Sunday Sermons
The Family
The Family
When retiring United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was asked to name the most drastic change he has seen in his forty-year political career he responded, “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world”. William Bennett noted, “Scholars now speak of an ongoing trend toward a ‘post marriage’ society, one in which commitments to spouses and children are increasingly limited, contingent, and easily broken. Marriage itself is far less permanent, and far less of a social norm, than ever before in living memory” (The Broken Hearth pp. 10-11).
The condition of the American family
Since 1960, the marriage rate has declined by a third, and the divorce rate has more than doubled. In 1974, divorce replaced death as the principal cause of family dissolution. In 1994, for the first time in American history, more than half of all firstborn children were conceived or born outside of wedlock. Between 1960 and 1998, the percentage of single-parent families more than tripled. Between 1960 and 2000, the number of couples cohabiting increased more than eleven fold. Today, more than half of all marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation, and the number is even higher among men and women in their twenties and thirties, for whom living together is replacing marriage. One of the problems that the Christian encounters in trying to sound the wake-up call in our culture concerning the condition of marriage and the family is that not everyone agrees that the above statistics are negative. Shere Hite argued that the breakdown of the family is a good thing. Some feminists desire to see the removal of the nuclear family (a father, mother, and children), and want it replaced by such things as renewable marriages.
The right foundation
Bennett notes, “More so than any other time in human history, we share no common understanding of marriage and the family. Marriage itself, detached from any objective foundation, is seen by many as possessing little or no intrinsic worth” (p. 11). If the nuclear or “traditional” family is simply the product of evolution or culture, then it can be discarded, but if it is a product of God’s wisdom, then a monogamous married couple (a man and a woman) living with their children must be vital to the success of any civilization. God planned the marriage relationship (Genesis 2:18,21-24). God will condemn those who transgress the rules that govern this relationship (Hebrews 13:4; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Matthew 5:32). Therefore, this relationship, as God planned it, must be the cornerstone of any healthy culture (Judges 2:10). People tend to forget that beyond simple reproduction and nurture, the human family is the forum in which moral and ethical understanding is shaped (Ephesians 6:4). It is the arena in which the moral fiber of the next generation, the next culture is established.
Accusations against the “traditional” family
A while back the Economist magazine noted that the current turmoil in the American family is nothing new, and is no cause for alarm. The magazine argued that human societies did quite well before the advent of the modern nuclear family. Yet the Bible and history actually argue otherwise. Many ancient cultures collapsed precisely because they abandoned Biblical ethics and the right relationship between men and women (Romans 1:18-32; Psalm 9:17 “The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations who forget God”). Going back to the very beginning, the Bible faithfully records man’s need for God’s help in the area of marriage and parenting. The Bible records parental failure (1 Samuel 3:13); the problem of divorce (Malachi 2:14-16); the pain experienced by parents with rebellious children (Proverbs 10:1); the pain of divorce (Malachi 2:13); and unhappy marriages(Proverbs 12:4 “But she who shames him is as rottenness in his bones”). Equally, and with intensity, the Bible exhorts parents to be relentless in their parenting (Deuteronomy 6:6-7), and dedicated to their marriage spouses (Ecclesiastes 9:9; Proverbs 5:18; Ephesians 5:22ff; 1 Peter 3:1-7). In light of all these facts, both Biblical and secular, it is clear that without following God’s instructions, things do not merely work out for the best.
Some have argued that the nuclear family is simply a product of Western culture, this the facts deny. Long before the United States even existed, the values that so often have been associated with the “traditional” family, values such as love between husband and wife, monogamy, lifelong faithfulness, male headship, and the role of motherhood, were long ago revealed in the Scriptures. Read Proverbs 31:10-31; Ephesians 5:22-33; Titus 2:3-5 and 1 Peter 3:1-7. Far from being a product of American culture, God has always expected husbands and wives to love one another, and be in love with each other (Ecclesiastes 9:9; Proverbs 5:18). God has always expected fathers to play an active role in the parenting process, and He has always expected them to love their children (Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 1:8; 2:1; 3:1; 4:1; 5:1). Some have made the mistake of finding certain periods in history when it appears that fathers were harsh, aloof, and uninvolved in the family, and then have assumed that the loving and involved father is an evolutionary improvement. The fact of the matter is that God has always demanded those qualities in a father, and the failure of a particular time or culture to live up to God’s standard, is a move backward.
Bennett noted that trying to bring people back to God’s standard for the family would probably be countered by the criticism that we are “trying to turn back the clock”. C.S. Lewis observed that the whole turning-back-the-clock argument is often dishonest, and meant more to be a conversation stopper than a serious point, and is designed to make those who hold Biblical truths appear to be behind the times or living in the past. Lewis states, “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive”. God would agree, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16); “but from the beginning it has not been this way” (Matthew 19:8).
