the stuff of life: family, community, vocation and faith

From Janie Cheaney in World...

Cheaney opens up with a quote from Charles Murray: "The stuff of life occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith."

Then, a paraphrase: Murray shows "how personal satisfaction derives from success in one or more of those institutions, and America has thrived insofar as she has encouraged them".

And then she paraphrases this caveat from Murray:

There's a difference between encouragement and support. European-style socialism "supports" faith by providing and maintaining church buildings; "supports" family with childcare and generous maternity benefits, "supports" vocation through workplace regulations, and community through the creation of a European brand. The result is, according to Murray, empty churches, a collapsing birthrate, low job satisfaction, and increasingly cynical Germans, Swedes, Frenchmen, and Spaniards.

And then, dueling prophecies Murray vs. Cheaney:

Murray sees a glow of hope...Our redemption is—are you ready?—science. In other words, objective truth, derived from rigorous testing, is going to establish beyond any doubt what wise observers have always known...Murray's confidence may owe something to the fact that Losing Ground, his statistics-based critique of welfare policy, helped spur the welfare reform of the '90s.

But science is unlikely to tame the socialist beast, for two reasons. First, science is not as imperious as it seems....Second, science carries no moral imperative....

I'm closer to Murray than Cheaney-- and that because of the additional influence and drive of the God's Truth working through His people, Church, and Kingdom. Ironically, Murray is less overt in expressing whatever faith he might have, but he has a more biblical emphasis on Truth and its power.