Recently I have been hearing more and more about how the traditional family “doesn’t work”; that it is time to realize that going forward, children are going to, and need to be raised by individuals outside the parents more and more. This would include government employees, social and psychological professionals, and primary care physicians. There is a blatant call to accept “new” family structures as normal: I.E. 2 moms and a donor, 2 dads and a surrogate, polyamorous parents of varying numbers and configurations, and parents of varying gender types and sexual orientations.
The March issue of The Atlantic contains an article calling the traditional family – “a mistake”. There are now legal attempts in State Legislatures to define a family outside of the traditional model. These legal attempts are in fact, another way for the Secularists to attempt to erode our basic religious rights and values.
We must admit, the construct of traditional families in the modern West is in the pangs of an identity crisis as a whole, because these broadening conversations are increasing; bringing with them confusion as well as for many; a desire to be different. Roland Warren, President of the National Fatherhood Initiative has, for many years, studied the effects of and declared that since the rise of Government social programs from 1965 forward (most programs directed at children and families), they have removed the Father from the home – yes in minorities the most, but also in Caucasian families as well. With the loss of fathers from the homes, and an acceptance of new family designs, it is no wonder that almost 50 years later we are facing these “new” family designs
Believers, Pastors, and churches need to be not only aware, but prepared to deal with these conversations, AND how these “families” might start to darken the doors of church communities. The church is still not able to deal very well with the gender dysphoria and sexual identity issues, and now we will be seeing another foreign concept of family engaging the Believing Community. I am not going to attempt to say that there is a direct formula for how to engage these folks, but there is a Biblical pattern of love, acceptance, forgiveness, Salvation in Messiah Jesus, deliverance, and Holy Spirit guiding us all into Truth through the Word of God. The Ephesians 2 described Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation is important in these days and times for Pastors and Leaders to walk in – in order to bring Kingdom Relational understanding to those who have never come into a church Community.
I am reminded of the Acts 15 conversation and conundrum. The Council of Jerusalem is dealing with two sides of the same coin. From the inception of the day of Pentecost, the Body of Messiah had been growing in the Jewish Community. In most cases, there are coherently accepted and practiced shared values, which had kept this community common for generations. At this point the Apostles are now dealing with Roman pagans coming to faith in Christ. The Roman believers were excited for their new-found faith; even so much as to boast about what they possessed being better than what the Jews had because of a newly emerging teaching which said; since the Jews killed Jesus on the cross, the benefit of the blessings of Abraham were now on the Gentile believers (Replacement Theology). Paul (Rav Shaul deals with this in Romans 11 to let them know that they do not support the root, but the root supports them.
Back to Acts 15. Roman believers, though excited and passionate about their new faith, have not left the practices of their generations-old culture. This created a problem for the believing Jews to where they would refrain from having community and friendship with the Roman believers, because of the foreign practices they had not left. We know the story: James stands up in the Council after much debate and declares that there are four basic issues that Gentile believers MUST refrain from in order to be in right standing with God and have community with the Jewish believers. 1) The drinking of blood, 2) Fornication 3) Eating meats offered to pagan idols, and 4) Eating strangled meats.
For sake of time and space I will not get into the reasons behind these, suffice it to say all 4 are dealt with in the Torah, and for various purposes. The point here is this is what was established. Drinking of blood and fornication in the Roman culture was extremely common, as well as their polytheistic society. We have a society today where fornication is exalted in many forms, and genders. The crux of Acts 15 is this; verse 21 – “for they (Gentiles) will be hearing the teachings of Moses every Sabbath in the Temple…” So, the assumption by the Apostles – with James’ leadership, IS that the Gentiles will be hearing Moses’ teachings. – The Torah – The Instruction of how the Father wants us to live by, every weekend on the Sabbath.
What did this create – so, NOW there became a solid environment for Gentiles to receive the same instruction as Jews, from the same Word of God (remember folks – the New Testament was not even written yet) – and now they both could begin to foster a Ephesians 2 – One New Man in Messiah relationship.
Fast-Forward to today… The culture in the West celebrates individuality, not community. In many ways it is a good thing, however it also has some detrimental things, LIKE the lack of family ties and relationships. Socialism is a forced community upon the people, whether they like it with a base of envy and class warfare. It is imposed by dictated beliefs, values, business practice, taxes, public accommodation laws, and social programs. Many today espouse, including pastors, the belief that Jesus himself proclaimed socialism (show me one Scripture where Jesus demanded Caesar to provide anything for the people). Jesus taught FAITH in God, not government. Jesus taught about a kingdom not of this world and how to bring its influence into this world through relationship, love, giving, and sacrifice. Jesus taught His disciples HE was the Messiah, not an earthly government. When Christians begin to take on socialism as a belief system, they begin to distance themselves from faith in God and the ability for God to prosper His children in the middle of a worldly system that is anti-God. Even the disciples had thriving businesses in that time – while in captivity to Rome. Peter’s house had many rooms – I’ve seen it – only the wealthy had houses like that. It is the Believer’s duty to help the poor, orphans, and widows. When that is relegated to government, we have relinquished our freedom upon the altar of envy.
Now, suddenly, we are hearing the call for the destruction of the nuclear family. It is in the voices of those who have never experienced the blessing of having the voices of mom and dad. Because of this, instead of desiring to see these voids filled by spiritual moms and dads, they are now calling for the destruction of the nuclear family and the design of self-imposed family structure. ALL – and I mean ALL the data in dozens of studies, show that the nuclear family produces the best educated, less impoverished, successful, and high percentage of God-fearing individuals, whereas, anything other than that produces much lower levels of these same values.
Believers – it is time to “adopt” someone you know who; may come from a broken home, may have gone through many dysfunctions in life, may have never had a chance to be successful, may be a single mom raising many kids etc. If we do not do this on a grass-roots level – we WILL lose this generations to a foreign culture of value definition which is contrary to God’s Word. It takes all of us to do this! It’s time for the mature in the faith to begin to sow into the younger generation, and for the church to begin to facilitate this!
Shalom in Messiah
