Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the
man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living
thing that moves upon the earth.’ Now the man knew his wife Eve,
and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced a man
with the help of the Lord.’ (Genesis 2:18, 1:28, 4:1)

Whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially
for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an
unbeliever. If any believing woman has relatives who are really
widows, let her assist them; let the church not be burdened, so
that it can assist those who are real widows. (1 Timothy 5:8,16)

A wise child makes a glad father, but the foolish
despise their mothers. Listen to your father who begot you, and
do not despise your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 15:20, 23:22)
Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing
honor. (Romans 12:10)

…..

* A few years ago in Melbourne two homeless young
people sleeping in a large industrial waste disposal bin woke
to find themselves being tipped into a compactor unit behind a
truck. The driver heard their screams and managed to pull one
of them to safety. The other died under the waste… Why were
they homeless?

All the studies show the majority are still in favour
of marriage, but younger people want more independence and freedom
within it. Most women are not content any longer to see their
primary roles in terms of ‘raising the kids and helping hubby
with his job’. An Australian Institute of Family Studies survey
(1991) found that 80% of women and 70% of men wanted to maintain
a sense of ‘independence’ in intimate relationships. Indeed 38%
of women said that if they could not continue to grow as an individual
in the relationship, they should not stay in it. A lower 32% of
men said they would opt out of a stifling relationship.

Men are having to adjust to the increasing number
of options open to women, particularly in terms of opportunities
for a wider variety of jobs, and further education. Women are
saying, more fervently as each decade passes, ‘I too have needs
and rights’. And men too have more options. For example, they
can be a ‘househusband’ rather than the sole breadwinner. Certainly
personal development by adults is a good thing, but the net result
is that in Western families children are less important than they
used to be.

Relating to a mate and running a home are two of
the most complicated tasks humans undertake – with very little,
if any, training. And it’s getting harder. In the last few centuries,
the major function of the family has shifted from that of economic
survival to emotional sustenance. In the last few decades marked
shifts in values have certainly contributed to the liberation
of individuals, but have eroded the resilience of the family to
handle crises. Whereas couples used to expect marriage to provide
economic support, security, and social status, now they are seeking
rather the satisfaction of their personal and emotional needs.

The foundation of our society is in the family. If
the foundation is weak here society crumbles. As goes the family,
so goes the nation. A nation of secure families will see this
solidarity reflected in crime statistics. A happy family will
provide the basis for an individual to be secure. The most important
thing we can do for the next generation is not only to reduce
the debt they’ll inherit, or leave them a cleaner earth, but to
help them, through healthy and happy family-life, to become better-put-together
people than their parents were.

Historically, families are the primary ‘socializing’
contexts. In families children learn their identity, what the
culture’s important values are, and how to accept responsibility
in such matters as work and sex. In families we learn to relate
meaningfully to others, and to respect others’ privacy and property.
The family is the only department of health, education and welfare
that works: moral values learned in the family setting cannot
be adequately duplicated in any other way.

A roof over one’s head doesn’t necessarily provide
a family. Rather ‘home and family’ is living in the mind of someone
else who cares for you. Family, ideally, is an experience of selflessness,
where love is absolute and limitless. Family is where those who
can give love give it, and those who need love receive it.

Three general principles about the family can be
found in the Bible. [1] Marriage and family are human institutions,
but ordained by God. [2] Sex is ‘good’ because it is also ordained
by God, designed for both procreation and pleasure within a legally
constituted marriage. [3] Women and men have equal dignity, and
different divinely-ordained roles in marriage and family life.
Over the centuries at least four major cultural emphases have
influenced how we think about these three principles. First, the
Bible gives us, side-by-side, two models of how men and women
relate: a patriarchal model, dominant in most of the world for
most of history, and an egalitarian model, exemplified by Christ’s
teaching and relationships and inherent in the apostolic understanding
of the Good News breaking down old hierarchies (Galatians 3:28).
Second, Augustine and later Catholic tradition tended to regard
sex as primarily for procreation, and sometimes as a ‘necessary
evil’. Third, notions of romantic love entered the scene from
the sixteenth century. Fourth, modern individualism sees sex and
family as means of self-expression.

