What society needs…

AT THE END of an otherwise compelling piece on George Bush's social policies ("Where's the compassion?" March 22), the CENTURY concludes: "As in the prophet Amos's era, our problem is not a lack of piety in high places, but a gap between personal piety and public morality. Personal piety is no substitute for justice in the land." This is only half-true. Our problems in this country are much worse than that, for we increasingly lack both personal piety and public morality.

The premise that the two can be separated is, of course, a liberal posture rather than the necessary outcome of Christian teaching. Liberal Christians who bemoan "social" problems such as inadequate welfare programs and conservative Christians who worry about the dissolution of "personal" pieties like marriage and family life both suffer from tunnel vision. You cannot form people of good character in an unjust society, and you cannot create a just society with people who are morally rotten.

Ian Curran

Atlanta, Ga.

COPYRIGHT 2005 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning