c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ In Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play,”A Raisin in the Sun,”there is a confrontation between mother and daughter in which we can find a clue to what is at the heart of our nation’s moral crisis.

Set in Chicago in the late 1940s, the play addresses the hopes, values and slowly expanding options of a working-class black family in the post-war era.

At one point, Beneatha Younger, a headstrong college student, asserts _ yet again _ her intention to become a doctor. Her mother, Lena, a God-fearing former domestic, encouragingly agrees, providing”it’s the Lord’s will.” Incensed that a divine imprimatur might be needed to fulfill her dream, Beneatha shouts,”Mama, there simply is no … God!”At that, the matriarch strides over to her insolent daughter, slaps her, and forces the girl to repeat after her:”In my mother’s house, there is still God.” At the heart of this incident, apart from its racial and sociological trappings, is the age-old struggle over which is better, the old or the new. It’s a struggle often waged as a battle between received moral authority and moral autonomy.

Specifically, Beneatha is excited over the possibilities now open to her, prospects not available to her mother’s generation. As the master of her own fate, she cannot allow anything, least of all the notion of God, to stand in her way.

Lena, on the other hand, while recognizing new vistas of opportunity, is loathe to proceed without the approval of the God who has always guided and protected her and her family. For Mama and those of her generation, God is not only real but the final authority in life.

Two generations later, the debate over ultimate authority still rages. It is apparent in the never-ending battle over abortion, where”choice”and”accountability”often appear as non-compatible options. And it is seen in the controversy over human cloning, where for some the question of whether we can has become synonymous with whether we should.

It is even a factor in the public scrutiny of the sex lives of prominent figures.

For example, in summarizing the extra-marital activities of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt among others, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis observed recently that”straying from the straight and narrow does not disable one as a statesman, a general or a civil rights leader. But somehow that reality has been overwhelmed in the United States in recent years by prurient interest in the sex lives of politicians.” Lewis said while President Clinton may be morally culpable if guilty of cavorting with and lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, his judgment should be left to the public, not the special prosecutor. Thus, he reasoned, the less scrutiny into the matter _ especially official scrutiny _ the better.

The upshot of Lewis’ argument is that public inquiry into the lives of our leaders is actually detrimental to the public interest.”Is that a good way to attract intelligent, sensitive Americans to public life?”he asks. We are better served, he suggested, by the”don’t ask, don’t tell”approach which formerly gave tacit approval to let boys be boys.

Such reasoning is flawed in the extreme. It officially recognizes no authority higher than the court of public opinion, a court which, without public scrutiny, would have no need to convene.

The effects of such thinking are all around us. Our representatives, much like those they represent, live compartmentalized, hypocritical lives, giving account to no one higher than themselves. Our high rates of divorce, substance abuse and crime are only a partial outgrowth of our quest for moral autonomy.

Like Beneatha Younger, we have rejected the notion of divine authority, and the result of our arrogance slaps us in the face. We would do well to remember the words of wisdom that followed the slap. For in the hearts of those who know better, there is still God.

DEA END ATCHISON