The Frank Forum

  It's been a rough couple of decades for Christianity in America, a rough last century nearly for it in Europe. The modern world and postmodern secular age is a fact of life that most of us grew up with. A new default. While I had the basics of a faith passed down through the family life in the small town where I grew up (baptism, confirmation, attended young life often as a teen) it's more accurate to say I'm a cultural Christian, but one who aspires to be more than one. But this bad Christian has read enough history, especially the story of Western Civilization, and seen enough of modernity and postmodernity to make a determination by the second act.  Postmodernism and the secular age has been a tremendous mistake. Thoughtful people know this. Even thoughtful people who are more or less agnostic know it. Whatever one thinks of Christianity, I've noticed we're just recreating it anyway through secular terms. Much of the so-called woke culture is simply co-opted Ch...

  I've been thinking: perhaps we are too quick to blame technology and social media for the exacerbation of our loneliness epidemic... The iPhone seems like low-hanging fruit.  Yes, I agree that there is something inherently anti-social about most new technology, but, ultimately, we  are the users. So, if we are accruing 6 hours of screen time a day, it is because we are allowing the devices to control our behavior.  Pro-gun advocates religiously echo the platitude that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." In that same vein, I'd like to proclaim that "devices don't control people; people allow devices to control people."  Social media, in particular, is often made out to be the culprit when examining the loneliness epidemic. From what I've observed, though, social media can serve as an essential facilitator to social connectedness. The Bumble BFF app, for instance, has facilitated many a platonic relationship. And Facebook groups often d...

  I don't care if I sound like a broken record. I will continue to say it: People need each other. Today, though, we live as inward-looking automatons.  But...perhaps this isn't just a problem of today. Perhaps people have always felt lonely to some degree... Alan Ehrenhalt, who I believe to be one of the authorities on the subject of social capital and communitarian thought, wrote a fascinating piece in Governing last month. In the past few months, we've experienced a burgeoning output of articles detailing our current "loneliness epidemic." Just about every publication has written about it. The release of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's report in April of last year certainly sparked a lot of content on the matter. Before that, the Covid-19 pandemic elicited a myriad of op-eds. Ehrenhalt, however, ably notes that much of the literature on this topic long predates the 2020s. Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone , easily the most widely recognized work in thi...