Religion in the American Family in the 1950s ? Justin Taylor

For the majority of us, our knowledge of the American family in the 1950s is almost entirely mediated through popular culture. It?s sometimes hard to understand how the idyllic home life of the Baby Boomers in the 1950s turned into the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s, though if we know the economy of the gospel, we know that moralism is often the mother of?licentiousness.

We still find Christians today, however, pining for the supposed golden age of the 1950s.

D. G. Hart, reviewing Mary Eberstadt?s How the West Really Lost God, makes a helpful point on the religious life of American families in the 1950s:

That post-war family may now be forever tarnished by such maudlin television shows as ?Leave It to Beaver? or ?Ozzie and Harriet.? Even if those network families did not depict accurately the virtues of white, middle-class, suburban families (who never seemed to go to church), the Christianity of the 1950?s that blessed those families is not one that Eberstadt should use to support her case. For Protestants it was a time of neo-orthodoxy lite?more Niebuhr than Barth?when the American way of life (freedom and democracy)?not faith and repentance or word and sacrament?was synonymous with Protestantism. The situation among Roman Catholics was better but not by much. As Roman Catholics (in the United States at least) left behind their ghettos for suburban parishes, they assimilated American norms in ways that prepared the way for Vatican II?s engagement with the modern world, a posture that significantly undercut rationales for becoming a priest, nun, or monk. Of course, the families of the 1950?s were as responsible for increasing membership in conservative as in liberal churches. But in the case of liberal Christian families, domestic ties could not withstand the baby-boomers loss of faith.

. . .?If the family ever becomes more important to the conservative Protestant wing of ?family values? voters than the gospel and the Christian ministry, then what happened to 1950?s churches and families could well be the fate of Christian defenders of the family.

Copyright ? 2013 by the author listed above. Used by permission.

Source: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/07/23/religion-in-the-american-family-in-the-1950s/

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