Solzhenitsyn famously defined the principal trait of the twentieth century in four words: “Men have forgotten God.” So far, the twenty-first century might be summarized in six: Men are at war with God. Awakened from agnostic slumber by new forms of temptation, chiefly the sexual revolution, humanity is at war with God over a question that reaches back to the beginning of time: Who, exactly, should have power over creation?
Christianity and Judaism teach that the answer is “God.” The culture dominant in the West today teaches the opposite. It says that the creation of new life is ours to control—more precisely, that it is woman’s to control. It says that we can dispose of life in the womb for any reason whatsoever, from simple whim to a preference for a boy rather than a girl. It goes further, saying that we can erase life on the basis of rationales that continue to expand.
How did we reach the point where our society repudiates creation? Let’s begin in the present. Many voices, both supportive of and opposed to identity politics, have discussed what this new code of conduct is doing to us. We need to ask a different question: What is the nonstop obsession with identity telling us—about ourselves, our civilization, and the wounds that our complicity with the sexual revolution has caused us to inflict on ourselves?
By way of answer, consider this syllogism. The sexual revolution led to the decline of the family. This weakening in turn has fueled the decline of organized religion. (I lay out why this is the case in How the West Really Lost God.) Both of these losses have left elephantine holes in the Western sense of self. As a result, many Western people now scramble to fill those vacancies with something else.
The revolution robbed many of a familial identity. By spurring secularization, it also robbed them of a supernatural identity, which is why swaths of the materially advanced societies once rooted in European civilization now suffer unprecedented uncertainty about who they are. This is especially true among the young. They are racked by the compound fractures of what is now a sixty-year experiment, motivating frantic, often furious attempts to construct an ersatz identity. We are told to see ourselves as members of political collectives based on race, ethnicity, gender, and the rest of the alphabetized brigade. This divisive project has in turn given rise to today’s sharply politicized turns of public discourse, street unrest, and the rancorous, unforgiving tone of much of our politics.
Famous experiments on animals demonstrate that artificial isolation from their own kind produces dysfunction. We need to understand that humanity is running an analogous experiment on itself. The revolution ushered in facts of life that had never before existed on the scale seen today. Abortion, fatherlessness, divorce, single parenthood, childlessness, the imploding nuclear family, the shrinking extended family: All these phenomena are acts of human subtraction. Every one of them has the effect of reducing the number of people to whom we belong, and whom we can call our own.
Full story at FirstThings.com.
Cardinal George Pell spoke at San Francisco’s Star of the Sea church for 34 minutes on December 8:
“The best commentators on faith and morals have been in this country…. Previously there were great Catholic writers in England – Belloc, Chesterton, Tolkien. There were great writers on the continent. Especially at the time of the Council. They’ve all gone except for Joseph Ratzinger, our much loved Pope Benedict.
“So here in the United States we’ve got writers like George Weigel, Father Raymond D’Souza from Canada, Ross Douhat from the New York Times, Rod Dreher with his Benedict Option, and perhaps the most perceptive of them all, Mary Eberstadt. I recommend her book Adam and Eve after the Pill.
From CalCatholic story Cardinal Pell speaks in San Francisco
I have purchased two of her books: Primal Screams and Adam and Eve after the Pill. I am in the first book and the author ably establishes the view that diversity/multiculturalism/identity politics advocates view the Judeo/Christian tradition as the enemy in a zero-sum game perspective– the advance of one is at the retreat of the other. She connects the sexual revolution with diversity advocates and with the infantilization of the political culture. All good reading, and immense food for thought. A good diet of Mary Eberstadt would raise the level of conversation on this site. Cardinal Pell’s recommendation is a good one.
That is what this article seems like. Random paragraphs from a book thrown together. She does not prove her assertion that men are in a war with God (which is sort of a ridiculous concept.) She jumps all over the place from transgenderism to suicide to abortion to an undefined sexual revolution to black feminists to small families to identity politics (whatever that is.) to the decline of organized religion.
The article makes no sense at all.
I clicked the link and read the whole article. It should be a proof of her thesis that men are in a war with God and it goes completely off the rails.
Aside from that, she asserts things that are not true. I looked up if she was American because of her declaration that we live in a culture that says that we can dispose of life in the womb for whatever reason whatever-on a whim or in gender selection. I think that utterly false. America is not like that at all. There are very few people who believe that. That could be a consequence of our laws but it is not supported by American culture.
What is this “awakened from agnostic slumber?” The US? Are you kidding? Try being an agnostic or atheist. Then you will notice how un-agnostic America is.
