What Are We Thinking?

14 February 2026  1 Kings 12:26-32, 13:33-34

Memorial of Saints Cyril, Monk, and Methodius, Bishop

“So, the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold….” (1 Kings 12:28)

What was Jeroboam thinking?

It is hard to imagine a more comprehensive rejection of the faith of Israel than the reforms Jeroboam proposed to secure the loyalty of the people: non-centralized sacrifice, image worship, non-Levitical priests, the Feast of Tabernacles in the wrong month, polytheism. And Golden Calves – really? Had he never heard of the story of Moses on Mt. Sinai, what the people were up to while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments, and what happened after that?

Was he completely tone deaf to Moses, the Law and the Prophets? Apparently so – Jeroboam made not just one Golden Calf, but two, and set them up at shrines at Dan and Bethel – he wanted to make idol worship more convenient.And what were the people thinking? Where was the outrage and indignation? Where was the loud and determined rejection of Jeroboam’s clear apostasy?

The culture of Europe was saved by the determined catechesis and intense discipleship of generations of monks, especially the Benedictines. If we wish to avoid the fate of Jeroboam, perhaps we need the same sort of determined catechesis and intense discipleship. Perhaps we should be praying, as philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has proposed, for a new, if very different, St. Benedict.

The people generally went along without a peep. With a shrug and a laconic “Whatever” they lapsed into being “nones” – people with no specific religious identity.

The new kingdom of Jeroboam lasted only 210 years before the Assyrian Sargon II conquered it and sent its people into exile. Such are the consequences of “Whatever.”

While it is true that there are signs of renewed interest in Christian faith in our time (e.g. dramatically increased Bible sales, increases in church attendance), it is also true that over the last thirty years the “nones” have grown to about 31% of the U.S. population. Analysts say that this growth has reached a temporary plateau, but it has not gone down, nor in the near term is it expected to. Jeroboam’s kingdom had 210 years, but that was in a time when social changes moved more slowly due to low levels of literacy and slow communication. The decline of religious faith and the growth of “nones” has already been going on for 60 years in the U.S. Time is probably already short to arrest that, and some denominations are already on life support – the Presbyterian Church (USA) had over 4 million members in 1968, and fewer than one million today. Today, for every Catholic who comes in the front door by baptism and confirmation, seven go out the back. These are unsustainable numbers.

By the time Constantine converted to Christianity it was already too late to save the Roman Empire – it collapsed in the west less than a century after Constantine’s death. The culture of Europe, however, was saved by the determined catechesis and intense discipleship of generations of monks, especially the Benedictines. Their monasteries became centers of education and practical science that evolved into the first universities. The word “university,” by the way, is a uniquely Christian term – it means “a turning toward the One.” It is a recognition that there is only one Truth, because there is only one God, and only one salvation. We owe everything we have learned about mathematics, science, and philosophy to that great insight.

If we wish to avoid the fate of Jeroboam, perhaps we need the same sort of determined catechesis and intense discipleship. Perhaps we should be praying, as philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has proposed, for a new, if very different, St. Benedict.