Religion does a great many things in addition to teaching the rights and wrongs of moral behavior. Any religion worthy of the name is also a repository of spiritual insight, metaphysical speculation, consoling rituals, and communal identity. But a religious tradition that has given up on morality is well on its way to obsolescence.

We had occasion to ponder this truth recently when a friend sent us a story from the January 26 issue of The Sunday Times of London. Under the somewhat jocular title “Holy Moses! It’s the Nine Commandments say vicars,” the Times reported on the disturbing results of a random poll of some two hundred Anglican vicars. Only a third of those polled could remember all ten of the commandments; some could remember only two of the ten. And it is significant, we think, that the three proscriptions most frequently recalled had to do with property and sex: “Thou shalt no ...

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