The sexual revolution is a new form of temptation. The sexual revolution happened 50 years ago. And I don’t think sex is a new temptation by any means.
The revolution (sexual?) robbed people of familial identity? Caitlyn Jenner and Nick Cannon have a lot more relatives than I do. My family didn’t go for the sexual revolution and most of family members never had any kids because they never married. Had they been promiscuous, they probably would have had children.
No thought is well developed or supported. It looks like a mishmash of things she wrote elsewhere. I read her article on transgenderism and abuse. Well, there is a news flash. I think she mentions it in this article too.
Man is not a war with God. Man has not forgotten God. Man has lost the fear of God. My opinion..
“Man is not a war with God. Man has not forgotten God. Man has lost the fear of God.” A distinction without a difference.
I might recommend reading one of her books instead of just an article.
After Cardinal Pell recommended her, I looked at her Amazon page. I decided not to purchase any of her books because I am very leery of books by lay people and they were not the kinds of books I buy. I seemed kind of like “ivory tower” stuff.
Like this article. If you make an assertion on the internet, there are usually links to news stories or polls or surveys to support the assertion. Not here.
Thank you Dan. I just now purchased HOW THE WEST REALLY LOST GOD on audio book.
A review of How the West Really Lost God.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/west-lost-god/
Among my family, the generation that is of child bearing age has 7 people. 6 have mates. They all cohabited with at least one person and had other “relationships”. The seventh one-the one without the mate or even a prospect for a mate-is the only one who walked in the way of the Lord. Maybe if the Lord sends someone that will change.
The Catholic Church used to teach that marriage was so difficult that without the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony it was impossible and a marriage would fail.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Another professional Catholic that has to keep creating content, no matter how erroneous.
“Another professional Catholic that has to keep creating content, no matter how erroneous.” Which books of hers have you read, and what are the errors?
I have not read her books. I read this article.
Mary Eberstadt is one of the finest Catholic scholars we are blessed to have, today
I read her Adam & Eve After the Pill years ago. It was excellent. I’ve just started Primal Screams. She is a most insightful researcher and observer of our culture. May we heed the truth about the critical issues she raises. If we ignore such, we do so to our peril, both now and possibly even forevermore.
And what did you think of this article?
I looked up Adam and Eve after the Pill. I see footnotes. I am less critical.
It seems like a lot of her work is blaming the “sexual revolution” for things.
I have never come across her definition of the “sexual revolution.”
Is it the acceptance of the Pill?
I remember books written in the 1950s or early 1960s blaming the dissolution of society on the automobile.
Then it was blamed on television.
Then the computer.
Now, social media.
Social media has created new communities not bound by family ties but by mutual interests.
I was a child before the Pill was around and we envied the only children and looked with pity on those kids in the big Catholic families.
I don’t know that the Pill changed how many children people had or how much sex people got. It just may have taken the stress off or help the man out.
me– the “sex revolution” refers to the belief that sexual morality is outdated and irrelevant, and you can do as you wish. The availability of contraceptive pills has enabled a loss of morality. It has ultimately trivialized sex and destroyed marriage and family. As the Blessed Mother told the Children of Fatima, “More souls go to Hell for sexual sins than for any other.”
My comment of Jan. 7, at 1:25am, was edited a great deal. I would like to add a few things that the editors omitted. The immoral sex revolution started in the 1960s. The birth control pill, first made available in 1960, was pioneered by research funding arranged by Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, and was invented by a Catholic doctor, Dr. John Rock. Rock later left the Church (rather than be excommunicated), after unsuccessful attempts to convince Catholic popes to accept his invention, as it is immoral, and against Church teaching.
In the Introduction to Adam and Eve after the Pill, Mary Eberstadt mentions a book called The American Sex Revolution by Pitirin Sorokin that was published in 1956. It talks about the social ills caused by sex freedom and sex anarchy- rising rates of divorce and illegitimacy, abandoned and neglected children, the coarsening of the arts and increase in mental disorders.
