Article August 22, 1964 Issue

Signs of the Times

Dale R. Kline

The Christian Century

The Reverend Dale R. Kline
Methodist, Lilly Fellowship student
in The Christian Century
[Reprinted by permission. © 1964 by Christian Century Foundation, chicago.]

One hears on all sides that a new morality suitable for our age is needed. Yet surely part of the answer to the current moral crisis is simply to pay more serious attention to the ethical code already internalized in men's consciences. ... Indeed, I am suspicious of the claim that man's needs have changed so drastically that an entirely new ethic is needed.

Sensing the popularity of the new "religion" of psychoanalysis, some prophets of the moral crisis maintain that the psychological sciences can provide a complete solution to the current ethical dilemma. Frankly, I am skeptical about any such claim. Main in the field of psychotherapy are indeed coming to see that the "wages of sin" is a strange kind of neurotic death; but unfortunately this field is still dominated by an analytic ideology which views man's anxiety as the product of excessive moral demands. With its insistence on minimizing ethical requisites as a means of mitigating neurotic anxiety, psychoanalysis—at least as popularly interpreted—has been the major factor behind the prevailing distaste for morality among the sophisticated elements of society. It is of little use, therefore, to look to psychotherapeutic practices for help in a situation characterized by the absence of moral standards.

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