Quodlibet
"Change Is Good"
I first heard this asinine preachment from the sort of person one would expect it from: a progressive member of the managerial class—just where C. S. Lewis put it in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "Have you no idea [said Gumpas in defense of the slave trade] of progress, of development?" "I have seen them both in an egg," said Caspian. "We call it 'Going Bad' in Narnia."
Scott Adams also gets it right in his Dilbert cartoons: managers typically justify their existence by making ill-considered changes that needlessly burden their employees. The Peter Principle operates somewhat nebulously but is nevertheless real. Supine adoption of the Change Doctrine is perhaps the least mistakable sign of its presence in many spheres of activity, including the churches. It is cause for rejoicing when one does not labor under its practitioners.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on culture from the online archives
22.3—April 2009
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
An Architectural Sign of Mere Christianity by Michael Ward
32.6—November/December 2019
on Taking Heed of the Parallels Between the Crises of Yesterday & Today by Korey D. Maas
28.2—March/April 2015
Neo-Pagan Family Policies Doom Any Recovery by Allan C. Carlson
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
