A Better Time?

A friend responded to my previous post, noting that America in the early Twentieth Century was not "ideal." I did not mean to imply that it was. No time or culture is "ideal" by Christian standards; we await the consummation of the Kingdom.

I gave this reply to my friend:

My premise is not that the America of the first half of the Twentieth Century was anywhere near "ideal", but rather that the overall worldview of the culture was CLOSER to Judeo-Christian presuppositions, and that made a big difference in the broad society.

I think the rise of technology and the dispersement of extended family following WW2 had a big effect as well.

And I know the seeds of the problems that began to flower in the 60s (increasing autonomy) were laid in the philosophy of education planted in the second half of the Nineteenth (and even back to the Enlightenment).

I'm also aware of arguments (which I think are cogent) that even lay considerable blame on an individualistic autonomy inherent in the Reformation ("no Church is going to tell ME how to read the Bible and think").

There are enough issues here for a book.... or a series of them (and those books have already mostly been written -- it's just that hardly anyone reads them).