The Sexual Revolution: Cause of a New Secularist Faith?
by Josiah Hasbrouck, Juicy Ecumenism:
The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s is often portrayed in a positive light, hailed as bringing many benefits for society, especially women. One leading conservative scholar, however, is skeptical of this portrayal. The Sexual Revolution, Mary Eberstadt says, has instead caused deep societal problems and even led to a “new secularist faith.”
On May 18, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted Eberstadt, Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center and Senior Research Fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute, at AEI’s headquarters in Washington for a discussion with AEI President Robert Doar about Eberstadt’s new book Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisted.
Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisted follows Eberstadt’s 2013 book of a nearly identical name, Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution. In her conversation with Doar, Eberstadt highlighted a speech by James Q. Wilson at AEI as an inspiration for these books, particularly Wilson’s claim that, as Eberstadt summarizes, “the best predictor for good or bad outcomes for kids was family stability.” This prompted Eberstadt to write her first Adam and Eve book, in which she “took a microscopic look at what had happened since the Sexual Revolution; what had happened to men, to women, to children, to general social morays.” One example Eberstadt mentioned at AEI was her discussion of a study on “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” since the Sexual Revolution.
Eberstadt’s new book, in contrast to its predecessor, examined “the macrocosmic effects of the Sexual Revolution: what happened to politics, society, and Christianity itself.” Addressing the effects of the Sexual Revolution on Christianity, Eberstadt commented at AEI: “everybody believes in something, as we are seeing when perfectly secular people are as absolutist about issues like climate change, we are theotropic, we lean towards some kind of idea of transcendence. The question is: which one are you going for?”
Eberstadt suggested there is now a “new secularist faith” which has emerged out of the Sexual Revolution. This faith essentializes abortion on-demand and defends it with “religious fervor,” she said. Eberstadt concluded the new secularist faith is thus “profoundly anti-Christian,” incompatible with Christian morality. She also suggested that “identity politics arises because of the vacuum left by western Christianity and by the decline of the family.” Previously, Eberstadt noted, identity for most people was rooted in their religion and family.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
