#281: Losing Faith

EXCERPT: Listening to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, I was especially struck by this passage:

Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions — our corporations, our media, and, yes, our government — still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away. No wonder there's so much cynicism out there. No wonder there's so much disappointment.

I noticed two things. First, Obama mentioned government (including lobbyists and politicians), media, and corporations—but he never mentioned churches. It is, of course, bad politics to criticize churches no matter how appalling their performance. Nonetheless his comments beg the question: are not churches also big institutions, and also sometimes guilty of abusing their powers?

Second, Obama twice spoke of losing faith. The irony is in using “faith” while overlooking the very institutions (churches) which claim to be stewards of faith. It’s a double irony, in fact: the public figure most vocal about this loss of faith is our head of state, not the head of any church.

This double irony makes me wonder several things. First, is Obama right that cynicism is widespread? Second, is it really due to a loss of faith in our institutions? Third, is our Church also implicated in this? Fourth, what is to be done?