Above is the link to a culture blog post and my comment about it. To view the post, copy the link and paste it into the search box on your window.
This blog post is called 'Catholicism in France.' It is about the shrinking role of religion in people's lives, the decreasing church membership, the reactions of religious leaders, and possible reasons for this change. I commented on reasons I think this is happening. I chose this blog post because it describes a major change occurring in France.
The blog post described tensions between two major French institutions: the church and the government. I would also say it described the conflict between religious and social values, and differences between older and younger generations. This movement away from religion and towards more personal freedom and choice is not isolated in France; it is occurring in countries all over the world, including the United States. (Goal 1)
The older generation's values are shown by the fact they continue to attend church regularly and consider themselves to be very religious. Religion is an important part of their lives and they were raised with it. Religion was never as important to the younger generations. They did not endure the same hardships as previous generations, and they have been raised to turn to technology, not faith, for comfort and help. In addition, younger generations tend to place great importance on freedom, choice and independence, and the church may appear to them to be limiting these with its traditions. (Goal 2)
I think this change may be occurring in large part because the church has chosen to stand by its old traditions while the rest of the population, especially the young people, are modernizing. A similar reason that was mentioned in one of the articles said declining church membership amy be due in large part to materialism. People are becoming more materialistic, and finding refuge in stuff rather than faith. This is another product of the generation gap. (Goal 3)
The major changes discussed in the culture blog post are the declining church membership, the shrinking role of the church in social and political issues, and the decreasing importance of religion in people's daily lives. I think this is in large part a generational phenomena. The current generation has somewhat different values than the previous generations. (Goal 4)