Wanted: The Perfect Family, Part 2
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The article on the nuclear family shared at the beginning of this piece provides extensive data on the various challenges faced by the nuclear family — challenges that have resulted in the collapse of the 1950s ideal portrayed in television programs like “Father Knows Best” and “Leave it to Beaver.” Many of Brooks’s observations are spot-on regarding how economic realities, increased geographic mobility and cultural phenomena like television, computers and cell phones have contributed to the isolation of nuclear families — separating them, in many cases, from the support system that nearby extended families and closer connections with neighbors once provided. He notes that in recent years there has been a movement toward trying to reclaim some semblance of the extended family: Multi-generational living has made something of a comeback, with increasing numbers of households including not only the nuclear family but aging parents or young adults who have moved in for economic and other reasons. This is not a bad thing. Families should help one another.
Yet Brooks’ solution for reversing the atomization of the family remains lacking. He describes a burgeoning movement — one he hopes will take hold — to replace nuclear families with “forged” families: families that are chosen, not received via biology or circumstance. “The members of your chosen family,” Brooks writes, “are the people who will show up for you no matter what. On Pinterest you can find placards to hang on the kitchen wall where forged families gather: ‘Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile & who love you no matter what.’”
It’s true. Family isn’t always blood. Sometimes our blood relatives let us down profoundly. Yet the answer is not as simple as Brooks suggests. It is easy enough to “forge” a family of people who unquestioningly approve of our lifestyle choices and affirm our pet sins. Maybe we can even forge a family that will hold us to account when we make choices that are harmful to ourselves or others. And there is certainly nothing wrong with looking beyond the nuclear family to build caring relationships with extended family, friends, coworkers and others in our lives to whom we can be a blessing and who can, in turn, bless us. At some point, though, they will all fail us.
There is only One who truly loves us “no matter what” — only one family that will never fail us. It is the family that transcends time, blood, choice or convenience — the family into which we were adopted, not by our own effort, reason or strength, but by the Holy Spirit, who calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith (SC, Third Article meaning, paraphrased). The place that faith is nourished is in our home congregation, where we gather each week to hear God’s Word, receive His gifts in the Divine Service and mutually encourage and serve each other as sisters and brothers in the faith. That family is not perfect, either; sometimes, as explored in the March issue of The Lutheran Witness, it can be painful, even toxic. Nevertheless, our Lord is there, not only in the Word and the Sacraments but in the faces of those imperfect people we sometimes wish we didn’t have to share a pew with.
“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” asked Jesus in Matthew 12:48. He provided the answer in verse 50: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
In John 19, before bowing His head and giving up His spirit on the cross, Jesus “saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved … [and] said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’” “From that hour,” we read, “the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26–27).
Families can be messy, exasperating and frustrating. Sometimes they are downright excruciating, breaking our hearts in their capacity to hurt us more than anyone else in the world can.
Yet they are also one of God’s good gifts, provided to us as instruments of His love and care for this earthly life, as well as, sometimes, tools of our Lord’s discipline and instruction as we learn through our suffering. Whatever form your earthly family takes — whether received or forged, nuclear or extended, loving or not-so-loving — know that your eternal family, the family of God, has been made perfect in Christ. In His death on the cross, He took all our family dysfunction — the hurt, the lies, the neglect, the abandonment, all of it — to the grave and left it there for all time so that we might some day rise from our own graves to follow Him to a perfect life together in our eternal heavenly home.
Cheryl Magness is managing editor of the print and online versions of Reporter, the official newspaper of the LCMS. This article was first printed in and is reprinted here with permission of The Lutheran Witness.
Be Informed
Despite what the culture contends, men and women were created and are meant to be different. Discover more about gender ideology and what the Bible has to say about it in a podcast with Dr. Mark Rockenbach of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
Be Equipped
President Matthew C. Harrison explains why the LCMS advocates and cares for human life, both before birth and after.