An interesting history of contraception (I have not attempted verification,)
https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/a-brief-history-of-birth-control/
Pitirim Sorokin was a Russian immigrant who fled the Bolshevik Revolution. He was a very distinguished sociologist who taught at Harvard University. He came from a family of very devout Russian Orthodox people. He, as well as many others of his day, noted with dismay, the preoccupation in America, with materialism, moral depravity, and the predominance of sex in the media, advertising, TV, movies, etc. He said that Americans were “oversexed.” He noted, for example, the scantily-clad, pretty girls selling products on TV, in the 1950s. This overall moral depravity in America was a forerunner of the 1960s horrific sex revolution, started by hippie youths and liberals on college campuses, which worsened, nearly destroying our country.Re Sorokin
That was something Jacinta said at the hospital, I believe, and it was “sins of the flesh.” Which goes right along with Romans 7.
sorry– You are correct. This issue was discussed,, as little Jacinta was too young to know what “sins of the flesh” might mean. Did Our Lady mean those who refused to observe Friday abstinence, and ate meat on Fridays? It was decided that perhaps Our Lady meant very serious sins, mortal sins, such as sins of impurity, or sexual sins.
I would assume that sins of the flesh absolutely include those of sexual immorality. In the Bible (Galatians 5:19-21)
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Also, temptations come from the devil, the flesh and the world. So sins of the flesh derive from one’s own fallen human nature rather than the devil or other people.
A reminder that the rest of the world does not view the Pill or sex the way 8% of Catholics do.
In terms of causality, look for the immediate cause.
Divorce was not caused by the Pill. It was caused by “no fault” divorce laws. Those were caused by people wanting to get out of miserable marriages. Miserable marriages are caused by the behavior of the people in the marriage. Which includes a dried up sex life.
And yes, every bad behavior goes back to Adam and Eve (if you are Catholic or some of the other Christian denominations that believe in original sin)
I need to say here that all contraception is a grave sin. If done with full knowledge and consent of the will, it is mortal sin that needs to be confessed before receiving Communion or if not repented of, will cause one to go to hell.
Same with all sex outside of a sacramental marriage. And some sex acts even in a sacramental marriage.
Mortal sin (grave sin) is deadly. There are more deadly sins that just lust: greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, pride and anger.
I appreciate Ms. Eberstadt’s commentary, though she declares claims for which she provides little to no peer reviewed surveys or other supportive evidence. Otherwise, then, her commentary comes from the more dogmatic opinion rather than from academia. She starts with the comment that “Men are are war with God”, not utilizing the more correct “Mankand/Humankind”, or is her intent to point out that males are the usurpers who have fallen from the faith. Let’s not forget that much of the fall from grace (about which I agree – society is less “religious” according to statistical surveys (see the 2020 American Census at http://www.prri.org) that has occured in the past decades was accompanied by various scandals wherein religious leaders and laypeople committed crimes against others which, when publicized, diminished the trust that is so necessary for any group or sect to continue in the long haul.
Michael, it seems more likely that Ms. Eberstadt is comfortable and confident enough in her femininity to use a term like “mankind” and know that she is not excluded. Similarly, you and I should not be offended to be the Bride of Christ, even though we’re men.
Yes, fight the scandals and scandalous behaviors, but remember, we’re not just “any group or sect.” We have the promises of Jesus, Who is Lord and God.
My thoughts.
Thank you for your comment. You pointed out a couple of the problems with this.
You expressed it well when you said no supportive evidence although she is selling a book that might provide some.
I had so many issues with this essay that I just got mean.
I thought maybe it was the eggnog or up too late wrapping presents.
I had a family member walk into the room and see the title and said “Are you kidding me?”
Maybe it is just clickbait.
sorry i’m mean– Better start going to Mass, and get some good Catholic religious and moral training, and practice the Catholic Faith rightly, be faithful to Christ.
This article is completely worldly except tor that one little reference to God at the beginning. By finding fault with it I have done nothing against the Catholic religion or morality. Except be mean, I guess..
So I apologize for that.
I read the whole article. It is rambling and incoherent.
She does not even attempt to prove her point.
I hope this isn’t a case of “Cardinal Pell likes her so she is above criticism.”
This is one of the reasons the Church can’t approve or disapprove websites. You never know what someone will right next.
Every writer has a bad day.
I do not agree with many of her unsupported hypotheses and by calling it a syllogism (the premises of which do not need to be true) she avoids that issue neatly.
Mary Eberstadt is a fine Catholic scholar, one of the finest we have, today. She analyzes causes for the sin and brokenness of today’s society, due to the sex revolution. Devout Catholics appreciate and understand her works. Our society must put an end to the Culture of Death and return to Christ.
What is the sex revolution? Specifically. In Mary Eberstadt’s writing.
I am a devout Catholic and I would like to appreciate and understand her work.
What does this have to do with the Culture of Death?
I agree what we must return to Christ and it is the only way that we will put an end to the Culture of Death.
i see a few people defending her but no one defending this article.
