Monday, March 24, 2008

Decline of the Modern Generation Part III

This is the follow-up of the last blog entry that I posted concerning the issue of reasons for our moral decline. In review, the previous reasons were individualism and misapprehension of the truth. The third reason for the moral decline of the modern generation is the foundation of the family.

The Family, by definition, is: a group of individuals living under one roof with one head. Our current day understanding of a family to the extreme is the homosexual couple that cohabitates together with adopted children OR single-parent mothers OR fathers who work two jobs to support the children that were left to them when the other 'significant other' left to try and 'find themselves'. Now, I understand that these are stereotypical cases, but they are the immediate context in which we find ourselves living in. What you will find is that the definition of the family affirms the mroal decline of the modern generation because it hold the ideology of all three symptoms within its definition. There is individualism, misapprenhension of the truth( the definition itself implies that), and it does not even entail the proper idea of the family.

Now, the purpose of this blog is not to engage in a long discourse upon the definition of the family. Rather, it is to illustrate one vital point. People get their morality from their family. Other than the fact that they have certain understandable views of morality that they are pre-disposed too, they learn their moral values from their family. Thus, this modern generation has declined in its morality because the definition of a family, both etymologically and experientially, are completely false. Instead of building a morality under a two-parent home, consisting of a man and a women, they have learned and constructed a morality that was built, at best, by parents who built their morality upon a foundation that was not much better than their current child's is.

I understand that there is a lot more that can be said. What about parents who are single that teach proper moral values? Can't a homosexual couple divulge proper values to the children they rear? Isn't a family more about cultivating love and self-respect anyway? I do see the importance and necessity to answer these questions, but my point is that because the family has been identified incorrectly and lived out miseraby, our modern generation believes that they are morally accountable to no one and they can do anything. However, if you would like to know more about my views on the family then e-mail me a question or post a question in your comment box. Until next time, think on that!

1 comment:

Kent M. Van Natta said...

Chad, a good post and some interesting points to consider. However, I would submit that the decline of modernism was probably inevitable. If you think about it, modernism was a reaction to the extreme freedom of expression found in the Renaissance, which is really where post-modernism originates. Both have in common a concern for less objectivity and more freedom of individual expression. Therein, post-modernism is simply a return to the Renaissance ideas, which were opposed by modernism.

I might also make a distinction that morality, while it is affirmed in the family does not originate from the family. If such were the case then one might reasonably argue before God that his family did not teach him the Law of God and therefore he has no culpability. I would instead make the case that the morality that is innate(the moral law that is present in all men via Romans 1) is the responsibility of God, and that the family and the church expand upon this law with more specific revelation(God is revealed in Jesus Christ). Therein it seems that they still have the moral law to condemn them but no specific revelation to save them. It is perhaps in teaching specific revelation that the family has failed, but certainly not in teaching general revealtion of a universal moral law (primarily because the family only reinforces this innate law placed by God). And this is important to distinguish because the primary objection of post-modernism is a universal moral law, which is not what the family is primarily responsible for anyway. So then how could the family be the major failure if post-modernism attacks something that is not the responsibility of the family?

Other than that, great post and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.