Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization by Samuel Gregg

'Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization' by Samuel Gregg covers two subjects which are critically important for all of us to comprehend: the relationship between rationality and religious belief for one, and the legacy and destiny of the West for another. Gregg argues clearly and concisely here that Western Civilization is predicated on the synthesis of faith and reason. Instead of choosing one or the other, the melding together of Jewish belief and Greek thought in Christianity made possible the greatest and surest improvement in human quality of life ever, bar none.  Those today who strive to divorce the modern developed world from the fact of it having both a significant theological and philosophical heritage stand poised, therefore, to destroy the single greatest force for good humanly speaking since the beginning of recorded history. The second book I finished today was a surprisingly fitting companion. 'Sex, Lies, and Scantrons: The Average American's Public School Experience' by Matt Saccaro serves as a first-hand account of the personal ramifications of such efforts.  According to Saccaro, our education system routinely allows students to torment, harass, bully, and pressure one another into unhealthy ways of being and relating. Teachers, meanwhile, alternate between barely concealing their disdain for their pupils and harshly upbraiding them for making them look as bad as they in fact are.  Consequently, the kids are foul-mouthed, uncouth, abusive, and unrestrained by anything that could remotely be called Christian morality. The adults in the mix by and large shrug and turn a blind eye to this, unless doing otherwise would cost them personally. The whole lot acts like animals because they're conditioned to believe they're animals. And this is why we homeschool. Of a piece is the recent story from Not the Bee of a Tallahassee, Florida middle school principal Sarah Hembree taking to Facebook to upbraid parents for "getting in their way" and bragging that teachers are going to "do what's best for your students in spite of you." The whole lot also explains why Louisiana HB813 - 'The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act' - was just withdrawn by its sponsor, Republican State Rep. Danny McCormick, after an amendment passed 65 to 26 on Thursday night stating that "the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences" if she tries to get an abortion in violation of the proposed legislation. To the degree the West generally, and America in particular, has abandoned the union of faith and reason, we have correspondingly lost the ability to agree that truth and goodness are objectively knowable, and that it is our sober responsibility before God to both know them and act accordingly. If there is to be any hope of salvaging the above, by God's grace, we must return once more to the conviction that "the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." Nothing less will do.