 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > A Blog I put up today | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 5/28/2008 7:07 PM (GMT -6) |   | If you read this blog on a consistent basis, you’ll probably read about some of my reservations about issues I find within the community that I have associated with most of my life--the Christian community and specifically with the more conservative elements within it. This is not to say that the more liberal elements within are not in need of what I might term “correction” or “balance”--its simply that the conservative elements seem to bring much criticism and angst upon themselves (and rightly so) because of some of the extreme positions they take which they then term “the biblical position” (which, by the way, there is so much emotional baggage wrapped up in this type of claim, because if you don’t agree with it, you are not agreeing with God and no one in that community wants to do that) and then foster it upon an unthinking Christian community. One of those issues deals with the focus of attention on the family especially given the rise of the Religious Right. So, though I think there is a need for a corrective balance on the side of the Religious Right, I don’t think the liberals are without a needed word as well.
Putting things in Focus
Over the years, the conservative Christian community has focused on the family (and it’s restoration to what it perceives as wholeness) to such an extent that one could rightly say that this has become something of a mission taking on salvific proportions. It has a somewhat soteriological dimension to it. The family, like individuals are in need of salvation. The usual clarion call is the restoration of the “foundations or bedrock of society.” That is, according to this view, the state of the culture at large is inescapably bound up with the state of the family. So one way of assessing family values as Cameron Lee stated in his book, “Beyond Family Values: A Call To Christian Virtue” is to begin with what families are or should be.
Lee gives a couple of surveys--one survey, of the general culture at large and the same survey given to the Christian community. In the general survey a 1000 Americans were given a list of fourteen different types of households. They were asked to give a “yes” or “no” response if they considered each to be a household. Not surprisingly, the highest rating went to a married couple living with children: 98% said that should be considered a family. However, only 20% considered that two gay men committed to each other who are living together should be considered a family. This received the lowest rating of the fourteen types.
The same survey to Christian community (five years later) had many of the same results and had common patterns that aligned with those of the previous survey. For an example, “Married couple living together with their children” was ranked the highest while “Two gay men committed to each other without children” was the given the lowest ranking. However, “Married couple living with children from a previous marriage” was given a higher status than “Married couple with no children” which was given a higher status than “A divorced father living with his children.” However, “A divorced mother living with her children” was slightly higher than the latter category. A category that rated lower than the previous three categories was, “A man and women who live together a long time but are not married.” Thus, where family structure is concerned, Christians shared the same hierarchy of values as the general population.
Now, whatever one makes of this survey, one thing seems sure, that what is considered a “family” even by those within the Christian community is rather flexible. Yes, mom and dad married with children is definitely a family, but so is a man and women with children who have lived together a long time. Given the “focus on the family” by say, James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” organization, one wonders how they would “strengthen” a common-law couple with children living together along time.
Harping on the Conservatives
Regardless of what answer is given to this question, the point may be that "focusing on the family" is to maintain and strengthen that first category (which is not a bad thing by all means). However, what it also seems to do is “absolutize” the family into this one category. This, it seems to me is the weakness of the conservative position and what liberals get uptight about. And it is also on this point that I agree with them. Seriously, should we not at sometime or another consider the couple who are living together a long time with children a family in some important and significant sense? Should we not ENCOURAGE that they stay together and ultimately marry? I know of Christians who would suggest that because this couple is not LEGALLY married that they ought to stop living “like that” (at least for some time) and then commit themselves to marriage, get married right away or not marry at all! Craig Keener speaks about how Christians on the mission field have to deal with polygamous situations in which one tribal leader will have many wives and a billion kids who are dependent on the tribal leader for their welfare. How do you strengthen the family in that situation? Would you recommend that a polygamous marriage is immoral and encourage them to break up? What if breaking up the family does more damage than good? Who will take care of the kids? What about the wives? What WOULD Jesus do in a situation like that?
Jesus seems to have de-absolutized the family when he says in Matthew 10:34-36:
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - 36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
Also, given that scripture’s redemptive movement seems to move from family to clan to tribe to nation to church, the family seems to take on a secondary importance--what Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen calls a box within a box. That is, the gospel is the bigger box while the family is RELATIVE TO THAT.
Harping on the Liberals
Having harped on the conservatives, I think a word is in order for the liberals as well. While I agree with the liberals that the family ought not be absolutized, I think they go too far in the other direction. That is, in their reaction to the conservative position, they seem to have ignored the significance and importance of “the family” and think of it not only as a collective of individuals, but have ignored the significance and importance of the family as THE institution and context by which we form not only healthy individuals but healthy societies. That is, though the family should not be absolutized, human maturation and human flourishing begins in the all-embracing social context of the family--WHATEVER THAT FAMILY MAY LOOK LIKE--starting with the birth event in which the child moves from the womb to the larger open “nest” of the home and then, in our kind of society, gradually widens out to the differentiated world of institutions and relationships.
To say this, is obviously not to ignore the fact that many children (as shown by the survey) have grown up in broken families or without adequate parenting. Nor does this ignore the fact (as shown by the survey) that families are THEMSELVES differentiated institutions in a diversified society that shapes them and their child-rearing practices. What it is meant to say, is that a newborn enters the world and begins to mature from within an all-embracing, undifferentiated and intimate social setting--mother, child and immediate family. Everything…from bodily function to every experience inside and eventually outside the home is experienced through the mediation of the family. Now, there will be some questions raised about human flourishing in this context, say for example, the extent of parental authority--should parents have omnicompetent authority over their children? That is, should a father be judge, jury and executioner over all of his family members? While this blog is not intended to get into these sorts of questions in any real depth, my immediate and only response is that parents should not have omnicompetent authority over their children but should see normative child-rearing as the parental obligation to raise children TOWARD MATURITY FOR LIFE IN AN OPEN, DIFFERIENTIATED SOCITEY. That is, to truly be human in maturity, is to experience life as an integral whole through the complex differentiated society which begins with a healthy connectedness through the early childhood experience of a wholesome all-connecting family bond…or close family substitute. This, some liberals AND conservatives might like to remind themselves of.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
| | Back to Top | | |
 | Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 10:55 AM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|