Woe Are We
Prodigal Nation: Moral Decline and Divine Punishment from New England to 9/11
by Andrew R. Murphy
Oxford University Press, 2008
(248 pages, $19.95, paperback)
reviewed by Franklin Freeman
Andrew Murphy’s Prodigal Nation brings to mind a passage in the novel The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy. Percy’s hero, Binx Bolling says, “Whenever I feel bad, I go to the library and read controversial periodicals. Though I do not know whether I am a liberal or a conservative, I am nevertheless enlivened by the hatred which one bears the other”:
Down I plunk myself with a liberal weekly at one of the massive tables, read it from cover to cover, nodding to myself whenever the writer scores a point. Damn right, old son, I say, jerking my chair in approval. Pour it on them. Then up and over to the rack for a conservative monthly and down in a fresh cool chair to join the counterattack. Oh ho, say I, and hold fast to the chair arm: that one did it: eviscerated! And then out and away into the sunlight, my neck prickling with satisfaction.
In a way that episode sums up what Prodigal Nation is about: that America is divided into two different ways of looking at itself and the world around it—which he calls the traditionalist and the progressive views—and that both sides use the jeremiad as a way to tell a story that will convince its hearers that its view is the right one.
Jeremiads from Right & Left
The Oxford English Dictionary defines jeremiad as “a lamentation; a list of woes or complaints; a doleful tirade.” Murphy identifies three things that jeremiads do: they “identify problems that show a decline vis-à-vis the past”; they “identify turning points”; and they “call for reform, repentance, or renewal.” Murphy also notes that the typical jeremiad of either party has a tension between the despair of whatever decline it is lamenting and the hope of reform and repentance, the idea that we have sinned against God, but because we are God’s chosen nation, we need not despair: if we repent, he will bless us.
For instance, a right-wing pundit might say that one problem is the religious decline in American culture, that the turning point occurred in 1963 with the Abington v. Schempp decision, which forbade prayer and Bible readings in public schools, and that we need to put prayer and Bible reading, which were never compulsory, back into the schools, the way it used to be.
But Murphy is quick to point out that such jeremiads are not limited to the likes of Increase and Cotton Mather, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. He writes that
narratives of decline aren’t limited to the political right. Progressives and liberals also see declines in social connectedness, and lament the perceived retreat from such American values as egalitarianism, community, and the common good due to an ever-increasing collusion of the American government with big business. . . . Though often perceived as a “conservative” trope, especially when used by the Christian Right, the idea of American messianism has never been the sole possession of one political party. Robert Kennedy was as comfortable using the jeremiad as was Jerry Falwell.
Thus, a progressive might say that our society has still not done all it can for the equality of blacks, that the turning point was civil rights legislation in the 1960s, and that we need to return to that legislation and fully implement it. Both sides focus on the 1960s as a turning point, but with different twists: the traditionalist says that was when respect for authority and other problems began, while the progressive says that was when we had all the right legislation and ideas but we have since left the high road. One side says the 1960s were the beginning of the decline, the other that they were a beginning that has declined.
Franklin Freeman is a freelance writer living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and four children.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
29.2—March/April 2016
The History of Family Strength in America May Reveal Good News by Allan C. Carlson
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
Why Law Schools Can't Teach Law
A sidebar to How Law Lost Its Way by Adam MacLeod
28.5—Sept/Oct 2015
Remembering Angka & the Idolatry of the Khmer Rouge 40 Years Later by Les Sillars
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
