SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION professor Phillip E. Hammond, himself the son of three generations of Methodist ministers, made the following observation about the apparent revival of Christian tradition in the fabled "morning-in-America" Reagan days:
"Everyone can ‘affirm' family values, of course, but divorces are not likely to decrease, birthrates are not likely to increase, women's participation in more and more arenas outside of the house is not likely to be reversed, and children are not likely to find home an adequate substitute for the technical training required to live in this modern world.Traditional family values can be affirmed, therefore, but they are doomed to be elusive in reality."
Hammond's unsentimental foresight has been both obviously and devastatingly dead on. Family in America, for all the talk 20 years ago about a return to tradition-and despite the improbable political ascent of the Evangelical right-could not escape the relentless human shredder of modernity by merely applying to it more of the synthetic "isms" that oiled its whirring blades to begin with.
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written by Alefyah, March 03, 2009
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