The ruins of the Meathead Generation

There was a hugely popular TV series in the 1970s called All in the Family, starring Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, a blue-collar northeasterner of very outspoken traditional values. Rob Reiner played his son-in-law, Michael, very liberal, unemployed (a permanent student), who lived in Archie's house along with his wife, Archie's daughter (of course).

Archie called his son in law "Meathead," and viewing only one episode convinced you why. Reiner's character was a snooty, self-impressed, never-wrong, empty-headed jerk.

Very recently, Reiner, whose intellect and personality show that he was perfectly cast as Michael, disparaged people with political views unlike his as uneducated, ignorant, racist know nothings, etc. What Reiner's smug tirade shows is what has happened with what some commentators have called the "Meathead Generation," which makes sense:

Meathead was a loudmouth know-it-all boomer, who enjoyed lecturing his father-in-law about the terribleness of America and the men that had made the country. The irony was that Meathead lived off the people he ridiculed. Archie, the patriarch, worked and paid the bills while his daughter and son-in-law lived in his house. It was a perfect metaphor for what was happening in the country. The parasites were determined to kill the host, but in the mean time they were perfectly willing to enjoy the fruits the host had accumulated.

Years ago, the great Paul Gottfried remarked that the country had long been taken over by the Meathead generation and their ethics. The Archie Bunkers were all gone. By that he meant traditional working and middle class America had been lost and the country was now run by fashionable liberals, who occupied the first ruling elite in history to be actively working to destroy the foundation on which it rests. Look around the culture and all the high ground is occupied by degenerate boomers, who carry on as if it is still 1968. [HT: American Digest]

Which is pretty interesting because I am a early mid-term Boomer. Having lived a year into my seventh decade now, I want to avoid sounding like one of those old geezers who says, "Back in my day . . ." But I will say, well, that back in my day my peers and I were actually taught Truth existed that was not mere opinion and was still true whether it made you happy, sad, angry or contented. We did believe, and I still do, that there was (and is) such a thing as absolute truth, like it or not.

Yes, the idea of absolute truth was closely linked to religious belief and that just what absolute truth was differed between religions and often between even denominations of a religion. My point here is not what declarations are or are not absolute truth, but that across the great majority of Americans there was conceptual agreement that there was such a thing as absolute truth, even if we did not all agree on the particulars.

That conceptual agreement is gone today.

• In 1997, 50% of Christians and 25% of non-Christians said that there are moral truths which are unchanging, and that truth is absolute, not relative to the circumstances.
• In 2000-JAN, they found that 38% of adult Americans believed that absolute true exists. 
• Later in 2000, 40% of individuals involved in a Christian disciplining process believed that there is no such thing as absolute moral truth. 
• In 2001-NOV, another Barna poll showed that adults believing in absolute truth had dropped almost in half -- to 22%. 

In short order, the idea of absolute truth was replaced by relative truth, that declarations could be true based on their circumstances, or that a statement might be true for Thelma but not for Louise. The problem is not that this idea of truth has no validity; the conceptual affirmation of absolute truth never meant that nothing was true unless it was absolutely true. The problem is that relative truth has come to be affirmed as the only kind of truth there is.

That means that truth is nothing more than opinion. And if there is no Truth, there is no falsehood, either. Yet something must serve as the basis for making decisions, especially moral decisions. Hence the rapid downhill slide to this: "Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on Feelings."

Truth Is Relative, Say Americans 

In two national surveys conducted by Barna Research, one among adults and one among teenagers, people were asked if they believe that there are moral absolutes that are unchanging or that moral truth is relative to the circumstances. By a 3-to-1 margin (64% vs. 22%) adults said truth is always relative to the person and their situation. The perspective was even more lopsided among teenagers, 83% of whom said moral truth depends on the circumstances, and only 6% of whom said moral truth is absolute.

The gap between teen and adult views was not surprising, however, when the adult views are considered by generation. While six out of ten people 36 and older embraced moral relativism, 75% of the adults 18 to 35 did so. Thus, it appears that relativism is gaining ground, largely because relativism appears to have taken root with the generation that preceded today’s teens. ...

The surveys also asked people to indicate the basis on which they make their moral and ethical decisions. Six different approaches were listed by at least 5% of the teenagers interviewed, and eight approaches were listed by at least 5% of adults. In spite of the variety communicated, there was a clear pattern within both groups. By far the most common basis for moral decision-making was doing whatever feels right or comfortable in a situation. Nearly four out of ten teens (38%) and three out of ten adults (31%) described that as their primary consideration.

