No Soul Left to Sell

For many centuries Christians were warned that Satan would come to them as a seducer and offer them the world's bounty-prosperity, beauty, fame-in return for their immortal soul. This legend has survived in modern America in the form of many films, novels, even songs-remember `The Devil Went Down to Georgia'?-depicting Satan promising untold riches in exchange for a soul.

In our age Satan need not bother. Who among us has a soul left to sell anyway? America, the greatest country ever founded, is today foundering as its original ideals are eroded through a culture of suffocating soullessness. Pope John Paul II's warning that America is in danger of surrendering to a "soulless vision of life" is an understatement. America, the only country in the world to have G-d stamped on its money-not even the Vatican or Israel have it-is being laid low by mind-numbing materialism, vapidity, and vulgarity in a culture that increasingly resembles a soulless corpse.

The Declaration of Independence affirms the dignity of every human being and asserts their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But where is the dignity, and where are these rights, in modern-day America? Is it dignity that we see when men eat bugs and women have sex with complete strangers on reality TV as they lust for the attention of the camera? Is it dignity we witness when young women-who are paying tens of thousands of dollars to educate their minds-lift their blouses for the "Girls Gone Wild" videos so that some vulgar pornographer can become a millionaire? Is it dignity we witness in a culture of serial dating among professional young men and women that rarely culminates in commitment? How can we have forgotten even how to fall in love?

And where is the second promise of the Declaration-liberty! Is it liberty we witness today in a culture where we all feel imprisoned by the latest need-to-see movie? Are we really free when we feel the incarceration of working to the bone in order to keep up with the Joneses, even as our children are neglected and raised by TV? Are we really so free if we don't even have time to call on neighbors and grandparents go unvisited while "Shrek" rakes in half a billion dollars at the box office? Are teenagers today really free when they seem so imprisoned by their hormones and slaves to peer pressure?

The soul allows us rise above the needs of the body. But is it liberation of the body that is being exhibited in a culture where men and women spend hours a week at the gym but rarely ever read a wholesome book? Is it liberation that we witness in America among a generation of individuals who have enough time to check every email but not enough time to recite even a single daily prayer? It is liberation that we feel in America as our hearts become smaller while our cars become bigger?

Oh yes, the pursuit of happiness. Is it happiness that we see in America today in a culture that boasts a 50 percent divorce rate? Can we really speak of soulful celebration in a country where one out of four Americans is on an antidepressant? Is it a celebration of life that we are witnessing across America as shopping malls have replaced parks for Sunday family outings, and the impulse purchase has replaced churchgoing for a weekly feeling of satisfaction? If our kids are so happy, why are they numbing themselves with marijuana and thrilling their underdeveloped bodies with sex?

Continued on page 1: »