Over recent centuries many functions of the traditional
family passed out of the home into the hands of institutions and
professional providers from teaching skills and developing work
habits, and instilling approved social values, from care of the
sick to support of the poor, from preparation of food to instruction
in leisure activities. The authority of the father is now shared
by teachers, doctors, social welfare workers and other ‘experts’;
mothers tend to find leisure and vocational interests outside
the home (but surveys show the majority of men and women would
prefer mothers to stay at home while the children are small).
In an essay ‘Foes of the Family’ (in The Well and the Shallows,
Sheed & Ward, 1935, p.147), G.K.Chesterton believed capitalism
was destroying the family because * The pursuit of money caused
people to be away from their homes too long; * Authority was transferred
from parent to employer; * Life was dominated by commercial, instead
of family goals…

You are more likely to be hit, physically injured
or killed in your own home, by a member of your own family, than
anywhere else or by anyone else. Family feuds account for 36%
of all murders in Australia… A Catholic priest in a downtown
area in the English city of Liverpool no longer dares to preach
on the ‘ideal family’, because of the number of suicides and cases
of depression likely to follow such an attempt.

Ogden Nash put it well:

One would be in less danger from the wiles of the
stranger if one’s own kin and kith were more fun to be with.

…..

If the family fails then all the other institutions
of society will fail. The family is that basic unit of society
which undergirds all else. Every influence which weakens the family
and makes it more difficult for it to do its job will ultimately
weaken society. All that is done to build strong, healthy, happy
and effective families will increase the possibility of a strong
and healthy society. Any effort to deal with the problems we face
without dealing with their roots within the family is shortsighted.

Kenneth Chaffin, Is There A Family In The House?,
Minneapolis, Minnesota: World Wide Publications, 1978, p.15. [87]

Hollywood no longer reflects – or even respects –
the values of most American families. On many of the important
issues in contemporary life, popular entertainment seems to go
out of its way to challenge conventional notions of decency. For
example:

* Our fellow citizens cherish the institution of
marriage and consider religion an important priority in life;
but the entertainment industry promotes every form of sexual adventurism
and regularly ridicules religious believers as crooks or crazies.

* In our private lives, most of us deplore violence
and feel little sympathy for the criminals who perpetrate it;
but movies, TV and popular music all revel in graphic brutality,
gloryifying vicious and sadistic characters who treat killing
as a joke…

* Nearly all parents want to convey to their children
the importance of self-discipline, hard work, and decent manners;
but the entertainment media celebrate vulgar behaviour, contempt
for all authority, and obscene language – which is inserted even
in ‘family fare’ where it is least expected.

Michael Medved, Hollywood Vs. America, New York:
HarperCollins/ Zondervan, 1992, p.10. [160]

The baby boomer generation has forever exploded our
oldest ideas about marriage and the family. Within the space of
a few years, family life has been revolutionised, and hardly anybody
has been left untouched by the changes.

In contrast to the more traditional living arrangements
and family compositions that existed following World War II, this
is the first generation to: * think of the traditional family
in terms of two wage-earner parents with one or two children who
are cared for outside the home during the day; * widely accept
(without criticizing) the right of couples to live together and
to have children without the restrictions or the securities of
getting married, to marry but remain child- free, to abort unwanted
pregnancies, and to delay childbearing until the midthirties or
later; * accept the reality of homosexual partnerships, roommates
of the opposite sex sharing living quarters, widespread divorce
and remarriage, and the adoption of children by single and/or
homosexual parents; * have ‘boomerang kids’ – young adults who
leave home, launch out on their own, and then return to live with
their parents because it is cheaper and more convenient (about
one in nine adults between twenty-five and thirty-four now lives
in a parent’s home); and * have almost half the families in America
headed by single parents, raising children without the help of
a spouse.

Statistics change so rapidly that they are quickly
out of date, but a few of these can illustrate the changes that
have come by way of baby boomer families. Roughly one-fourth of
the baby boom married couples will remain childless, either by
choice or because of infertility. Another fourth will have only
one child. Half of all baby boomers children will spend part of
their childhood living with a single parent (in nine cases out
of ten that parent will be female) after watching their parents
get a divorce. About 70 percent of baby boom women work outside
the home and of those who have children, roughly half are back
at work before the child’s first birthday.

