While doing some studies, I came across this interesting passage which explains why society needs to support the family by reinforcing parents and instilling values to children. It explains why we need a truly Christian civilization!
Here is the passage:
"Parents need to hear that their efforts are valued, and they need the concrete support of advice, experience, and time from those around them. Most importantly, parents need others to reinforce the moral values they seek to implant in their children.
"In this regard, the neighborhood serves an almost indispensable function. The idea that families and neighborhoods are mutually supportive, that they are, so to speak, morally on the same page, is fundamental to the public discussion of civil society.
"David Popenoe puts the matter this way: 'For the moral development of children, no aspect of community support is more important than the community’s ability to reinforce the social expectations of parents; that is, to express a consensus of shared values.
'Young people need to hear a consistent message about what is right and wrong from all the important adults in their lives; they need not only a social community but a moral community.'”
Passage found in The Necessity of Politics: Reclaiming American Public Life by Christopher Beem (
What the passage says is good and right, but, sadly, you have taken it to an unfortunate end. The fact that you think the passage refers exclusively to a Christian way of thinking and behaving is scary. Such extremism drove the crusades. Really no different from the taliban thinking we need an entirely Muslim civilization.
ReplyDeleteSorry you misread the quote. The context is that if you are going to have Catholic families and raise Catholic children you need to have a moral community that transmits a consistent message. What's so extreme about that?
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