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The Daily Signal
Americans
Grapple With Evil Amid Decline in Religious Faith
Emilie Kao
April 01, 2018
Blaise Pascal once described a “God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each
man.” But in modern-day America, few statements can raise eyebrows more
swiftly than expressing faith in the transcendent.
From Joy Behar mocking Vice President Mike Pence as mentally ill for
believing that God guides him, to former President Barack Obama
ridiculing “bitter” people who cling to guns or religion, the
“enlightened” claim to have progressed past the simplistic explanations
of those who still believe in the existence of good and evil.
In a world where we can drive vehicles, communicate globally, and
change the temperature of our homes with the touch of a finger, it is
easy to believe that we have mastered our physical environment. Yet we
are stumped when the age-old problem of evil rears its ugly head.
It’s no surprise, then, that in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy,
we fixate on a material solution—gun control—to solve what we assess as
a material problem.
But what if the problem is much deeper than raising the gun-buying age
by a few years or making it harder to get certain types of guns? What
if the roots of the problem are actually internal and moral, and even
spiritual?
Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz told investigators that the voices of
devils told him to shoot his classmates. To those who believe in
Freudian explanations of violence, his confession is a mere smoke
screen for psychological problems. And, for a growing number of
Americans, Cruz’s statement is simply irrelevant because the
transcendent is nonexistent.
In 2014, a Pew study found that 23 percent of Americans considered
themselves “nones” (atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular”).
Sunday school, once a staple of childhood for many Americans, is
becoming a thing of the past.
The one area of the supernatural that now attracts the millennial
generation’s interest is the occult. Spurred on by the hyper-connected
world of social media, occult trends like the Charlie Charlie game are
fueling a “witchcraft renaissance.”
Obsession with the fictional horror character Slender Man even led two
12-year-old girls in Wisconsin to brutally stab their classmate.
As Michelle Goldberg writes in The New York Times, “Often when
traditional institutions and beliefs collapse and people are caught
between cultural despair and cosmic hopes, they turn to magic.”
Self-described witch Dakota Bracciale says of the collapse of
traditional religions, “It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had
to be filled with something.”
New York Magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan points to the spiritual
vacuum as the source of the opioid crisis. “Even as we near peak
employment and record-high median household income, a sense of
permanent economic insecurity and spiritual emptiness has become
widespread.”
Similarly, Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton and Princeton University
economist Anne Case attribute the rising suicide rate to the declining
spiritual health of white, middle-aged men. If adults are finding it
harder to cling to self-control, sanity, and life itself, is it any
wonder that an unprecedented number of youth are finding it harder and
harder to get through their teenage years?
Professor emeritus of psychology at New York University Paul Vitz
attributes teens’ skyrocketing anxiety, self-harm, suicides, and school
shootings to their poor spiritual health. Despite being born into a
world with more material comforts and mental health resources than
ever, the next generation seems increasingly drawn toward
self-destruction.
Vitz observes that without belief in objective truth, goodness, and
beauty, including the belief that they are created in the image of God,
the next generation clings to external sources of identity: social
media, sexual experiences, and material possessions.
In a sea of ever-changing cultural and social trends, such flimsy
sources of meaning can predictably leave some of them bewildered and
overwhelmed. “Countless young people … feel there is nothing for them
to believe in,” he writes. “Emotional numbness is one of the
consequences. They … no longer find self-worth in their efforts to lead
lives based on truth and love.”
Vitz proposes that Americans re-examine the value of faith and its
power to help people live happier, healthier, and longer lives.
In the wake of Parkland, local leaders are seeking to restore a sense
of the transcendent. Legislators in Florida introduced a bill to put
the national motto “In God We Trust” into classrooms and administrative
buildings. Democratic state Rep. Kim Daniels said, “The real thing that
needs to be addressed are issues of the heart. … We cannot put God in a
closet when the issues we face are bigger than us.”
Rabbis from the Parkland community urged Florida Gov. Rick Scott to
reinstate a moment of silence in schools. Educators at an elementary
school in Brooklyn found that it enriched students’ lives and their
relationships with each other.
“Our students required new ways of dealing with emotions and crisis,
[they] needed the time and an outlet that would provide an opportunity
to understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of their experiences,” one
administrator said. School officials observed the students became more
introspective and developed greater appreciation, empathy, and
understanding of their peers.
A neighbor of the Parkland shooter said, “He was dealing with something
dark. I just didn’t know what.” Many Americans can still recognize that
there are forces of good and evil in the world that cannot be simply
controlled through technology or psychology.
But as elites show increasing hostility to faith and regular Americans
eschew traditional religious and moral frameworks, we may become
increasingly blind to this dimension.
Sullivan writes that our country will not overcome its demons until we
resolve the deeper problems that have led to the breakdown of faith,
family, and community.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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