New's Analysis and Commentary   |  What’s the Point of “Family”?

What’s the Point of “Family”?

Back when America was a Christian nation, family meant something.  People may not have really understood how important Family was until they were older, but from a small child they still knew that Family was the most important thing in their lives.  As they grew up, and learned of the Kingdom of God, they came to realize that the Family, ordained of God, is THE primary institution through which HE designed His Kingdom to operate.  That marriage is ordained of God, that children are ordained, and that obedience to Him is ordained.  Etc.  It’s all wrapped together.  Our early Founding Fathers understood this.

Since the collapse of Christianity at the end of the 19th Century, and the rise of Humanism, there has been a large number of people who have called themselves Christians who know nothing of discipleship, who know nothing of obedience to God, and who are unaware that a “Kingdom of God” really exists.  Professing to follow something they know nothing about, they have become “Religious Humanists”.  The importance of Family has declined accordingly.

From the beginning of mankind to the 20th Century, Family provided the glue that held society together.  Four generations lived together under one roof, and amicably.  (Well, they usually lived on the same property, or within minutes of one another.)  Each generation was born into the role of children, grew into young adults, then grandparents, and finally great-grandparents.  Each had a role to play, and each understood that role.  The Family was there for them, and they were there for the Family.

Whether you ascribe the collapse of family to conspiracies, or to the Industrial Revolution and World Wars, it does not matter.  The net result is that Americans, including those who go to church and think they are obeying God, have adopted the Humanist philosophy that they, the individual, are the center of the universe.  That the world, even the universe somehow rotates around them, and therefore all other people are incidental to ME, and what I want.  Self-gratification has become our obsession, instead of our duty to our families, and our role as Steward of that which God has given us.

We all seek our own happiness, and to hell with everyone else.  And, sadly, that has become the American Way.  Not only do grandparents not see it as their duty to provide an inheritance for their children and their children’s children, they put cute little bumper stickers on their $200,000 RV’s that say, “We’re spending our children’s inheritance.”  And they are.  Children are no better — they can’t wait to get out of a household in which they are a flaming inconvenience, holding back the parents from enjoying their own lives, a burden that the parents want out of the house as soon as they turn 18.  The feeling is mutual.  It’s also contrary to the Divine Pattern.

Certainly it is difficult, once the fabric has been torn, to patch it up again, but family members, at every level, need to see themselves as essential links in a chain, rather than independent stars around which the solar system revolves.  If we were to really make Jesus Christ the center of our universe, it seems to me that it would cause us to become much more concerned over the temporal and the eternal welfare of those to whom we are related, and to seek to become the strongest link in a long chain.  Rather than scorning our elderly, we need to consult them.  Rather than scorn our children, we need to instruct them, and to tell them stories that illustrate truths that they are totally unaware of existing.

The point of Family is that “we are all in this together,” whether we know it or not, and we can help one another.  It means building a strong family unit, out of debt (slavery), with land paid for and belonging to the whole family.  It means a refuge to which each member can always go, whether 16 or 46 or 86.  It means holding up a standard of righteousness that is without compromise, in order that each generation will know right from wrong, and will avoid those who don’t.  It means ministering in the most boring of ways to one another, such as washing dishes and mowing lawns and reading to one another and praying together, etc.  It means becoming, not an island, but a growing community of Believers who help one another, instead of each of us going our own way and wondering if our relatives are still alive, gathering on occasion at the funerals.  Our sense of Vision is getting all we can, canning all we get, and poisoning the rest.

The current situation is one in which the Family of God is in retreat, broken and racked.  As a result, our communities are fractured, and therefore our nation is a dying society, without Vision.  Where there is no Vision, the People perish.

America is dying because our Families were destroyed, and we let it happen, one family at a time.  America cannot become great again unless we start mending the fabric, living as close as we can to one another, entwining our lives around one another, and envisioning greater things for each successive generation.  We could become great again, but it would require a Spiritual Awakening to see that there is something much greater than our Individual Selves, and that we must dedicate our lives to one another in order to become genuinely happy ourselves.  It won’t be easy, but then, living alone and in debt until they warehouse you in a “retirement center” is not easy either.

It is to our disgrace that we encourage our children, when they face hard times, to go on welfare.  When our children have children, we encourage them to get all the government benefits they can, and to lean on the State for supplemental income, for education, for protection from disease, for protection from thought crimes, etc.  In other words, we have become pretty well useless to one another, but we are still very, very useful to our Owners.  Who is that?  Well, it’s those to whom you make your credit card payments.  By working for them every week, you are their slave, and they are living high on your interest rates.  This is the most ingenious form of slavery ever invented, and we line up to apply for it.  We can’t imagine living without consumer debt.  That’s because we have no Vision of what it is to be a free man, much less a free family, a free clan, a free tribe, a free nation.

This is why America is imploding upon itself, and will soon be replaced by Hispanic and Muslim cultures who do have a vision — they do see the future as bright, and they are having lots of children to assure that they get their share of it.

Perhaps these trends of a society are inexorable, but as for me and mine, we have every intention of serving the Lord, and that begins by taking care of one another as Family.  If our society collapses, it won’t be my fault, for we have a Vision, and that vision includes my family members being Stewards of the Kingdom of God, and of the wealth that He has allowed us to manage.

© Daniel D. New, Permission to copy, with credits, is hereby granted.-

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