The End of Mom, Dad and the Kids?

“The nuclear family was a mistake.” Those words on the cover of The Atlantic caught my eye. The article said the idea of mom, dad, and the kids worked for a while, but that time is gone. “The family structure we’ve held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It’s time to figure out better ways to live together.” The writer argued that the traditional family system “liberates the rich and ravages the working class and the poor.”

As I read that claim, my mind went back to the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The fathers of communism did not hide one of their agendas: “abolition of the family”! They insisted that private property in families leads to prostitution and the exploitation of children. It is incredible that this small booklet which gained little attention when it was released in 1848 is one of the most widely read texts in American universities today.

What do critics of the home as God created it suggest as an alternative? Government programs. Animalistic sex. Juvenile freedom from parental authority. “Family” in whatever way one imagines it—from workplace ties to homosexual commitments—anything but mom, dad, and the kids.

For the past hundred years liberal educators, godless government officials and depraved entertainers have done everything they can to ridicule and destroy the family unit. They have done a lot of damage because the public is full of willing accomplices.

But they will not succeed. Why? Jesus said life on earth will be normal when He returns, not catastrophic like many teach. People at that time will be “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” (Matt. 24:38-39). He used two everyday activities to describe the condition of the world at the end: meals and marriage. Marriage and the family will not merely survive. It will not be the exception to the rule. It will not be the laughable custom of a shunned minority. Weddings will be as commonplace as dinners.

God made no mistake in giving us the home. He designed it to be a place of love and happiness. The reason it fails is not the arrangement. It is the people in it.

Kerry

West End church of Christ • November 3, 2024