Pervasive Skepticism

What Happened to Ricky - WSJ.com This Wall Street Journal article tells the story of a couple that had a mentally disabled child born to them in the 1950's. As was common, the advice of the child's doctors was to have the child institutionalized. So they did. '"Fifty years ago, families were often advised to place their child in an institution, and basically told that, for the good of the child and family, to forget that the person existed," says Charlie Lakin, project director of the Research and Training Center on Community Living at the University of Minnesota.' The child was never forgotten and the article also tells of his family's search for him and eventually renewed relationship. I was astounded to find that this was common advice. But then again, we used to make toys with lead and promoted smoking medicinally too. There is this history of really bad misinformation in America that is being corrected in recent years. It's a sort of backlash. It's happening in the church too. The church used to preach against the pleasure and enjoyment of sex between a husband and wife. Now we have great web sites and ministries dedicated to absolute enjoyment. It still baffles me that Christians ever supported slavery and joined the KKK. Now we have racial righteousness ministries. The church took an alcohol prohibition position, and in some cases still do, but now we find a moderate use of alcohol to be healthy. While on the one hand it's healthy to see all this correction happening but I see that it promotes skepticism. No one solidly believes any thing from an expert or authority any more. We question everything. It's no wonder our culture has lost the concept of truth. Will we ever find it again?