There can be no accurate statistics to document the
incidence of domestic violence, verbal and sexual abuse, alcohol-related
home problems, or other ongoing tensions that disrupt lives behind
the closed doors that hide millions of dysfunctional families.

Dr Gary R. Collins & Dr Timothy E. Clinton, Baby
Boomer Blues, Dallas: Word Publishing, 1992, pp.55-57. [326]

We know now what some of the goals are in the proper
development and implementation of a national public policy for
families and children – * families should be given every chance
to lead a decent life according to their chosen values; no family
in Australia should be permitted to fall below the Poverty Line;
* every child deserves both economic and emotional security. If
this can be gained through one caring parent rather than through
two conflicting ones, support should be available to suit the
circumstances; * parents should be taught how to educate their
future citizens; it cannot be left to chance, and we cannot presume
parental competence; * any interference on the part of public
authorities in family matters should be demonstrably necessary;
the onus must be on the authorities, not on the families, to show
their actions are not harmful and they are clearly beneficial;
* Families must have the power to make decisions over their own
lives, and in the context of their local communities, and this
power should not be taken away and given to experts; * the family
should not be seen as an isolated unit, but as always being inextricably
linked to broader communities.

Alan Nichols, Families – Top Priority for Government,
Canberra: Acorn Press, 1986, pp.65-66. [195]

According to one recent analysis, many of our perceptions
about family life have come from some widely accepted but largely
inaccurate myths about marriage and the family. These myths influence
our behaviour, affect our marriages, and often are carried into
counseling without anyone ever acknowledging their existence.

Myth #1. Families and marriages in the past were
more stable, better adjusted, and happier than they are today.
Most of us have a tendency to idealize the past… We fail to
realize that desertion by spouses, child beating, sexual unfaithfulness,
marital failure, and harassment in the home were common in the
past (even though they were more often hidden) just as they are
common now…

Myth #2. There are firm boundaries between the family
and the rest of life. This has been called ‘the myth of separate
worlds.’ It assumes that the family is a freestanding, independent,
self sufficient entity that is not much affected by social pressures,
the economy, politics, relatives, the places where family members
work, the values portrayed by the media, or the policies of government…

Myth #3. There is a typical… Christian family.
This ‘myth of the monolithic family form’ assumes that we know
what the family is supposed to look like. Often this typical family
picture is drawn from our images of families in the past, or from
books, observations of our own parents, sermons, popular lectures,
or even the speeches of politicians. Many tend to assume, for
example, that the typical family is middle class, monogamous,
with a father who works to provide for the family and a mother
who stays at home, children who go to neighbourhood schools, grandparents
who are nearby and supportive, with each family living in a single
family house.

Myth #4. All families have similar experiences. This
is the assumption that all family members have common needs, common
interests, and common backgrounds. Many of the problems that couples
bring to counseling are because the husband, wife, or other family
members have very different expectations for their families and
bring different experiences to their family problems…

Myth #5. Most baby boomers have little commitment
to marriage, marital harmony, sexual fidelity, and effective parenting…
This myth is far from the truth. The divorce boom of the late
sixties and early seventies appears to be on the decline. With
increased interest in their families, baby boomers are giving
greater attention to marriage, relationship building, parenting
skills, and what has come to be known as ‘cocooning’.

Maxine Baca Zinn and C. Stanley Eitsen, Diversity
in Families, New York: HarperCollins, 1990, excerpts pp.9-20.
[110]

Evidence of the fact that families pass on success
and failure is found in the history of divorce in families. I
collected the family histories of 2,000 students at the University,
getting the marital histories of the grandparents, parents, and
aunts and uncles. The study revealed that if neither set of grandparents
had divorced, only 15 percent of their children had divorced;
if one set of grandparents had divorced, 24 percent of their children
had divorced; but if both sets of grandparents had divorced, 38
percent of their children had divorced. Other studies have shown
a very close relationship between the failure of parents in marriage
and failure of their children in marriage.