Another argument that I have heard that is used to discredit the “traditional” family, is that many of the families in the Bible were so dysfunctional. For example, many have argued that Solomon’s advice in the book of Proverbs to discipline a child (Proverbs 13:24 “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently”), obviously does not work, because of how unwise his son Rehoboam turned out to be. Yet the truth of the matter is that while Solomon spoke by inspiration when composing the Proverbs, he personally did not always follow or practice what was revealed through Him. The failure of Rehoboam is not that Solomon practiced what he preached, but rather, he was not always the best example of what he preached (1 Kings 11:1-6). In addition, Rehoboam’s failure is directly linked with failing to listen to what Solomon had taught him. The Proverbs often warn against pride and arrogance (Proverbs 18:12), and forsaking the loyalty or advice of a trusted family of one’s father (27:10). Rehoboam violated both of these truths (1 Kings 12:6-10). The problems that we see in various Biblical families, is not because people followed Biblical instructions, but because they forsook them. For example, the problems that David had in his family are directly related to his adultery (2 Samuel 12:11; 13:21). One lesson to be learned is that sin will destroy even the healthiest families and no family is so successful that it can become immune from the need to follow God’s laws. It would also seem that God allowed certain things to happen in the Old Testament, such as polygamy and so on, to make the definitive point that when people deviate from God’s wisdom, problems arise.
Forces against the family
We presently live in a culture where the moral and ethical standards have drastically shifted. We do live in a time when the highest form of love in our culture has become love for self (2 Timothy 3:2). We have devalued concepts such as personal responsibility, self-denial, sacrifice, service and love for neighbor, and have replaced them with unrestricted personal liberty, and personal choice. Children and spouses are no longer looked upon as persons to be loved and valued for their own sake, but as objects to be acquired, enjoyed, and discarded. Alan Bloom noted that self has become the modern substitute for the soul. Arizona State University Professor Bernard Farber has identified a mindset that he calls “permanent availability”. That is, more and more people, even married people, want to remain on the marriage market, where what is on offer can look like a vast improvement over what they already have. I believe that this is simply a symptom of a generation that insists upon believing that they are perpetually young, and Peter seemed to identify this attitude by the statement, “having eyes full of adultery” (2 Peter 2:14). Evolutionary biologists tell us that both men and women, but especially men, are naturally promiscuous; they also assure us that monogamous lifelong marriage is unnatural. Yet God disagrees, for what has been “natural” from the beginning is a committed marriage relationship (Matthew 19:3-9). Bennett notes, “If we hope to preserve the human ennobling qualities associated with marriage and family life, monogamy, lifetime commitment, child-centeredness, we have to be prepared to repel assaults, including those mounted under the banner of ‘nature’. Otherwise we do not deserve the title of human beings” (p. 169).
In the 1970’s one the constant accusations against marriage and the family was the contention the nuclear family was a sexist and oppressive institution. Children were said to be helpless prisoners over whom parents enjoyed nearly absolute power. The promise was (2 Peter 2:19), that out of the ruins of the family would emerge all sorts of wonderful things. But what really did emerge was a leap in divorce rates, abandonment, out-of-wedlock births, abortions, cohabitation, and sexual promiscuity. Bennett notes, “Well documented by the 1980’s was a growing unhappiness in marriage, more child neglect and abuse, and less trust and more friction between men and women. Like binge drinkers, Americans, in the words of Daniel Yankelovich, had ‘learned a great deal from their bruising encounter with new self-expressive values’” (pp. 23-24). Those who campaigned for no-fault divorce laws argued that it would liberate women from oppressive and abusive relationships. Yet this reasoning was based on the false assumption that marriage itself is a breeding ground for domestic violence. The truth of the matter is, and what society has seen is that husbands are much less likely to engage in domestic violence than are boyfriends and ex-spouses. God was right, “Let marriage be held in honor by all” (Hebrews 13:4). In addition, what many have failed to realize is that if you teach people that the institution of marriage can be easily set aside to pursue your own desires, than the spouse and children in that relationship must not be that important. When wives and children are no longer viewed as individuals to whom you have a lifetime commitment, we should not be shocked that abuse happens more frequently in such a climate.
The divorce revolution promised that the vast majority of divorces would be liberating, pain-free, and, for women, both emotionally and financially beneficial. We were promised that children would do just as well when raised by one parent as by two. We were also told that easy divorce would increase overall marital happiness, and that society itself would thereby gain. Bennett observes, “Thirty years later, after the carnage, our excuses have run out” (p. 169).
Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net/mdunagan@easystreet.com
