The Family in Today's World

Mark Hatfield

A recent issue of Newsweek magazine related the story of the Caruso family in California. The father, Joe Caruso, much like many other American fathers, is a conscientious worker and is locally active in politics and in the community theater. He attends church regularly, and he prays before meals. But all is not well with the Caruso family. Joe's three daughters haven't chosen his life-style. Although still teenagers, the two oldest daughters have their own apartment. The two younger ones have experimented with drugs. One ran away from home at sixteen. Joe's fifteen-year-old daughter left home and was later arrested for participating in armed robbery. Joe and his wife subsequently attended classes in parenting.

   Researchers are learning that Joe's problems are not uncommon in our changing society. They, for that matter, are not that uncommon among church families today. Such problems are often the result of confused values; and as various cultural forces bear down upon the child, he or she must make early choices about values. Without considerable support from the family, a child's values naturally reflect the dominant influences upon him or her. Even when parents seek to guide children in developing values, they

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often find that the children's choices are not what they as parents had hoped for.

   The independence of adolescence results in natural challenges to almost all the accepted values in the parents' lives, and I believe this is true in nearly all facets of life. I find that my fifteen-year-old son has become very conservative in his political thinking. He's obviously challenging part of his parenthood. Challenges differ widely, reflecting different perspectives. For instance, children often seem more concerned with introspective relational matters than with the economics of living, matters which are very important to their parents.

   In thinking about the family in today's world, one is forced to recognize both the complexity of the issue and certain assumptions in relation to the family. One assumption is that the concept of the family must include some consideration of the persons not in nuclear family situations. For instance, in the 1920s 50 percent of the families in our nation included at least one extra adult. Today that percentage has been reduced to less than 5 percent as we shunt grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others off to lonely existences in retirement homes, nursing homes, and often less-than adequate apartments.

   Another assumption is that the family is an important basic element in our society. A third assumption is that we concur that God has an interest in family development and that the Scriptures have clear instructions regarding family responsibilities.

   The secular world is expressing an interest in the condition of the family, and family-support programs further confirm the importance of the family. A recent introduction in the United States Senate of a bill entitled "Family and Household Research Act of 1975" was accompanied by a statement referring to findings by the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Youth that families are the most vital and fundamental institutions of this nation and that families are experiencing numerous difficulties and pressures in an increasingly complex, technological society. (As a point of information, the purpose of the bill is simply to broaden the knowledge of the pressures on families.)

   There are also a number of significant studies, one of which

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was made by Uri Bronfenbrenner, social psychologist at Cornell University. He cites those outside forces which often result in overwhelming loneliness and the loss of a sense of community. Such things as occupational mobility and the breakdown of neighborhoods result in lonely privacy. Our suburbs become only bedroom communities as residential and business areas are separated and school districts are consolidated. Families are physically divided as each age-level develops its own social activities and as childcare is left to those outside the family. Education has become the job of the schools. Religion has become the task of the church. Care for the elderly and the infirm has been assumed to an even greater degree by the state. Even athletic experiences are "jobbed out" to others such as the Little League and professional spectator sports. Automation, which we have often discussed, depersonalizes in production. We also find all too often that in the home our relationships are based on tasks and responsibilities rather than on love for the person. We are caught up in a type of automation mentality in the family.

   The Bronfenbrenner study indicates that the reduction of the number of caring adults in families actually has had a negative effect on the socialization of American children. We need one another as relatives, neighbors, and friends in caring communities.

   In light of these facts, the church of Jesus Christ today has a unique opportunity to offer society a constructive alternative to present trends of family erosion. Personal reconciliation to both God and man has been the universally accepted task of the church for ages. But as we face the loss of community and the profound impact this has upon families, we find ourselves with a new challenge which cannot be simply defined as either the need for personal redemption or the need for social action. Our challenge is to build a force in society whose power is love rather than one which loves power. A new community is the challenge.

   The church, the spiritual church as representing the body of Christ, is uniquely suited to building a new community and to strengthening the existing nuclear family. Over and over, as we study the Scriptures, we read of individual commitment to one another which is born, not merely of a biological relationship,

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but of a spiritual kinship. Ruth and Naomi experienced a deep love for each other, akin to that of a blood relationship, unlike the present-day popularization of mother-in-law relationships. David and Jonathan are remembered for their love for each other in the face of the wrath of Jonathan's father, Saul. The disciples experienced a relationship with Jesus which was closer than that of a biological family.

   Jesus said, "Who is my mother? and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." The early church described throughout the New Testament exhibited those characteristics which we long for today in our nuclear families: enduring love, interdependence, stability, loyalty and devotion, commitment and responsibility, security in time of crisis and old age.

   The church today can help meet these needs. The church actually is an extended family. The qualities of love, preference for one another, upbuilding one another, and humility are not mutually exclusive of either the family or the church. When the church addresses the growing plight of single adults, single-parent families, and the elderly who live alone, it need not make an awkward effort to fit them into some special programs, for they are actually members of the family.

   The first body of officials in the early church was organized in order to include the widows and the poor in the vital life of the church. The extended family known as the church must meet the needs of today's nuclear family also. It can give support when both parents must work. It can be compassionate in the midst of need for food and clothing and can be the mere presence of an intimate friend in times of emotional distress. It can provide roots or a sense of belonging, even in our mobile society.

