I do not believe many of my readers will be surprised by this but there is an all-out war on the traditional, nuclear family. The war comes largely from the secular entertainment and media, but it has crept into a lot of other realms as well. Thus I was unsurprised by the recent issue of New Scientist which featured multiple articles dedicated to the family and how it has changed over the last couple of decades. The articles were titled as follows “Kids are Alright Whatever the Family Make-up, so Let Them Be, How Changing Families are Affecting our Children’s Well-being, and We Struggle with Monogamy-Is it Time to Abandon it Altogether? All three articles shared the peculiar anti-nuclear family bent of the modern leftist. This article is not a response to New Scientist. Rather, it is meant as a discussion of what the family is and why evolutionists consistently challenge it.
The best way to understand why this matters is to go back to why the nuclear family exists in western society. Until recently, much of the western world had its roots in the Bible which clearly indicates that the family is to consist of one male husband, one female wife, and their children. Genesis 2:24 says “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Jesus quotes this in Mark 10:7 making it obvious He both knew of it, thought of it as real, and confirmed its authority. The clear reading of this verse is one man and one woman. Christ also condemned divorce in Matthew 5:32 “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” Further, when Paul explains the relationship between Christ and the church in Ephesians 5, he uses the example of a family. The example only works if the family is meant as one man and one woman and if it is for life. Clearly, God intended marriage to be a permanent relationship. As such, He clearly intended that only marriages produce children.
However, despite the clear teaching of Scripture on this point, the family, as described above, has largely vanished from western society. A majority of marriages end in divorce. Many if not most children live with a single parent or with a step-parent in the home. Some live with grandparents or other relatives. Many others are removed and placed in foster care. Having taught for a while, and coached and refereed youth sports longer, I can attest to the difficulties children have in this situation. I had one young man, twelve years old, tell me with tears in his eyes, that the reason he acted like a clown in class was that he desperately needed attention from someone. His was a single parent household. I had another young man regularly sleep through class because he had been out working the night before trying to help support his single mom and siblings. I could tell dozens of stories like this, all equally heartrending. The best students I had, the best-behaved players I coached, uniformly came from homes where both parents were present and attentive. The problem students almost without exception came from single parent homes or homes where at least one divorce had occurred. This break up of the family adversely effects the children more than anyone.
Despite these facts, New Scientist prints an article claiming that gay relationships, single-parent homes, step-parents and live in couples have no effect on a child’s development. They are not alone in their claim. Dozens of other publications regularly print the same. I doubt they would say the same had they spent any time actually working with children. Sodomite parents are absolutely terrible for children. They have been shown to increase the likelihood of attention disorders, decrease the likelihood of finishing high school, slow academic progress, and increase the risk of emotional disorders. One study found that children of sodomites were much more likely to have issues in 77 out of 80 categories of emotional and social problems. Cohabitation of heterosexual parents is just as big an issue. Cohabitation increases the risk of child abuse, doubles the risk of the child becoming a drug user, decreases academic performance, and increases the risk of mental health issues among other things. The same types of things hold true for remarriage. The child may struggle to attach to the new parent, or may even openly resent them, particularly if they see the new parent as the reason the previous marriage broke up. God had wisdom in designing the family to be one man, one woman, and their children, for life, and science is confirming it.
If there are all these negatives to the nuclear family breaking up, and there are, then why does a respected science magazine like New Scientist run a whole issue dedicated to taking it apart? The reason for the constant attack goes back to Ephesians 5. Paul, under inspiration from God, used the nuclear family to picture the relationship Christ has with the church. Satan hates Christ and hates the church. By destroying the family, he destroys the picture. However, his plan is far more sinister than that. By destroying the family, he ensures that the vast majority of the next generation will grow up with problems, mental, social, or even criminal. These are problems he can use to either prevent them from coming to God, which is his goal or hinder them from serving God should they find Him in spite of the Devil’s best efforts. This is why New Scientist and the left are attacking the family. Satan is using them as pawns to try to condemn as many people to the lake of fire as he can. Evolutionists hate the family because it represents how their relationship with Christ should be and they want to remove all trace of God from the universe. The family is an integral part of origins because it shows the design of God for humanity.
In His Image 