Be Encouraged
“If we will trust in our God and the power of His Word—if we will, as Christian congregations, actually take that Word and apply it to the ugly reality of the lies in which our people live every day—then we can present to them the power and the possibilities of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” –Rev. Dr. Laurence Wright
It almost seems ridiculous to point out that a politician did something hypocritical, but Kamala Harris inverted reality in an especially egregious way during her first (and hopefully last) vice presidential visit to an abortion facility last week. As part of her ongoing campaign against life, she claimed, “I have heard stories of — and have met with women who had miscarriages in — in toilets.” Like most of Harris’s speeches, she had said it all before. The vice president shared a video clip of herself repeating the same story on “The View” in January. Harris said she could not believe states still resist abortion “in this year of our Lord 2024,” before saying, “Women are having miscarriages in toilets.”
In his younger days, Bob Barker, former host of the television show, “The Price is Right,” hosted another show called “Truth or Consequences.” On this program contestants were asked questions and if they gave incorrect answers, there were consequences. There was a penalty for getting things “wrong.” Now the consequences weren’t life threatening. They involved comical stunts which may have been a bit embarrassing, but were endured as good-natured fun. At the close of every program, Barker signed off saying, “Good night, hoping all your consequences are happy ones.” It was an instant and enduring hit from the 1940s through Barker’s time with the show in the 1960s.
"What is the leading indicator of just about everything bad? The lack of a father, that is to say a Joseph, in the home." Learn why the Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer says the world needs more Josephs!
Thanks be to God, "There is only One who truly loves us 'no matter what' — only one family that will never fail us." Read more from Cheryl Magness.
Was the nuclear family a mistake? Cheryl Magness--in this two-part series--explains why it's the exact opposite.
Jesus is risen; He is risen indeed! But there’s more good news for those who believe in Him. He clearly says, “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19). Wow! What a statement. It calls believers to a confident hope that comes from knowing that even death itself has been conquered by the one who created and redeemed us.
For Christians around the world, it’s Good Friday today. I know that it sounds strange to say that the day when Jesus died on the cross is “good,” but it is. The real, lasting solution to the problems in every human heart, even the very problems of the whole world, is the sinless son of God, Jesus, exchanging His perfect life and His innocent death as a substitute for our sinful life. In His death and resurrection, eternal justice is served, enduring mercy is offered, and real, eternal life is possible again for us, for all. The God who created us is the only one who can also redeem us.
After reviewing what was said at their Baptisms, LCMS confirmands affirm their intention “to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it” (LSB p. 273). Nevertheless, confirmation is often the last time we see some of these young people in church. When they become adults, some children return, but many do not.
After reviewing what was said at their Baptisms, LCMS confirmands affirm their intention “to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it” (LSB p. 273). Nevertheless, confirmation is often the last time we see some of these young people in church. When they become adults, some children return, but many do not.
As a new mother, I once had a friend and her daughter over for a playdate. After we set our babies down on a bright red and blue blanket I had spread on the floor, she commented, “I love this quilt. It’s so stimulating!” The comment arrested me. I suddenly felt as though my child were one of the microscopic crustaceans from my college physiology lab to be plied with caffeine so we could observe its heart rate.
Teach them how to think, not what to think. That's what Senator Braun's commercial says we need. And in that, he's typical of much of the conservative movement. But scratch the surface of that phrase, and you end up in a world of hurt. Our kids need to be taught goodness, must be inculcated in the natural law, must be formed in an education that is value laden. Education always includes moral formation.
What is your responsibility to the government—the state? What do you owe the state? While you are contemplating that question, ask yourself this: What is your responsibility to God—the church? What do you owe the church?
When we look at our nation, it is easy to get quite discouraged. For example, we are up to 33 trillion dollars in debt as a nation. House prices are through the roof, eating up over a 1/3 of people’s monthly income. Real inflation with some goods and services is upwards of 10 percent. Socially, things are also chaotic; you can’t turn the television on without getting blindsided by woke ideology. And to make things worse, we indirectly have our fingers in the war in Ukraine and have political connections to a war in Israel.
