…yet the \u201csky is not falling\u201d\u009d because her story, like Elizabeth Gilbert\u2019s before her, is hardly new. The gospel of self-fulfillment has been centuries in the making. As Charles Taylor explains in his dense, scholarly A Secular Age, the new invention of the modern age is a self-sufficing humanism that \u201caccept[s] no final goals beyond human flourishing, nor any allegiance to anything else beyond this flourishing. Of no previous society was this true.\u201d\u009d In other words, happiness is our only duty today, self-betrayal our only sin. It\u2019s not simply that the lines of morality have blurred in modern times, making truth relative. It\u2019s not even that religious belief has waned. Rather, the good life has been radically redefined according to the benefit of the individual while the former measures of flourishing\u201d\u201dGod\u2019s glory, society\u2019s health, the family\u2019s well-being\u201d\u201dhave been displaced. We\u2019re all on the throne now.<\/p>\n
Melton is as modern as she boasts\u201d\u201deven if her effusive references to \u201clove\u201d\u009d and \u201cjoy\u201d\u009d are reassuringly offered to confirm that her choices are in everyone\u2019s best interest. From the public announcements both of her divorce and her new dating relationship, she wants us to understand this: The greatest gift any of us gives to the world is our true self. Let\u2019s not look to anyone else for permission or feel any obligation for explanation. Humans flourish as they obey their desires.<\/p>\n
But the seismic nature of Melton\u2019s recent revelation and the aftershocks felt by her adoring fans suggests that the sky might be falling in some new way. Because while the self-fulfillment narrative isn\u2019t new, here\u2019s what is: how easily and insidiously it gets baptized as a Christian story. Melton hasn\u2019t simply said: I should be happy. She has emphatically said: God should be equally and unequivocally committed to my happiness as I am.<\/p>\n