Because they didn’t read it?
sorry– best for you to educate yourself in Catholic faith and morals. The evil sex revolution and Culture of Death, spawned in the 1960s, has caused a Satanic tsunami of sin, death and destruction, worldwide. Since you don’t know much about this, and may be way too young to have been an adult, during the horrific 1960s era– witnessing this horrifying tragedy, first-hand– go and educate yourself.
So you are talking about the “sex revolution” in the 1960s. Not the 1920s or the 1970s or the 2010s?
Are you talking about members of the counter culture or members of the dominant culture? Or both?
What aspects of it?
Is that what Mary Eberstadt is referring to also?
Was it a sex revolution or an honesty revolution?
I am asking because you seem to know her thoughts and I do not. Can you explain why she blames the sexual revolution for men being at war with God and for societies repudiating creation? If these things are even true.
Sorry– of course, there has always been immoral behavior, all throughout history. However, the “sex revolution” specifically refers to the extreme, tragic breakdown of sexual morality, which started with the rebellious hippie youths and liberals, in America, in the 1960s.
Sorry– of course, man is at war with God, because mankind has gravely sinned, with sexual immorality– grave mortal sins.
Her point is that men are at war with God over who controls creation.
Then she mentions abortion and a transgender suicide.
I did notice in Genesis 1 that God gave man dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea and all the living things that crawl on the earth.
I notice he did not give man dominion over man.
If you want to consider men at war with God because of sin, which is refusing to conform to the Will of God thereby offending Him, to me that makes more sense but it is stated in the Bible that
but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.*
you are correct in what Mary Eberstadt said. I merely simplified it.
Do you have a testimony on how living the Lord’s way went for you?
If you did.
If you are a repentant sinner, that is powerful as well.
“Men are at war with God.” That is correct, standard English usage. “Men,” in the standard English usage, meaning, “mankind.” We still correctly say, “Our Father,” in Christ’s famous prayer– and “For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven,” in the Creed, at Mass.
“– society is less “religious” according to statistical surveys (see the 2020 American Census at http://www.prri.org) that has occurred in the past decades was accompanied by various scandals wherein religious leaders and laypeople committed crimes against others which, when publicized, diminished the trust that is so necessary for any group or sect to continue in the long haul.”
Michael, your claim above fails IMO. The decline in religiosity began far earlier than the public awareness of scandals. The pill, the sexual revolution, cultural concupiscence, post-war prosperity, materialism, the hostility of the media and academia all predate the scandals and influenced church decline.
Also the nit-picking on Men vs “Mankind/Humankind is irrelevant to the veracity of the claims she makes.
As to the claim that “her commentary comes from the more dogmatic opinion rather than from academia,” this is simply not true. She cites numerous citations from books/articles and cites statistics here and there. Her role, I would posit, is like that of a lawyer explaining the degradation of political culture with we the audience as the jury. If you dispute any of her points take that on in these posts. It would be good reading for everyone.
When I worked at a ministry for coming home Catholics, most people didn’t have beef with the Church. They just got out of the habit of going to Mass. A lot of people stop going in college but they come back when they are raising their families.
It just really is not that important to them..
A lot of people who go to Mass go out of habit. It is just what Catholics do. If they disagree with the priest they ignore him. Some might get mad enough to stop going.
Maybe the question is…why did more people used to go to Mass? Because they were taught that they would go to hell if they didn’t.
Most people don’t believe that anymore (I do).
They are not afraid to miss Mass. They are not afraid of dying without the sacraments. They do not consider God to be the spy in the sky watching their every move and putting black marks on their souls when they sin.
Or they sinned and nothing happened (or they did not recognize what happened.) The first time they missed Mass, lightning didn’t strike them. So, hey, I don’t have to get up and dress nice on Sunday morning. I can sleep in or I don’t have to try to fit that in with the kids soccer games. I also know people who go on Saturday evening because they just want one day where they can do whatever they want and they don’t have to be somewhere at a specific time.
You do not sound like an honest, authentic Catholic.
Mary Eberstadt says “humanity is at war with God over a question that reaches back to the beginning of time: Who, exactly, should have power over creation?
Christianity and Judaism teach that the answer is “God.”
God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth.
Genesis 1:27-28
The article continues:
“Outside consciously religious communities, which now amount to a counter-culture, generational reality for most people can be summarized in one word: fewer. Fewer brothers, sisters, cousins, children, grandchildren. Fewer people to play ball with, or talk to, or learn from. Fewer people to celebrate a birth; fewer people to visit one’s deathbed.”
