Columns: Contours of Culture
Waiting for Epimenides
by Ken Myers
We are living in an age marked by skepticism, intellectual incoherence, and hostility to great, commanding ideas. In such a time, many Christians spend a great deal of time and emotional energy simply holding onto their faith—holding on, that is, to their assent to the most basic, core beliefs of the faith.
Our time is also marked by widespread ethical illiteracy and moral carelessness, a setting in which the alleged vocation to “authenticity” displaces any other trajectory of virtue. Encouraged by powerful social forces to “follow our bliss,” that is, to trust the innocence of our untrained desires, the perennial struggle against sin has become for many Christians an alien and exotic pursuit at best. Heroic holiness has never been common, but it was once at least more commonly coveted. Today, it seems implausible to many Christians to keep the bar set so high.
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Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also served as editor of Eternity, the Evangelical monthly magazine, and This World, the quarterly predecessor to First Things. He also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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