Slouching toward Gomorrha.

ANNELIESE STEDEN

Although best sellers have had no attraction for me for years, recently I bought a book that was on the New York Times best seller list. The book attracted me for two reasons: the title, Slouching toward Gomorrha, and the author, American judge Robert Bork.

Judge Bork made headlines during the Reagan administration for being rejected by the Democrats as a candidate for the Supreme Court for being too conservative (pro-life). He is a judge and, at one time, was a professor of Constitutional Law at Yale University. He still teaches Legal Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. On the lighter side: last fall he wrote in the National Review on how to mix the perfect martini!

I thought the title Slouching toward Gomorrha rather odd; "racing to G." or even "living in G." would have been more apt in my opinion. As I went on reading the book, however, it became clear to me why "slouching" was the chosen word. If our body has its own language and our physical appearance or posture can be said to express even our spiritual state, then "slouching" would most clearly express the deadly sin of sloth: head down, shoulders hunched, eyes averted, feet shuffling--not eager, yet not resisting, indifferent.

This is a book about modern liberalism and American decline. It categorizes areas of American life and details how and to what extent the U.S. is approaching the Gomorrha of biblical times. It depicts the attitude of those of us who do not like what we see, yet feel unable or unwilling to halt the process. It describes vividly how we have given away the store. A mere forty years ago North America was still a Christian continent. How did it happen? We were not invaded by a foreign power.

Invasion of barbarians

How our culture has been systematically subverted in all areas since the 60s while we were watching, is ably demonstrated in this book. Judge Bork calls it the "Vertical invasion of the Barbarians."

However, if this book raises more questions than it answers, it especially does not give me spiritual answers. It is not that kind of book. While it is made abundantly clear that we have turned our backs on God, lost our Christian morality, and are even now living on the deposits of faith of previous generations, Judge Bork is not an evangelist.

Yet, I predict that this book will produce a lot of soulsearching and gnashing of teeth among readers, especially those who grew up in the 60s. Many of us will stop in our tracks and start to ponder the question: "Where was I at that time and just exactly what was I doing?"

As we see our children and grandchildren "mature" in the sexual revolution and the liberalism of the 90s, we have long since stopped saying, "Shucks, we were young once!" Our wildest dreams of freedom have turned into nightmares at the sight of the new life styles. Did our own youthful indiscretions produce all this chaos? If the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children and grandchildren, what will our prayers be worth without repentance?

This is not a thought that has come to me for the first time with reading this book. It occurred to me quite a while ago that we did not do as well in raising our children as generations before us. Of course, we can blame the education system and the media. But once we caught on, why did we still expose our children to their influences? I declared TV "public enemy #1" years ago, but did not expel it from our home, not even when it became so obvious that the children preferred the TV characters to their own family! Yet I purposely stayed home, to raise the children away from harmful influences. Also, we insisted on arguing with teachers, instead of homeschooling.

Have we taught the faith?

C. S. Lewis, in his 1946 essay "On the transmission of Christianity," wrote: "The young people today are un-Christian because their teachers have been either unwilling or unable to teach Christianity to them." And "we talk of the views of contemporary adolescence as if some peculiarity in contemporary adolescence had produced them out of itself. In reality they are usually the delayed result--for the mental world also has its time-bombs of obsolete adolescence, now middle-aged, and dominating its form-room." A society which is predominently Christian will propagate Christianity through its schools; one which is not, will not."

Can we really plead ignorance? As we observed unwelcome changes we were concerned, even frightened, for our children. Even in religious schools the concern never really stopped. But we learned to live with it. What else could we do, since we were not ourselves teachers, we told ourselves.

In the encyclical Casti connubii (On Christian Marriage, 1930) Pope Pius XI has this to say to parents: "The blessing of offspring, however, is not completed by the mere begetting of them, but something else must be added, namely, the proper education of the offspring." Today, both prolifers and homeschoolers are considered fanatics, even in Christian circles!

Losing our will to protest

The sexual revolution and liberal ideas about child-raising went hand in hand, and began seemingly quite harmlessly in the 60s. Did anyone suspect the tragic results we are witnessing in our own lifetime?

Most of us have maintained certain pockets of resistance against any number of sins, while at the same time making peace with others. We protest actively and selectively against abortion, but not against divorce, although it can cause abortion or precipitate it. Contraception is said to be widely accepted, although it is the spiritual cause of abortion. And we say, it is better to light a small candle than just to sit and curse the dark!

But the fact remains that, as the slippery slope becomes every more slippery, and we perceive ourselves to be sinking deeper into the quagmire, our will to protest evaporates more and more. As well, as the chickens are coming home to roost, we are busy healing wounds and fixing brokenness. In most families the dinner conversation has to be kept light, because where two or three are gathered, there are four or five problems that cannot be discussed!

Is there a conclusion?

Judge Bork has no conclusive solution that would take care of all our problems, but were he an evangelist, he would have offered us Holy Scripture: "...and if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my presence, and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and revive their lands" (2 Chron. 7:14).

Repentance and doing penance are of course a little more than the contemporary, "Gee, Mom, I couldn't help it, it was an accident." Or the other favourite, "It's just human nature, or the hormones." Now that Confession has been renamed "Reconciliation," restitution has also become a strange concept. And yet in the Old Testament we see how King David, even though he repented of his sins, was punished with the death of his son as restitution (pay back) for his sin. One cannot help but wonder what his punishment would have been had he not repented!

There are those who will sincerely say they never ever contributed in any way by their sin to our present dilemma. Yet even they live with the bad fall-out: "The sun shines on the good and bad alike." As the saints pray for sinners and do penance on their behalf, let our blameless brothers and sisters pray for the rest of us.

As we approach the millennium, it may not be too late to revive a day of public prayer and fasting, to don sackcloth and ashes, and turn our faces to Jerusalem and Rome, in the hope that God will pardon us, restore our land, and rescue us from Gomorrha!

Annelies Steden, mother of three, was arrested Sept. 9, 1998, for peacefully picketting outside the Scott abortuary in Toronto, ON, along with the intrepid Linda Gibbons, and charged with obstructing a peace officer. She was remanded in custody and at press time, is still in jail pending a hearing. Anneliese could face up to six months of incarceration.

For up-to-date information on Anneliese and Linda, and an address if you wish to write them, please contact Campaign Life Coalition at 416-368-8479. At the moment, their address is: Metro Toronto West Detention Centre, 111 Disco Road, Etobicoke, ON, M9W 1M3.