and evil — in such a way, in short, as tonsuggest the impossibility of construingn”moral life as systematically explicablenin terms, only and always, of the applicationnof adequate principles to thendetails of every serious engagement.”nAnd the paper by the fine novelistnChaim Potok discusses value metaphorsnprecisely in terms of God’s silencen(rather than the pragmatic acquiescence)nin the 20th century. Thenexistential challenge is raised, not as anphilosophical debate between systemsnof analysis, but as a raw nerve throbbingnin a world in which the scientificnanalysis of values moves much morenslowly than does the destruction ofnhuman life. And if the volume cannotnbegin to cope with — much less resolve—nsuch dilemmas, it remains angood place to begin such a discussionnas we approach the 21st century.nIrving Louis Horowitz is HannahnArendt Professor of Sociology andnPolitical Science at Rutgers University.nHe is also president of Transaction/nSociety publishers, and the author ofnmany books, including Ideology andnUtopia in the United States.nLIBERAL ARTSnBlue Suede ShoesnAre the Least of Itnby Chilton Williamson, Jr.nAll God’s Childrennand Blue Suede Shoes:nGhristians andnPopular Culturenby Kenneth A. MyersnWestchester, IL: Crossway Books;n213 pp., $8.95 papernPerhaps I am not the ideal reviewernfor this book. I do not own antelevision, and I have not seen a movienin a dozen years. (I do have an AM-FMnradio in my truck, which I use tonmonitor blizzards, sandstorms, flashfloods,nand tornadoes.) I do not readnPeople, Us, Self, TV Guide (naturally),nor the New York Times Book Review. Inhave never read a novel by JamesnMichener, Alice Walker, and whoevernit was who wrote Gorky Park. I amnvaguely aware of something called BillynJoel, which I assume is a brand ofnchewing tobacco manufactured in thenbackwoods of Arkansas or Mississippi.nJEANS, YOU’RE GAY; KHAKI, YOU’RE STRAIGHTnTo The Great Smoke Out and AIDSnAwareness Week we must now add GaynJeans Day. That’s right, the wearing ofnjeans could now be construed as a sign ofnsexual orientation. Just ask the studentsnat Princeton, who last October 11 had tondecide whether to wear jeans and to benrecognized as a supporter of homosexualitynor not to wear jeans and to be jeerednat as an enemy of civil rights.nThis choice was forced upon thenstudent body by the Gay and LesbiannAssociation of Princeton (GALAP),nwho placed an ad in the Daily Princetonian:n”Today, wear jeans to shownyou’re lesbian, gay, or bisexual — OR tonshow you support the rights of peoplenwho are.” The newspaper’s editorialneditor added, “[Gay Jeans Day] forcesnpeople to think about what it’s like to benhomosexual or bisexual on a collegen42/CHRONICLESncampus.nObjectors to Gay Jeans Day focusednon the issue of coercion: why shouldnthey be forced to comment on thisnissue? “I have the right to hold politicalnviews and not be compelled to publiclynexpress them unless I choose to,”nsaid a junior in the Princeton AlumninWeekly. “If I wear jeans, I am annunequivocal supporter of gay rights andnall attendant social and political positions,”nsaid another student. “If I donnot, I am a reprehensible bigot. I amncomfortable with neither of these positions.”nIn the homosexual vocabulary, freedomnof association is defined as thendenial of freedom of dissociation, andnpeaceful coexistence means intolerancenof the majority. (TP)nnnIn other words, I don’t know nothin’nabout popular “art”—but I knowsnwhat I hates. Many a critic for the NewnYorker, Harper’s, or the Atlantic hasngot through a job of book reviewingnwith no more than that going for him.nThat relieves me, because All God’snChildren is an excellent small book,ndespite the fact that it seems at times tonbe addressed to a slighfly dimwittednYMCA member. (“Let’s begin by establishingnyour Pop Culture Quotient.n. . . First, how many entertainmentnappliances are in your house?”) Mr.nMyers, who is the editor of the twonnewsletters. Public Eye and Genesis,nand a former editor of This World: AnJournal of Religion and Public Lifenand Eternity, is by training and backgroundnabove this sort of thing andnought not to drag us down to it. Nornhas he any excuse for the followingnexample of squeamish usage, of whichnhe is regulady guilty: “A very sicknperson can be a very holy person, butngenerally it would be better if theynweren’t sick.” You can’t be any sickernthan dead, which in my opinion is hownmost people who deliberately tormentnthe language in such ways should be.nFortunately, most of the book is writtennat a vastly higher level than this.nAll God’s Children operates on twonlevels of argument: on the one, it is anconsideration of the proper relationshipnbetween Christianity — institutionallynand in its individual components—nand the phenomenon ofnpopular culture; on the other, an inquiryninto the nature of popular culturenitself. “It might seem an extreme suggestionnat first,” Myers begins,nbut I believe that the challengenof living with popular culturenmay well be as serious fornmodern Christians asnpersecution and plague werenfor the saints of earlierncenturies. . . . Christiannconcern about popular culturenshould be as much about thensensibilities it encourages asnabout its content. … In thisnstudy, I have tried to make thencase that popular culture’sngreatest influence is in the waynit shapes how we think and feeln(more than what we think andnfeel) and how we think and feelnabout thinking andn