Managing Insecurity and Violence.

A useful discussion of the social function of religion, in the context of making sense of the rapidly changing contemporary culture.

Insofar as human societies have been able to limit the social consequences of fear and insecurity, they have done so largely through the universal cultural phenomenon of religion. Whatever else it is and does, religion disciplines individuals and groups though the power of moral conscience, teaches hope and patience, and, perhaps above all, restrains individual behavior through collective sanction. Whenever fear and uncertainty reach levels that threaten to dissolve the cultural glue holding societies together, religion forms a shield for collective sanity. In other words, it usefully raises the threshold of social disintegration.

Adam Garfinkle, What's Going On

The writing is dense and slow, requiring concentration and translation. But it's worth pondering.

St Thomas Aquinas.

For Thomas Aquinas there is no genuinely good state without the church.

The Church Cemetery.

We seem to understand instinctively that there is some connection between church and the milestones of life, from birth to christening to marriage to death.

Even a cursory knowledge of the records available to the genealogist reveals an awareness of the availability and the reliability of church records for family historians.

Which is to say, the church is one of the important human institutions that ties us to our past, links our generations, tells our family stories. At least it has been, until recent times. What is replacing it?

More than that, the cumulative effect is that at least in the West the church tells the story of our human family.