Families – Threats - Introduction

From our Introductory Post:

“The righteous have sat back and allowed the wicked to take over our relationships to God, families, churches, governments, schools and colleges, journalism, entertainment, sports, sciences, and a whole litany of other endeavors in our society.”

Families – Threats - Introduction

In our previous post we discussed the various resources available to help build strong families according to the will of God. We will now consider threats which are weakening and even destroying families. According to a survey of church pastors by the Minnesota Family Council (MFC) the top three threats to the family are divorce, negative influences from the media, and materialism.

Other concerns listed in the MFC survey are absentee fathers, families that lack a stay-at-home parent, cohabitation before marriage, pornography, morality not being taught in schools, poverty, and unemployment and/or a poor economy. In addition child/teen and parental alcohol/drug use/abuse, teen sexual activity/pregnancy, adultery, sexual predators, sexual abuse, and the expense of child care are listed.

Focus on the Family (FOF) says new forms of human relationships (e.g. trial marriages), loss of power to transmit values to the younger generation, and homosexual “marriage” even with the blessing of the churches. Also mentioned are having sex more for recreation than for procreation, court assaults, and anti-family biases of the media elite as major threats to the family.

Catholic News Service (CNS) considers war and violence, exploitation of the weak, rampant poverty and underdevelopment, destruction of the environment, the arms race, and everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman. Everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life and everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children are also threats to the family.

Summary

This post has presented an overview of some of the threats to the family identified by the MFC, FOF, and CNS organizations. Just reading the list may give us the impression that the situation is very dark regarding the family in our world. However, we know that God still rules the universe and knew about all of these things before they entered the evil hearts of humanity. As we consider some of these threats in detail in the following posts, we will also look at their solutions. A great resource available to us is prayer, and we should be praying as we read over this list. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:17)

I remain yours in the name of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Name above every name.

“Mr. Phil”