constructive axioms from an entire body of ethical tradition. One blatant self-contradiction in the argument: It is apparently OK to have babies out of wedlock, but illegitimacy and single parenthood are acknowledged as major factors in societal decay. Where does Rauch think illegitimate babies come from--storks?
It’s not easy to teach and apply biblical morality, but it is right, necessary and eminently rational to do so.
MICHAEL REIMER
Arlington, Va.
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