Articles
Family Under Siege
It is easy to get lulled into a false sense of security by accepting that life is always in a slow state of decay. Things are always in flux, but that’s just life and we learn to roll with it. We also see “end of the world” headlines daily, so we get jaded about real threats, especially the subtle ones that sneak up on you – until one day you wake up and think, “Wait, how did things get this bad this quickly?!”
Surely we’re not so out of touch that we are unaware of the gradual, inexorable war that has been waged against the family in America over the past several decades. But lest we haven’t paid close attention, consider a few items:
1) No fault divorce has eaten away at the bedrock of the family – a lifetime, committed, exclusive relationship between husband and wife.
2) The rise of children’s rights, conferring upon them adult status and privilege that undermines parental authority.
3) Cultural undermining of stern but loving discipline, stigmatizing parents who spank or otherwise firmly enforce family rules or reasonably punish disobedience.
4) Vilification of parents who inculcate Bible-oriented teaching and values in their children.
5) Encouraging women to find their true meaning in a career and simultaneously denigrating those who gladly choose to concentrate on domestic roles. Such women have been demeaned and devalued by militant feminism.
6) Removing all references to God, the Bible, spirituality, religion and objective morality from public schools and replacing it with the constant drumbeat of evolution, naturalism, selective science, lax discipline, debased gender grooming and woke political propaganda.
7) The glorification of adultery, fornication, pornography and other aspects of sexual liberation in the media and in easily accessed online sites.
The question to ponder is: Are these influences mere unintended consequences of social degradation, or are they targeted efforts to erode the family – the bastion of values and social order? In a well-researched book entitled The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, author Carl Trueman documents the sources of assault on Western values for more than a century. Trueman observes: “The connection between the family and political oppression is of lasting significance for left-wing politics: the dismantling and abolition of the nuclear family are essential if political liberation is to be achieved” (235).
Further distilling Wilhelm Reich’s philosophy in advocating the destruction of the family, Trueman notes: “[Advocating sexual liberty for teens] legitimates increasing government encroachment on the private sphere, both of the family and of the mind. The sexual education of the child is simply of too much social and political consequence to be left to the parents. After all, it is the parents as those in authority who actually constitute the problem. The family as traditionally understood needs to be dismantled” (239-240; all bold emphases in these quotes by jj).
Trueman also quotes a militant feminist author and summarizes her viewpoint thusly: “[Shulamith] Firestone targets the same enemy as Godwin, Shelley, Reich, Marcuse, and de Beauvoir: the sexual revolution ultimately has one great goal, the destruction of the family” (262-263).
Trueman’s book, which I recommend with some reservation over his candid description of sexual liberty, has a number of “Aha!” passages which shed light on what we are seeing in our culture – and have been seeing for decades. These are not merely the aims of academia; they have trickled down to Main Street, to those who have never heard of Reich or Marcuse or Freud. But such insights are pointless if we remain detached from the reality they are illuminating: if we continue to indiscriminately eat from the cultural smorgasbord, we shouldn’t be surprised when Christian marriages fail, when young believers leave the faith, when teens (and/or their dads) get caught up in online pornography, when young girls become fixated on their appearance or announce that they are “in the wrong body.”
Granted, it is easier to identify problems and dangers than to formulate plans to guard against them. What can parents do to stave off these lethal encroachments into our family’s inner sanctum? A few suggestions …
1) Don’t buy your child a smart phone. In various research on the current transgender craze, it is clear that the messaging is getting to teen girls (who are the vast majority of those claiming gender confusion) via online support groups, peer conversation, and other non-parental authority figures. What was first intuitively sensed, but lacked data to prove, is that unsupervised, excessive access to the internet and social media is driving many forms of psychological trauma and dysfunction.
2) Teach your children about God and Scripture early. We’ve all read the articles about schools providing perverted sex education, often secretly, to K-5 level children. These child abusers are not waiting until middle or high school to indoctrinate kids; they begin early and are sneaky about it. Be proactive in teaching your children the truth (“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up …” – Dt 6:6-9). Which leads to the next point …
3) Be aware of/involved in what influences are brought to bear upon your children when they are out of your sight – in school, at their friends’ homes, on athletic teams, etc. Sadly, misguided true believers think we Christians are harming our children by inculcating Bible-based values, and they will work surreptitiously to indoctrinate or possibly outright abuse them. Be vigilant; protect the purity of your child’s mind.
4) Set the example of what a loving, God-centered husband/wife, mother/ father and family are. Let them see it in action. Children can spot hypocrisy a mile away. Be genuine; be real; live it before them. Show them how wrong the world is about the “failed family” and that there are no other workable alternatives to the God-appointed nuclear family. Polygamy, homosexual “marriage,” extended “step” relationships (multiple mothers/ fathers/siblings, etc.) – the general redefinition of family – are not God’s will and are ultimately destructive spiritually and psychologically.
