John Updike on True Democracy

“There was a time when I wondered why more people did not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what could be more delightful, more unexpected than to enter a venerable and lavishly scaled building kept warm and clean for us one or two hours a week and to sit and stand inContinue reading “John Updike on True Democracy”

Man Turned in on Himself, Excerpt 12

We have said that the primary curbs that support and enforce marriage have historically been sexual consequences and social mores. It is not hard to imagine that as individuals became more inclined to reject sexual purity for themselves, they were less interested in condemning impurity in others. Shame, “the emotion that reveals a culture’s moralContinue reading “Man Turned in on Himself, Excerpt 12”