The New Normal?

I follow Al Mohler's blog when I can and his recent post on the family caught my attention. The family is in crisis. I think we knew that. We have a sense that men are not as present and active in churches and are strangely absent from family functions. We knew divorce, teenage pregnancy, homosexuality, abortion, single parenting (forced or chosen),  and a general devaluing of motherhood and child-rearing, are all on the rise. Mohler writes,

"The family is indeed in crisis. A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that fully 40 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2011 were born to unmarried mothers. Divorce rates are catastrophic and unprecedented numbers of American adults are never marrying, reacting a new non-marital underclass that passes on disastrous consequences that will harm generations to come. In some American neighborhoods, children and teenagers have never even been to a wedding, since marriage has simply ceased to exist as an expectation. Even when parents are married and live in the same house with their children, many of those children are actually raised by the mass media, with older children and teenagers often living in a digital world that is quite disconnected from their parents." 

We cannot afford to get used to the statistics. They must continue to alarm us. We cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to these developments, and in our thinking we must never accept the current crisis as the 'New Normal'. Why? Because, these new societal norms are not God's norm. Mohler reminds us that the current family crisis is essentially a theological crisis when he writes,


"The social pathologies pile up in shocking statistics, but the greater tragedy is the injury in individual lives. Christians know that the family cannot save us. Only Christ can save. But we also know that God loves us and that he has given us marriage and the family for our protection and flourishing. The church must face the truth that the family crisis is, first of all, a theological crisis. Christians must recover a biblical understanding of the family and live before the world, celebrating and sharing the joys and satisfactions that the Creator gives us in this precious gift. We must live honestly before the world, knowing that our honest acknowledgement of our own need for God’s grace in our marriages and families is a testimony to our need for the grace of God shown us in Jesus Christ."

These developments in our culture's understanding of family reflect a larger societal turning away from the worship of God in truth to the worship of the created order. I cannot help but to think of the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:21-28...

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,  25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;  27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.  28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done."

What happened when although God made himself plain to the society of Paul's day, rather than worship God, they chose instead to worship the created order? The next thing to happen was the break-down of  marriage which is, of course, the first step in the breakdown of the family.

At the same time there is hope. For Paul was writing these things nearly 2000 years ago. If we find ourselves in a culture needing to speak up for a biblical definition of marriage and family among a people who have redefined marriage and family to pursue their own passions and lusts, then we are actually in good company. The Apostle Paul has gone before us. Not only that, but Jesus walks with us today. May he give us the power to show our culture God's Normal for the family. - jts

You can read Al Mohler's post at: http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/12/03/how-did-this-happen-the-family-crisis-as-a-theological-crisis/