In his book, The Death of Character, James Davison Hunter says,
When Newsweek poses the question, “How Do We Restore a Sense of Right and Wrong” on its cover, it tacitly acknowledges that our “sense of right and wrong” is less and less present to the living memory of our entire culture . . .
When we look at our nation, it is easy to get quite discouraged. For example, we are up to 33 trillion dollars in debt as a nation. House prices are through the roof, eating up over a 1/3 of people’s monthly income. Real inflation with some goods and services is upwards of 10 percent. Socially, things are also chaotic; you can’t turn the television on without getting blindsided by woke ideology. And to make things worse, we indirectly have our fingers in the war in Ukraine and have political connections to a war in Israel.
We live in a very strange world. It is world that says men and women are the same. In fact, they are so much the same, that a man can decide he is a woman, or a woman can decide she is a man, and everyone around that individual is supposed to act like this is just the way things are. It is asserted that men and women are completely interchangeable, and so marriage can occur between a man and a woman or between two men or between two women.
So, God brought all the animals to him. He named them all one by one. While they were good, something just was not right. Dogs and cats just didn’t do it. So, God made woman from his own bones. Now at last man was just like God—two persons in one flesh. Adam So God brought all the animals to him. He named them all one by one. While they were good, something just was not right. Dogs and cats just didn’t do it. So, God made woman from his own bones. Now at last man was just like God—two persons in one flesh. Adam called her woman—she-man and named her Eve (“life”), because she would be the mother of all people. God’s creation was finally complete. He had made marriage and the family. This was very good..
Most of us never tire of flipping to a new calendar and the new opportunity to begin fresh. There is something about it that feels good. It signals an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, to start anew, and maybe, just maybe, this next year will end better than the one we just put behind us.
And so, it happened among us. Everyone knew, not all that long ago, that marriage was between one man and one woman. Obama said so, and even mentioned God. Hillary Clinton made a speech on the senator floor, invoking time and tradition.
New Year’s Eve is a time when Americans gather to ceremonially put the past behind them and cast their hopes forward for a blessed New Year.
A blessed Christmas day this weekend as you all hear again that “In the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ, the Lord” (Luke 2:1112).
It’s Advent! And those who engage the culture from a two-kingdom perspective are fully aware that human efforts, whether political, economic, philosophic, or even religious, are incapable of bringing the fulfillment in life that humans crave and even strive for. Former Senator turned University of Florida President Ben Sasse wrote a persuasive opinion article several years ago in the Wall Street Journal that described the issue in even more stark terms. It was entitled, “Politics Can’t Solve Our Political Problems.”
“I won't indoctrinate my children but will let them decide for themselves.” Non-believers boast that their children are free and critical thinkers, taught to be kind and non-judgmental. Remarkably, though, these free-thinking children end up just like their supposedly free-thinking parents.
Abortion is tragic, a deadly and heartbreaking deceit. No bond is more sacred, more profound, than that of a mother and child. Life’s journey begins in the womb, given by God as a safe space, a place for shelter, warmth and nurture.
Blessed Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving if you still allow the practice of giving thanks in your home. Each year in November there seems to be more and more Americans advocating for the eradication of the Thanksgiving Holiday.
Since the twentieth century, Lutherans have spoken about a “two-kingdoms” doctrine to work out the relationship between church and state
Since the twentieth century, Lutherans have spoken about a “two-kingdoms” doctrine to work out the relationship between church and state
We have a right, not a privilege, to life. Life is a gift from God, and it may not be unjustly taken from us.
Years ago, when my sons were small, we had a delightful friend at church who also had young boys. He often repeated to his sons his own father’s refrain to him: “Be a man!”
We are familiar with the idea of daycare, but perhaps we may be led to adjust our thinking and our language. We call it daycare, because the kids are still our children. But government schools don't see it that way.