THEMES OF CONCERN

The main theme is how to keep a young man's soul on the road to God. The minor strains: the search for self in a world in which religious stability seems blasted to existential smithereens; problems of the flesh, such as illicit sexuality, masturbation, homosexuality; the question of faith; the quest for love; private morality and public goals; skepticism; the presence of Divine Being; science and religion; personal freedom in a world to which there has been given a higher authority; God's ""death."" Directed primarily to university students, the book is cloaked in all the authority quotations from and discussions of Nietszche, Jung, Charles Peguy, William Golding, Robert Bolt and Santayana. However, the section on student rights and social behavior gives away the secret. Beneath the bright, contemporary surface is the nagging, scolding tone of the harassed school-or-church man of any faith who would put on the guise of modernity to bring his charges back to the old beliefs. Primarily for a Catholic audience.