The Vanishing Family
Leslie Wolfe, a novelist noted for a few “predictions” that came true (we don’t know how many didn’t) said this over 25 years ago: “The concept of the illegitimate child will vanish because the concept of the patriarchal nuclear family will vanish.” A nuclear family, of course, is one man and one woman married to each other and having one or more children – typically, with the man being breadwinner, protector, and spiritual leader, and the woman being nurturer, mediator, and emotional glue. Obviously, there are variations, but that general arrangement has been the foundation of civilized society the world over.
Over the last few decades, however, the culture’s relentless attacks on family values have wrought serious damage on civilized society. One pundit put it this way: “…today’s crash of civilization in America is a revolt of adolescents – some super-annuated, but adolescents all the same.” Amen – but why is it that so many of our leaders and influencers have stayed mired in adolescence for so long? By far the biggest factor in this ongoing societal tragedy has been the eviction of God from the public square, from schoolrooms, from governments, from the home, and even from some churches. In the US, much of this began with the Warren Supreme Court in the 1950s and has now “progressed” to an open embrace of godless socialism. More on that shortly.
Christians know that Satan quickly moves in whenever and wherever we force God out, and he fills the resulting Spiritual vacuum with a variety of evils that gain strength over time. Here and in other Western nations, the most immediate long-term result of God’s eviction has been the demise of the nuclear family. For example, in the US the divorce rate hovers between 40% and 50%, but it keeps applying to a diminishing number of marriages. Instead of getting married, more and more couples simply move in together – and while most of those couplings drift apart when the bloom is off the rose, many result in one or more children. Even while Roe v. Wade was still operative, about 40% of children born in America were born out of wedlock.
What are some of the specific evil events that have led to the destruction of the family over the last 50 to 60 years? Many people place major blame on the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and the concurrent advent of feminism (a.k.a. women’s lib), leading to easy divorce laws and a gradual abandonment of Biblical moral standards. Then came Roe v. Wade in 1973 – and shortly thereafter, the percentage of American nuclear families (against the total number of US households) dropped to 42%. Today, that figure is just 22%. We have, instead, a “hook-up culture,” one dire consequence of which is the complete separation of sex not only from marriage but also from affection, commitment, and responsibility.
Many others fault the 60s’ “Great Society” welfare programs (some continuing to this day), which, in effect, encouraged single motherhood by increasing benefits for every out-of-wedlock child produced – and in the process, encouraged the fathers of those children to make themselves scarce lest the social workers discover an able-bodied man living in the house and curtail benefits. Indeed, the fatherless household, especially among minorities, is one of the big examples of unintended negative consequences of government’s good intentions. And the societal disease of fatherlessness has now spread to America’s middle class. In effect, government has been replacing fathers with welfare, AND IT DOESN’T WORK! For example, most of our mass shooters come from broken homes – as do most other violent criminals.
Also, over the protests of many parents, we have the left’s promotion of Critical Race Theory and the LGBT agenda in school curricula – both disruptive to the nuclear family. And don’t forget the growing influence of the World Economic Forum, which has no use for God or family values and has expressly proclaimed it would include Christians and members of other religions as being among the “useless people” who would contribute nothing to, and be a drain on, the WEF’s planned global technocracy.
But these and other factors are relatively recent causes and effects of God’s eviction and nuclear family dissolution. To discover the root cause of the family’s demise, we need to look back at the foundational tenets of socialism/communism – in particular the writings of Karl Marx and his patron and compatriot Friedrich Engels.
For example, in his “Communist Manifesto,” Marx claimed that throughout history, women have been systematically oppressed by the patriarchal class, and that marriage was just another means by which men increased their control over women. Except for childbearing, women in these oppressive marriages were not useful to the collective. In communist practice (e.g., as in the former Soviet Union), although the “family” remains together physically, women/mothers typically work on farms, in factories, as government functionaries, or serve in the army. Children, while remaining in the household, are treated as wards of the state – and their “careers” are mostly decided by bureaucrats according to perceived abilities. Dad is there, but he too takes direction from the state.
Engels was even more anti-marriage. In his writing “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” he claimed marriage and the nuclear family were capitalist constructs – and like Marx he contended that these constructs were the primary cause of women’s oppression. But he went further and insisted the destruction of capitalism could be accomplished only if the constructs of marriage and the nuclear family were demolished. According to The Epoch Times (5/11/22):
“Engels’ philosophies played a prominent role in the rise of socialist feminism…in the United States and beyond, ideas about abolishing the nuclear family made their way into academia, revolutionizing both gender and family studies. This, in turn, changed the way graduates viewed (and still view) the likes of marriage and the nuclear family. Socialist feminists have for years claimed that the nuclear family is an instrument used by the patriarchy…Thus, the decline of family values has Marxist roots.”
Sadly, these ideas were eagerly embraced by US academia in the 60s. Clothed in the easygoing language of moral relativism, the seeds (weeds) of destruction were then planted and would eventually undermine the bedrock of modern American society, as we’re now seeing. And not only have most colleges and universities been indoctrinating unsophisticated young minds with socialism and all its evil byproducts since that time, but the legacy media and (more recently) the Internet have also moved decisively to the left. Most have disdained the Biblical worldview in general and family values in particular.
Several years ago, Hillary Clinton had published a book titled “It Takes a Village,” which, among other things, postulated that raising children properly is a government-led collective effort – and, on an NBC News video in her 2016 presidential campaign, she cited her claim as “a guiding principle for the country we’ve always been and the future we’re going to build.” Besides being deceptively wrong on the history, her view that only government, not families, and only communities, not individuals, can properly raise children is a socialistic delusion. Indeed, according to the Bible, Clinton has it backward, as aptly stated by Cheryl Chumley in her book Socialists Don’t Sleep (2021):
“First comes the personal relationship with God; then comes the foundation of God’s creation, the family. From the family springs all else, from a biblically strengthened, morally solid family comes the community, the politics, and government, the culture, the country, the church…The left sees it top down; the Bible preaches individual [bottom upward]. Get that wrong and an entire worldview is wrong. Miss that truth and it’s easy to see how government supplants God in society, even in the churches.”
We keep hearing the claim that a majority of Americans still profess Christianity. That should mean most of us would have a Biblical worldview – that is, giving God top priority over everything else. But in fact, God is low on the priority chart because the culture has been influencing the church, rather than the other way around. Indeed, a new study by pollster George Barna and the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University found that ONLY 37% OF AMERICAN CHRISTIAN PASTORS HAVE A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW. Wow! So instead of teaching people to don the armor of God and resist an evil culture, 63% of pastors are apparently going with the cultural flow and taking their congregations with them. Out to deep, turbulent water.
Sadly, too many of us think our preferred political party will start to set things right – Republicans, for example. After all, Republicans are pro-life, pro-family, and mostly pro-Christian, aren’t they? But what we can likely expect from either political party is, to paraphrase the bard, a lot of sound and a lot of fury, signifying nothing. God help us.
Norbert J. Kuk