That article was published in 2002. Since then, the trend has only intensified. Note that sentence, "... relativism is gaining ground, largely because relativism appears to have taken root with the generation that preceded today’s teens." In the intervening 14 years, we have begun our third generation of truthlessness. I am a Boomer so the move to relativism began in my generation, the Boomers born after me, I am guessing, which would be the majority of them. At the time this article was published, Boomers' kids were barely in their teens at the young end and 50-plus at the old.

From the idea that all truth is relative (which is a self-contradictory statement when you think about it) is a short slide to three highly dysfunctional beliefs and practices, about which more another time:

1. With no idea of transcendent authority, human relationships become merely contests of power.

2. Religion is suppressed but the inherent religious nature of humanity simply finds other outlets.

3. Human life is meaningless and serves no higher purpose because there is no higher purpose to serve. 

Top Gun for churches!

Remember this scene from the iconic mid-1980s movie, Top Gun?

Only the top Navy crews were selected for this advanced training, but they were routinely defeated in mock combat missions by the instructor pilots and crews. At the end of the course, the students were leagues beyond where they began.

An initiative by the Tennessee Conference called Healthy Congregations may be thought of as Top Gun for churches. Even if a church is the best of the best, Healthy Congregations will make it better. 

Westview UMC will have its first Healthy Congregations session Sunday afternoon, May 3, following our special Cinco de Mayo fellowship meal. 

Healthy Congregations is training, it is not a program. Its basis that churches (like any human organization) are systems of relationships among their members. The chief way that congregations are unhealthy, or not, is the ways in which they handle anxiety and conflict. 

Anxiety and conflict are in themselves neither healthy nor unhealthy, but the way that they are handled and resolved is one or the other. 

Is is not anxiety per se that inhibits church health, but how its members relate to one another in handling and coping with that anxiety. 

After all, a lack of anxiety in a church is not necessarily a good thing. Quick, name one human organization that is permanently free of anxiety!

This:

A church that is always free of anxiety is probably terminal and may already be dead!

Healthy Congregations training helps congregations make healthier decisions, be focused on their vision, receive inoculation against unhealthy conflict, and keep a healthy process of dealing with conflict. It is a better way of understanding people’s interactions and how to improve them for the betterment of the church. 

Healthy Congregations is not a program that requires maintenance or a committee to manage it. It evokes no new annual nominations or elections and requires no supervisor.

For Whom: The entire church.

When: Each session is scheduled individually. At least 3½ hours is needed, five hours are better; the decision is up to the church. A meal may be included in addition to the training time. 

Facilitators: Facilitators are of the Tennessee Conference and have been trained and resourced by the National Healthy Congregations organization.

What is included? Below are the six training options. Workshop 1 will be the first session. The other options are available if a church wishes to schedule additional training in the future.

·        Workshop 1: Creating Healthy congregations helps churches to accept and deal with differences and disagreements, and change in a very healthy and productive way while maintaining a focus on their strengths and mission.

·        Workshop 2: Healthy Congregations respond to anxiety and change by identifying and dealing with anxiety in the church, the management of conflict, and the development of flexibility and creativity while managing the conflict.

·        Workshop 3:Healthy Congregations helps leaders increase their ability to manage anxiety in themselves and in a congregation through how they function as leaders rather than through programs and techniques. These include developing leaders with immunity to processes that tear down the fabric of the church community.

·        Workshop 4:Healthy Congregations strengthens relationships with members through healthy forgiveness, truth telling, connecting, and graciousness encouragement and care.

·        Workshop 5:Healthy Congregations develop generous people by looking at broad perspectives around stewardship and tying it into emotional processes.

·        Workshop 6:The Spiritual Care of Healthy Congregations focuses on members’ spiritual holiness and health, hospitality, and their “beginning again as a way of life.”

All of the workshops use realistic video scenarios to illuminate the lessons and learning. Many attendees nod their heads throughout!

Here is the national organization's video introduction.

Please reserve Sunday, May 3's afternoon for this valuable, important training! I guarantee you will be glad you did at the end of the first workshop!

Wish fulfillment or the smart bet?

Blaise Pascal was one of the most important mathematicians of the modern era and a devout Christian. In the 17th century he wrote,

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Compare with the 20th-century's Aldous Huxley, author of the classic work on dystopia, Brave New World, who explained in "Ends and Means" (1937) that his reasons for rejecting Christian teachings were neither rationalistic nor philosophical. They were purely selfish.

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.

Here's the whole Pascal quote:

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. 

Sure, Christianity would be great if only it was true. But it isn't. What a shame!

But what happens when a Harvard-educated atheist confronts the dilemmas of her own belief and starts to examine not whether Christian faith is provably true or provably untrue, but whether it makes sense to profess?

By Valentine's Day, I began to believe in God. There was no intellectual shame in being a deist, after all, as I joined the respectable ranks of Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers.

I wouldn't stay a deist for long. A Catholic friend gave me J. Budziszewski's book Ask Me Anything, which included the Christian teaching that "love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person." This theme—of love as sacrifice for true good—struck me. The Cross no longer seemed a grotesque symbol of divine sadism, but a remarkable act of love. And Christianity began to look less strangely mythical and more cosmically beautiful.

At the same time, I had begun to read through the Bible and was confronted by my sin. I was painfully arrogant and prone to fits of rage. I was unforgiving and unwaveringly selfish. I passed sexual boundaries that I'd promised I wouldn't. The fact that I had failed to adhere to my own ethical standards filled me with deep regret. Yet I could do nothing to right these wrongs. The Cross no longer looked merely like a symbol of love, but like the answer to an incurable need. When I read the Crucifixion scene in the Book of John for the first time, I wept.

(The Atheist's Dilemma)

I keep coming back to Pascal again, here to his famous wager. Many people, including philosophers or theologians, mischaracterize Pascal's Wager as one of the weakest philosophical arguments in favor of God existence. In fact it is not really much of an argument for God's existence at all but an assessment of the rationality of believing in God.

Suppose you hear reports that your house is on fire and your children are inside. You do not know whether the reports are true or false. What is the reasonable thing to do—to ignore them or to take the time to run home or at least phone home just in case the reports are true?

Suppose a winning sweepstakes ticket is worth a million dollars, and there are only two tickets left. You know that one of them is the winning ticket, while the other is worth nothing, and you are allowed to buy only one of the two tickets, at random. Would it be a good investment to spend a dollar on the good chance of winning a million?

No reasonable person can be or ever is in doubt in such cases. But deciding whether to believe in God is a case like these, argues Pascal. It is therefore the height of folly not to "bet" on God, even if you have no certainty, no proof, no guarantee that your bet will win.

Life, says Pascal, is a coin toss in which all bets are called in at death. One bet is atheism and the other is Christian faith. At death the coin falls over - heads is God and tails is atheism. Reason alone, says Pascal, cannot decide which is true. So which way to bet is smarter? That is what Pascal is getting at, the smart move.

Agnosticism, he says, is actually impossible. An agnostic simply thinks he declines to bet. But you can't decline to bet because you can't decline to die. Agnosticism when the coin falls over is indistinguishable from atheism. So everyone is wagering whether he likes it or not, whether he even realizes it or not.

Once it is decided that we must wager; once it is decided that there are only two options, theism and atheism, not three, theism, atheism, and agnosticism; then the rest of the argument is simple. Atheism is a terrible bet. It gives you no chance of winning the red prize. Pascal states the argument this way:

You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your happiness? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist.

If God does not exist, it does not matter how you wager, for there is nothing to win after death and nothing to lose after death. But if God does exist, your only chance of winning eternal happiness is to believe, and your only chance of losing it is to refuse to believe. As Pascal says, "I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true." If you believe too much, you neither win nor lose eternal happiness. But if you believe too little, you risk losing everything.

But there is a more practical side, too. I live my life (imperfectly) according to my deep conviction that "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." Suppose I am wrong, that the entire of Christian faith is nothing but wind, that at my death the coin will fall to tails, but I won't even know it because there is no heaven, no hell, no nothing after life.

Is what way have I been deprived? How might I have lived my life better? How might I have better found meaning, purpose, mission and worth? Put simply, in what way was I worse off believing than I would have been not believing? And how can any of that compare with the incomparable payoff if the coin had fallen heads, and I could not know for sure in advance?

You have already made the bet. The coin is now spinning. What is your bet?

Truer words were never spoken

"The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for."

"When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra."