Feb 28, 2017 | Parents and Family
Since the Enlightenment and the drive by Western cultural elites to make secularism the default plausibility structure of reality, the family has been under attack. It may not have appeared this way to the average mom and dad in the street until the 1960s, but many Western intellectuals have been trying to throw off the shackles (for such is how they see it) of the family for several hundred years. The successful effort to legally redefine marriage is only the latest in this long march. The family is a reflection of the very nature of God, and thus of immense importance; it’s not up for redefinition.
In Genesis 2 when God makes a “suitable helper” for Adam, he established the foundation for the family, but the Triune nature of God is the true basis on which the family exists. The essence of the Triune God is life-giving love, unlike the monism God of other religions. I was reminded anew of the beauty and logic of the Trinity recently as I thought about some who can’t or don’t accept it.
In December of 2015 a professor at Wheaton College, the well known Evangelical college in Illinois, made the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. The two religions venerate the Old Testament, but the Gods they worship couldn’t be more different. I also recently learned about a Christian sect called Apostolic Pentecostalism which rejects the Trinity. For them God is one, end of story. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are only different revelations of the one God, not three persons in one as understood since the first church Council of Nicea in 325. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses also have the trappings of Christianity, but deny its core. While adherents of these religions think the Trinity is illogical, it actually makes total sense logically. (more…)
Nov 6, 2015 | Parents and Family
Unless you are wedded, no pun intended, to a left-wing ideological agenda you know intuitively that the traditional family of a married mother and father with children works best for the children. This is simply indisputable, and we can add more recently released studies to further confirm this. One of the study’s authors said, “children appear most apt to succeed well as adults when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day.” William Galston at the Wall Street Journal argues that the breakdown of the family is especially problematic for the black family. (more…)
Nov 3, 2015 | Parents and Family, Theology
There is much talk in American culture about young Christians going off to college or into life and abandoning their faith. I’m sure there are many reasons why this is so, but I think one consistent reason is that teenagers see their parents and people in church live out a faith they simply cannot relate to. I came across an example in a piece about a young rap singer who grew up in a church where his father was a pastor, and while it doesn’t appear that he has completely abandoned the faith, he’s definitely abandoned the “religion” he was raised in. What exactly was it that alienated him? (more…)
Sep 7, 2015 | Culture, Parents and Family
The gay “marriage” ruling, the gift that keeps on giving. As one headline read: “‘Sister Wives’ family points to same-sex marriage cases in arguing against Utah polygamy ban.” Of course they would, and they would be perfectly logical to do so. In fact, the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling pretty much redefined marriage out of existence. Remember, when Justice Kennedy in the 1992 case that legalized sodomy said, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” This sounds like more at the heart of what Christians call the fall that we read about in Genesis 3. Satan’s temptation to Adam and Eve was that what God provided wasn’t good enough. If only they would listen to him they would “be like God, knowing good and evil,” the perfect equal to Justice Kennedy’s hubris. (more…)
Jun 23, 2015 | Parents and Family
We are relearning that marriage is not optional. The evidence started piling up in 1965 with Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report on the breakdown of the African-American family. In 2012, Charles Murray took us on a walk through Fishtown where we met a white (often non-)working class. In 2014, Kevin Williamson reminded us in National Review that cities do not have a monopoly on human misery with his vivid account of the social collapse in Appalachia. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox continues to produce clarifying scholarly work on marriage, family structure, and civil society. Free-range thinker George Gilder named the stakes: “If the family collapses, it will take a welfare state to take care of the women and children, and a police state to handle the boys.”
—Stephen Schmalhofer: “Fathers Day with the Sisters”
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