   Recently I was recalling with another person the care that we had developed during the years of the depression. We noted that even though many had very little, that very condition drew us together in the act of sharing — with family, neighbors, and friends. We experienced a real sense of interdependence and community.

   I believe that the church today, the church of Jesus Christ,

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can re-create the sense of the supporting community. I'm sure that many of you have had the deep and wonderful experience of supporting others and being supported by others. My friendships include a group of men who are committed to one another in what we call the Fellowship. We share a commitment, not that we meet according to a regular program, but that we meet the needs of any member of that fellowship. We share ourselves and assume liability for one another. My wife belongs to a covenant group whose aim is to minister to one another. My sixteen-year-old daughter belongs to a core group. Whatever the label, whatever the name, the fact that we have created within the family of God a ministry to one another is evidence of the effective role the church can play in developing loving community. The ministry of community and the expansion of this supportive love beyond a congregation or geographic locality becomes a breeze that bears along the evangelistic message of the church.

   I am talking about a dynamic, circular relationship. The body of Christ is a family. The smaller family units within the body both support the larger body and are supported by it. This concept involving unlimited liability for one another in the midst of a very uncertain world is what Christ was talking about when he said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for the other."

   The goal of the church is not simply to struggle to build healthy nuclear families. The role of the church and the goal of the church must be that of a family for all the people of the body of Christ. In order to experience progress in the development of healthy family life in a changing society, we must be committed to a new style of family life consistent with the Scripture. First we must recognize that even as the body of Christ we have become enculturated by a world which does not reflect God's values.

   Family includes relationships between people which can reach beyond mere biological cause and effect. Family is a life-style to be extended inward and outward. Families are not an accident of cohabitation but a practice in relationships. Given the need for the influence of caring adults on children, the body of Christ

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must take the offensive in family affairs. The purpose of the family is to protect, to shape, and to draw out developing lives. Such is also the role of believers in relationship to one another. Rather than asking, "Who is raising our children?" we can today commit ourselves to the larger family of Christ, allowing this body to help shape our children.

   Have you had the experience of becoming the instrumentality through which God has worked to influence the sons and daughters of other families? In turn fellow brothers and sisters in Christ influence your children and my children, perhaps in ways more effective than we as parents can. This is possible because we love and care for one another's children as part of the larger body of Christ. The church must be a force which does not retreat and look for the security of the past. We must face change. We must accept the fallen state of society as representing the corporate result of the fallen state of man. We must work as a countercultural force — loving, caring, supporting one another and our children.

   We must not merely seek to reinstitute past practices, expending our energies in matters that are no longer of any great importance to the culture in which we live and which so greatly influences our families. Rather we must turn our attention to new models of care and love which speak to the changing conditions of our world. Old wineskins are not used to store new wine. In the midst of a mobile society the body of Christ must provide stability through accepting those of all ages and all backgrounds. We must reach out to our neighborhoods, bringing warmth and love and witness in the face of mistrust and alienation.

   One of the great examples of such love for the larger family that I have seen was at Oral Roberts University where, built adjacent to and as an integral part of the campus, is a retirement center. In each room of that retirement center is a closed-circuit television, bringing the dynamics of the classroom into the retiree's residence. The involvement of students in labor and support services for the retirement center facilitates a great interchange between youth and old age. Rather than shunting aside, isolating the experience, the knowledge, and all the other great attributes of old age, this proximity to the campus helps create a

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beautiful interplay. This is but one example of what we could do within each community to be a family of God's people.

   If we in God's family cannot, through the power of Christ, build bridges across generations, how can we expect the rest of society to be successful? God's family holds the key to a revolutionary model of love and hope for our society. Persons empowered by the Holy Spirit with love for one another can face the problems of life and relationships and find the answers. Becoming one flesh means people care for one another as they do for themselves and are drawn together by a holy love greater than their own. The church becomes a larger family with the interdependencies inherent in the concept of the body of Christ. The church needs to become a model in action, not one that is noted in the press for being torn asunder with strife and friction and schisms. And rather than fragment the family, the local church can become an agent for family development, actively caring for the forgotten and rejected who live in loneliness.

   The family in America may not be well, but the cure does not lie in criticizing those in search of an answer to their innermost needs. Individuals of all ages have relational needs and look for situations where they will be met. But seeing that few families consistently meet those needs and that many other institutions and agencies do meet some needs, more people are choosing today not to become involved in permanent family relationships.

   I believe that it is not the institution of the family that has failed. It is rather the individuals who have failed to practice love and discipline. An article in the American Journal of Psychiatry notes that the quality of marriage, family, and parenthood is determined by the quality of husbands and wives, of mothers and fathers, as people. We have expected fallen man to conform to God's plan for relationships, nurture, and support. The need exists, but the power is lacking. Into this area of need, Christians, individually and corporately, can move with hope and with a redemptive witness. Jesus said, "I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly."

   Our message is one of radical revolution through Jesus Christ. If this message is first applied and if this revolution is first experienced within our individual lives, then we can infect our

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communities. This infectious love can spread throughout the nation. This is the new American revolution that would be greater, more earthshaking, and more world-influencing than the revolution confronting the First Continental Congress in the 1700s.

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Mark Hatfield is a United States Senator from Oregon. He is the author of Conflict and Conscience and Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

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