Judson Landis, The Family and Social Change: A Positive
View, a lecture in the University of California’s symposium on
‘The Family’s Search for Survival’: San Francisco, 1964.p.5 [109]

Economic factors affecting families include * increases
in the rate and duration of unemployment; # increasing proportion
of the population reliant on below the poverty line unemployment
benefits; # aboriginal people bear a disproportionate burden of
unemployment; # sole parent families have become increasingly
reliant on inadequate social security payments because of a lack
of access to employment; * increases in the proportion of the
population reliant on social security incomes; * declines in real
disposable incomes of families with children; * high housing costs;
* increased participation by women in the workforce.

Heart and Hearth: families and shelter consultancy
report No. 5, International Project on Family and Community, 12
Batman St Melbourne 3003, May 1987, pp. 12-13 [85]

The question of whether the family is a safe place
for women and children has to be asked and answered, particularly
by the church which has placed so much emphasis on the sacrament
of marriage and on family life… Confronted with cases of women
and children exposed to danger in their homes, fear of violating
the sacrament of marriage and the ideal of Christian family life
has often paralysed the churches into inactivity. Both church
and community have turned a blind eye to the reality of such situations
on the pretext that no one has the right to interfere in a couple’s
private life.

Aruna Gnanadason, No Longer A Secret, Geneva: WCC
Publications, 1993, p.44. [104]

For me, no family that destroys women and maims children
can be tolerated; it cannot be supported when it grants men the
right to destroy and maim. If crime happens in the family – and
the evidence proves it does – then the family promoting it must
be ended. No one desiring peace, order and good government, love,
tenderness and care can tolerate any abuse meted out on women,
children – or, for that matter, men. Governments promoting the
‘family life’ revealed in analyses of the family in law and society
today are deliberately promoting crime. And they are promoting
crime against the very unit they allegedly hold so dear: the Australian
family.

Jocelynne Scutt, Even in the Best of Homes, Melbourne:
Penguin Books, 1983, p.7. [110]

One night during the Middle Ages, two warriors in
armor were riding along, each thinking there was no one else for
miles around. They happened upon each other at a particularly
dark spot. Both were startled and each misinterpreted the movements
of the other as gestures of hostility. So they began to fight,
each believing he was under attack and must defend himself. The
conflict grew more intense until one knight finally succeeded
in unhorsing the other. Then, with one mighty effort, he drove
his lance through the fallen man’s heart. The victor dismounted
and limped over to the adversary he had just killed. He pulled
back the face mask, and there to his horror, in the pale moonlight,
he recognized his own brother! He had mistaken a kinsman for an
enemy and had destroyed him!

John R. Claypool, Opening Blind Eyes, Oak Park, IL:
Meyer Stone Books, 1987, p.103. [136]

If you are among the body of concerned citizens,
I urge you to not just sit there. Get out and work for what you
believe. Democracy only succeeds when people get involved. Campaign
for a position on the local school board. Write your representatives
in Washington. Better yet, help elect congressmen and senators
who hold to the Judeo-Christian system of values.

Picket an abortion clinic. Serve on the hospital
lay committee. Take a teacher to dinner. Examine the policies
of your local library. Support your neighbourhood crisis pregnancy
center. Accept a pregnant teenager into your home. Write the producers
and sponsors of sex and violence on television. Petition the city
council to rid your town of adult bookstores and dirty theatres.
Pray for your country every day. Support the work of your church
in reaching to a lost and dying world for Christ. And by all means,
do these things in a spirit of love that would be honoring to
the One who sent us…

* Work to help the homeless in your community – especially
where children are involved. * Form a community action group to
fight pornography – or participate in an existing group. * Raise
money at bake sales to donate pro-family books to your local library.
* Take advantage of the opportunities that may be available in
your local public school district to review text books that are
being considered for adoption. Let the school board know of any
anti-religious or immoral biases in the books… * Volunteer your
time with an AIDS support group, thus providing a Christian response
to this dreaded disease. * Teach a Sunday school class on social-action
issues affecting Christians.

