Studies of the words Americans use, demonstrate that since 1960, individualism has been on the rise while morality has steadily declined. Our culture desperately needs to own the biblical truth that we are are not islands unto ourselves. We are Bound Together. Only the local churches offer the plausibility structures needed to counter the increase of individualism and the decline in morality.
Words betray values. As Christ said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). This being the case, Christians would agree that those studies which responsibly survey word usage would tell us something about the values of society.
In a recent article, “What Our Words Tell Us,” New York Times columnist David Brooks pointed to two interesting studies that considered the changing values of America by evaluating the frequency of words in a Google database of 5.2 million books.
- The first study, Increases in Individualistic Words and Phrases in American Books, concluded that our larger cultural ethos “has been increasingly characterized by a focus on the self and uniqueness.”
- An independent study by Pelen Kesibir and Selin Kesebir found that general terms for morality have been used with less frequency.
Reflecting on those studies, Brooks theorizes:
So the story I’d like to tell is this: Over the past half-century, society has become more individualistic. As it has become more individualistic, it has also become less morally aware, because social and moral fabrics are inextricably linked. The atomization and demoralization of society have led to certain forms of social breakdown, which government has tried to address, sometimes successfully and often impotently.
Brooks is correct to note that government is not positioned to counter either individualism or the break down of morality. As I wrote in Bound Together, only the church is positioned to counter the radical individualism of our time. Here’s an excerpt:
. . . A person in the West today trying to not be radically individualistic is like a fish trying to think itself dry. Of course, it will never happen. In the first place, fish cannot survive outside of water. If the fish is to change, it must find a different pond in which to swim. Likewise, humans are social beings and will not survive outside of relationships. It is local churches that can provide “water” or plausibility structures, which not only teach solidarity but also live it out in community with one another.
The necessity of an alternative community is why Hunter reasons that “there is a sociological truth, then, to the statement . . . ‘there is no salvation outside the church.’” He explains, “As a community and an institution, the church is a plausibility structure and the only one with the resources capable of offering an alternative formation to that offered by popular culture.” Obviously, this does not mean that conversion can only take place in a formal church setting. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord is saved. However, it means people who are going to move beyond the radical individualism will need to do so in the context of a local church.
