THE SAME GOES FOR CHURCHES. ALL THE MAINLINE CHURCHES ARE RUNNING AFTER THE PROGRESSIVE TRAIN, CONVINCED THAT’S WHERE THEIR CONGREGATION IS NOW, WHILE THE CONGREGATIONS HAVE LONG SINCE TURNED BACK AND ARE LOOKING FOR SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE:  Prohibition and the Great Society show that the government should not legislate vast social trends.

History has no arrow. Any institution that tries, consciously, to get in good with “the future” is guaranteed to be chasing a glamorously packaged past that someone wants to drag us all back to. They will never succeed, of course, but they can succeed in destroying the real present, and any hope of a decent future. For a while at least.