You say that as if it’s a bad thing. ( I have asked my spouse to keep my relatives away from my deathbed because I was so appalled at how they behaved at other people’s deathbeds.) Fewer people to fight with. Fewer people to steal from you and be mean to you. Fewer people to bring up old things to try to embarrass you. Fewer people to force you to eat food that is not on your diet. Fewer people to lie to you and about you. Fewer people to get mad at you because you did not do what they wanted.
“And since we are social creatures and define ourselves relationally, this shortage means that we face an identity deficit. Who am I? This is a universal, inescapable question. Because of the revolution, many of us have lost the material with which to construct an answer.”
Actually, this is what you have to do. Figure out who you are aside from your family. Part of why deaths and estrangements are painful is it changes your identity because you identified as a daughter, a sibling, a parent…this is not who you are. People identify with their work or their friend group. It all changes. The sooner you can just see yourself as a child of God, as an adopted son or daughter, with Christ as your brother and that becomes your identity and the others don’t matter. You have to honor your mother and father and give them help in illness and old age.
Jesus said “If any one comes to me without hating his father* and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.m
“As our individual lives become more disordered and bereft, so do our politics. The first use of the phrase “identity politics” appears in a manifesto published by radical African-American feminists in 1977—just as the first generation born into the revolution was coming of age. For those who haven’t read it, the Combahee River Collective manifesto is a poignant window onto modern times. It declares, in essence, that its signatories—all women—are giving up on the men in their lives. They are banding together for a future that does not include unreliable boyfriends and husbands. There is a straight line from that declaration of failure to the one uploaded by Black Lives Matter last year (and subsequently removed), which likewise denied healthy relations between the sexes and within the natural family, and failed even to mention fathers or brothers. Both proclamations signify that political identity has become a substitute for familial and communal bonds. Both are rooted in a fury at creation itself—an anger at the disruption of the natural order, which the creature now claims the right to re-order.”
Lesbians tend not to have boyfriends and husbands.
You don’t know why people divorce.
I once walked into my boss’ office and he was staring at his paycheck. He shook his head and said “That is too much money to hand over to a woman.”
The next week he filed for divorce.
me–it sounds like your boss had too many screws loose. he may have been a mate and sexual partner but he was no HUSBAND.
Yeah-it was his third wife.
But this “intimate and vital bond of man to God” can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 29
To read scholarly works, and social commentary, analysis and critiques, such as what Mary Eberstadt writes– you need a good intellectual, religious and moral background, and an understanding of the subject. If the subject was Marxism, for example, and its effects on a country– you would have to have some background in the political, historical, social, religious and cultural situation of that country, and understand the political philosophy of Marxism. Otherwise, you’d be lost.
I agree that this article seems to be preaching to a choir that already accepts her hypotheses.
So if anyone is still reading and interested, I found her definition of the sexual revolution online. It is this: The ongoing destigmatization of all varieties of nonmarital sexual activity, accompanied by a sharp rise in such sexual activity, in diverse societies around the world (most notably, in the most advanced)
.
Let us all agree that the way to be pleasing to the Lord is to only use the sexual gift within a sacramental marriage and to always keep the sex act open to life.
This is so negative. Does she believe in God? In forgiveness? In redemption?
Sin begets sin but identity politics is not a sin.
The majority of people are raised in families with abuse at least verbal abuse, substance abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, religious abuse.
That is what is causing the problems. People are not lifted up by family. Some people are but the majority of people are held down by their families.
Jesus said “I will make a man’s enemies those of his household.”
Then a person’s friends can hold them back out of envy or anger or anxiety.
The Church for a long time told women to be subservient to men, you were not good unless you were suffering and sacrificing.
Jesus is alive. He is resurrected and He is present in every Catholic Church. He will help you.
You do not need to be victimized by other people’s negativity. Call on Him.
I do not accept this person’s theory that people longing for family bonds creates identity politics.
I think not having family frees you. I think if women were busy with big families they wouldn’t have time for identity politics so in that way maybe.
If women were barefoot and in the kitchen, they would not be running for office until after those families had grown up like Nancy Pelosi.
Ever notice how for a long time Disney always had at least one parent that was dead.
Parents have been seen as a negative whether together or apart for quite some time. (Not all parents.)
Parents have been seen as a hindrance to finding one’s identity.
Children of divorce can have problems with it or not. Some liked having two houses, two bedrooms, two sets of siblings.
I don’t think Eminem records should be what we judge the whole society on. There are a lot of angry people but they are not all victims.
Maybe if they get a DNA test and find extended family they will lose interest in social issues, racism, misogyny, political power, just wages, climate crises.
That really doesn’t make a lot of sense.