Over the past decade, William Bennett has become an increasingly prominent figure on the national scene. As chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, secretary of education, and director of drug control policy, Bennett was a forthright and articulate spokesman for conservative values.<\/p>\n
Now Bennett has published two books that extend and deepen his engagement with our cultural malaise. The first, \u201cThe De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children,\u201d diagnoses what has gone wrong and prescribes a reaffirmation of traditional values. It is largely autobiographical, as Bennett draws on his extensive firsthand experience of the culture wars. The second, \u201cThe Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories,\u201d is an anthology intended primarily to help parents instill traditional values in their children. Both books can be recommended to Christian readers.<\/p>\n
In \u201cThe De-Valuing of America,\u201d Bennett confronts the assault on moral absolutes. It seems so obvious, but apparently it is not, that without deep-rooted values to guide how we live our lives, how we make our laws, and how we teach our children, eventually everyone will do what is right in his or her own eyes, whatever the cost to others. And that, Bennett suggests, is the difference \u201cbetween social order and social anarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n
America\u2019s civic order, Bennett argues, cannot be understood apart from its religious roots. \u201cNo one demands doctrinal adherence to any religious beliefs as a condition of citizenship,\u201d he writes, \u201cor as proof of good citizenship, here. But at the same time, we should not deny what is true; that from the Judeo-Christian tradition come our values, our principles, the animating spirit of our institutions. That tradition and our tradition are entangled. They are wed together. When we have disdain for our religious tradition, we have disdain for ourselves.\u201d While broadly affirming the \u201cJudeo-Christian tradition,\u201d Bennett\u2019s emphasis is on nonsectarian American values (\u201cour tradition,\u201d as he refers to it in the passage just quoted); rarely is he addressing issues from an explicitly Christian perspective.<\/p>\n
My wife and I have already begun reading \u201cThe Book of Virtues\u201d to our eight-year-old and five-year-old. This massive compendium of stories, poems, speeches, letters, and excerpts from other works is a priceless gift to parents and children alike. Organized under the heading of various virtues – Responsibility, Courage, Compassion, Loyalty, Honesty, Friendship, Persistence, Hard Work, Self-Discipline, and Faith – the selections are refreshingly diverse. Folktales and fables rub elbows with passages from Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Biographical sketches of Harriet Tubman, Thomas Edison, and many others offer inspirational models of the qualities that all good parents want to see cultivated in their children. The simple stories found in this book give parents a concrete and systematic method to help their children internalize essential values. The book is a wonderful application of the proverb \u201cTrain up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Christian readers should applaud Bennett\u2019s affirmation of the virtues, they must also ask how these values are to be enacted. Will there be a commitment to the radical challenge of the gospel – a stance that is uncompromisingly prolife, but also, for example, committed to health care for the poor – or will Bennett\u2019s manifestoes translate to support for a limited political agenda?<\/p>\n
As a black Christian with a conservative view of Scripture, I have almost given up the hope of finding a politician I could support without compromising my Christian beliefs and abandoning my mostly poor, black, inner-city neighborhood – one who would consistently champion biblical values and not just a few pet righteous causes; one who would confront the Left for its antibiblical positions but also affirm it for the godly, unselfish stances that it does occasionally take, and who would confront the Right for its mean-spiritedness and narrow interpretation of what it means to follow Christ, but also honor its refusal to compromise on what the Bible clearly teaches on tough, unpopular issues; one who would embrace both the virtues of hard work and self-discipline and the virtue of compassionate concern for the poor.<\/p>\n
It is very easy to align ourselves too closely with a political perspective and confuse that allegiance with doing our Christian duty. As Christians, our primary responsibility is to follow Christ\u2019s example, which will not always fit neatly into a political camp. When faced with tough issues from abortion to national health care reform, we should always be asking ourselves the simple but demanding question, What would Jesus do? No politician can do that and win.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Books reviewed:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children,\u201d by William J. Bennett (Focus on the Family, 267 pp.; $18, hardcover); \u201cThe Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories,\u201d edited by William J. Bennett (Simon & Schuster, 831 pp.; $27.50, hardcover). Reviewed by Spencer Perkins, editor-in-chief of Urban Family magazine and coauthor of \u201cMore Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel\u201d (InterVarsity).<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc.\/CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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