"Change Is Good" by S. M. Hutchens

Quodlibet

"Change Is Good"

I first heard this asinine preachment from the sort of person one would expect it from: a progressive member of the managerial class—just where C. S. Lewis put it in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "Have you no idea [said Gumpas in defense of the slave trade] of progress, of development?" "I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it 'Going Bad' in Narnia."

Scott Adams also gets it right in his Dilbert cartoons: managers typically justify their existence by making ill-considered changes that needlessly burden their employees. The Peter Principle operates somewhat nebulously but is nevertheless real. Supine adoption of the Change Doctrine is perhaps the least mistakable sign of its presence in many spheres of activity, including the churches. It is cause for rejoicing when one does not labor under its practitioners.

S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.

subscription options

Order
Print/Online
Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Order
Online Only
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

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 on culture from the online archives

20.8—October 2007

Aliens in Zion

on Why I Can’t Be Just Another Earthman by Louis Markos

34.1—January/February 2021

Jeremiah Revisited

Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher by Hans Boersma

29.3—May/June 2016

The Master's Voice

Our Choice Is Obedience or Jesus as Anti-Christ by Anthony Esolen


more from the online archives

33.4—July/August 2020

The Joy of God

by S. M. Hutchens

29.5—Sept/Oct 2016

Dying of Despair

on the Loss of True Community & Rising Political Desperation by Karl D. Stephan

35.4—Jul/Aug 2022

The Death Rattle of a Tradition

Contemporary Catholic Thinking on the Question of War by Andrew Latham

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

Support Touchstone

00