Page 16 - Providence Christian College - Fall 2018

16
providencecc.edu
a Well-oRdeRed Soul
fAll 2018 convocAtion Address
by Dr. Jim Belcher
seA beggArs! welcome to the stArt of the 2018-19 AcAdemic yeAr. In the 1940 movie, The Philadelphia Story, Tracy (played by Audrey Hepburn) is unable to recall what happened between her and Mike (Jimmy Stewart) the night before because she had too much champagne and fell asleep. Thinking the worst happened, that her virtue and reputation were ruined forever, she is at first relieved to learn that Mike had carried her to her bed and departed. But then she asks, “Was I so unattractive, so distant, so forbidding, or something?” Mike replies absolutely NOT. But “you were also a little worse or better for the wear, and there are rules for that.”
According to Charles Murray, in his bestselling book Losing Ground, Mike was observing the Code. The Code specified a specific behavior that was taught to every American boy, that true manliness “is in harmony with gentleness, kindness and self-denial.”
But this Code of behavior, or virtue, or character is almost completely gone in America, says Murray. What is now preached in America by our cultural and political elite is a self-expressive freedom that says you have the liberty to do whatever you want if it makes you happy, particularly in the area of sexuality. All authority of God, the church, the family, and tradition are rejected. There is no Code—now, only the individual can decide what is right and wrong, and the guide is psychological or therapeutic—whatever helps you cope or get through the day is OK.
According to Murray, this has led to a “Schism in the Soul,” a phrase he takes from the historian Arnold Toynbee’s a study in history. Toynbee said that countries collapse when this Code collapses, when the cultural elite turn their back on moral and ethical living and instead actively support and celebrate deviant behavior.
That is where we are now. Our “hollow elite”, as Murray calls them, no longer promote the Code, meaning an ethical way to live that supports honesty, industriousness, marriage, and a religious way of life. Rather, they attack all of these and celebrate deviancy. This schism in the soul erodes the moral foundation of life that is so important, not only to human flourishing and the glory of God but also to our democratic republic that depends on individual virtue.
As I have been sharing with the first year students, and as our professors will spell out in more detail over the course of your education here at Providence, our social and cultural and political life will not be renewed until we return to the older version of freedom, which is freedom within virtue. This is the view that freedom is not freedom from authority and God and family and tradition, but that true freedom comes when we learn self-control, when we learn to govern our own sinful impulses, when we internalize the Code. Only then can we freely choose the good, the beautiful, and the true and flourish as human beings and society. This is what the late