Editorial July 3, 1995 Issue

The moral and spiritual foundation of progress

William E. Moody

As reported in the "News & Commentary" column in this week's Sentinel, the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, presented a lecture last year titled "The Moral Foundations of Society." Lady Thatcher's talk, sponsored by the Center for Constructive Alternatives at Hillsdale College in Michigan, was the closing lecture for the Center's seminar "God and Man: Perspectives on Christianity in the 20th Century."

Lady Thatcher discussed at length the effects of morality, and the lack thereof, on religion, government, politics, economics, and the legal systems of society. She also spoke candidly about the responsibilities that come with democracy and freedom. "So long as freedom, that is, freedom with responsibility, is grounded in morality and religion," Lady Thatcher argued, "it will last far longer than the kind that is grounded only in abstract, philosophical notions."

She went on to make her point: "The most important problems we have to tackle today are problems, ultimately, having to do with the moral foundations of society." She noted that when these foundations are absent, the result is that such "societies have been ruled by totalitarian ideologies" and that individual freedoms are lost.

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