Dr James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk:
Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Your Children,
Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990, pp.41, 79-80. [275]

Movies and television programs tend to portray families
as either delightfully benign ‘Ozzie and Harrietisms’ or centers
for continual family conflict. Most families in movies, plays,
novels, or soap operas are either a mess, and the source of endless
conflict and tragedy, or a mirage of perfectly peaceful and delightfully
benign daily living. Somewhere in between is where the most of
our families really live. Few of the heros and heroines of our
media are family people. The ‘real’ movie hero has long ago left
his parents. He saves the town or the ranch, is tempted to settle
down, but is naturally driven by the need for freedom and rides
off on a horse, for whom he shows more concern than for the people
around him. A potential love looks wistfully at his back as the
almost always male hero rides into the sunset. The message is
clear. Women can stay on the ranch with the family, where the
skies are not cloudy all day, while the almost always male hero
goes out to start and fight new wars. The family means female
submission to what must be done to keep the family going, and
freedom from family means adventure and hero status for the male,
who may drop in on one of his several families once in a while.
The television family situation comedy is often about a father’s
futile and comic attempt to keep some semblance of order and control
over ‘his’ household while he tries to carry on in his ‘real’
work, his career. The wife is seen as guardian of the family.
a stable and mature officer in charge of supplies, cleaning, and
caring. If she has a career, she is expected to add this work
to her family obligations.

Paul E. Pearsall, The Power of the Family, NY: Doubleday,
1990. p.9. [294]

…..

Lord, today/tonight our minds roam around the world
– your world – as we pray for people in families and communities
everywhere. Bring peace to those who live with domestic discord
and among warring peoples. Be the special friend of women and
children in violent homes; and comfort women and girls raped in
war zones. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked:
and do some of these ministries through our family. We pray for
women everywhere, who carry the greater burden of fostering and
maintaining family life. We pray for mothers in poor villages
and communities, many of whose skills will never be fully developed,
and some of whom will die in childbirth because of inadequate
medical help. And we pray for men and fathers: may they see their
roles as much in the home and family as in the public sphere.
Comfort those who are finding it very difficult to provide food
for their families and pay the bills…

Lord we pray for families and communities that are
coming apart, because people have not been able to get along.
For homes fractured by separation and divorce; for single parents
battling against huge financial and emotional odds to keep their
families together; for parents of angry young people in trouble
with the law; for those in prison and for their relatives; for
some who minister selflessly to the sick and dying – Lord be especially
close to these who struggle sometimes to see meaning and purpose
in their lives.

Bless those individuals and groups that feel marginalized,
and have difficulty coping – indigenous tribal people who have
been victimized by the superior power of those who invaded their
ancestral lands; the mentally ill, who languish in painful loneliness
in institutions and in their own private worlds; the physically
disabled for whom otherwise simple tasks are very difficult; for
those who are chronically ill and perhaps near death.

Lord, guide our governments and leaders, as they
make policy dealing with social security, taxation, housing, health,
education and family law.

Lord, you feel the pain of your children. Help us
to feel it too, and do what we can to lessen the pain of someone,
somewhere.

For your love’s sake. Amen.

…..

A Benediction

May Jesus Christ who befriended the poor and healed
the sick; who preached good news and opposed injustice; who enjoyed
family life and the fellowship of female and male friends; who
sorrowed with the grieving and laughed with partygoers enable
you to do in your world what he did in his. For his glory. Amen.

…..

CAPSULE 3: WHY FAMILIES?

# THE FAMILY offers us a place to belong. A true
home is the place, the people, where you are welcome at any time.
An effective family is where each member accepts some responsibility
for the welfare of all the other members.

# THE FAMILY is where intimacy is experienced. Belonging
to a loving family offers love, warmth, affection, shared concerns
and interests – through the whole of our lives.

# THE FAMILY is the basic unit of society. It is
our culture’s main unit for passing on important values, for economic
security, for personal nurture and support.

# THE FAMILY is where children are loved into maturity.
Here they develop the basic skills and attitudes for successful
living. They learn that they are special and unique, and are free
to become the creative, fulfilled people God intended them to
be.

# THE FAMILY gives us our identity. You tell people
who you are by giving them your name – Bill Smith, Mary Brown
– the name you derived from the Smith or Brown family.

(Source unknown)