There could scarcely be a better moment than today for a “mainline” U.S. denomination to have another look at its teachings on family. The past generation has seen dizzying changes in U.S. family patterns: decreases in marriage rates; rises in the age of first marriage; declines in the age of puberty and first sexual intercourse; an upsurge in dual-income couples; falling birth rates and larger numbers of childless persons; delayed childbearing, with the attendant fertility problems; the rise of cohabitation, and other short-term, provisional sexual relationships; increases in births out of wedlock; soaring divorce rates; vast numbers of children growing up apart from their fathers; a proliferation of active individuals and couples past the age of childrearing, as well as higher numbers of older persons dependent upon the care of others.
Almost every family (including my own) has seen several of these trends played out among its own members. Every pastor could name numerous families in the congregation that have experienced conflict and heartache as they have tried to resist or adjust to the changes. Because the changes in American families hit so close to home, it is both a delicate and a necessary task to make some moral assessment. Are these developments of the past generation mostly blessings, mostly curses, or some confusing mixture of the two? By what standard shall we distinguish the blessings from the curses?
Surely a denomination like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ought to have something important to say about the American family in 2003. Consider a few of the treasures in the Scriptures, the sacraments, and the PCUSA constitution that might be brought to view:
- The understanding of marriage as “an institution ordained of God, blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ, established and sanctified for the happiness and welfare of mankind” (Westminster Confession, 6.131).
- The prototype of parental and filial love exhibited by the Father and Son (John 5 and 14).
- The comparisons of the covenant between God and his people to a marriage (Hosea 1-3, Ephesians 5).
- New Testament teaching that believers become children of God through adoption.
- The understanding of baptism as the act by which a person is “enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the sons of God” (Second Helvetic Confession, 5.187).
- The counsel on childrearing found in various parts of the Scriptures (throughout Proverbs, Ephesians 6:1-4).
- The many biblical injunctions against adultery, prostitution, fornication, divorce, homosexual relations, and all conduct that violates God’s design for marriage.
- The numerous scriptural appeals for compassion upon widows and orphans, who suffered when family support structures failed them.
- The concern in the Confession of 1967 about “anarchy in sexual relationships,” as opposed to “the responsible freedom of the new life in Christ” expressed in marital and parental love. The confession warns, “the church comes under the judgment of God and invites rejection by man when it fails to lead men and women into the full meaning of life together, or withholds the compassion of Christ from those caught in the moral confusion of our time” (0.47).
A Crushing Disappointment
The policy statement on “Living Faithfully with Families in Transition” now being proposed by the denomination’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) to the upcoming GA can be found on the PCUSA website at pcusa.org/ga215/business/commbooks/comm07.pdf. It is labeled as Item 07-02.
We must ask: Does this proposal lead men and women into the full meaning of life together in families? Does it draw deeply from the biblical and confessional teachings on marriage, childrearing, adoption, baptism, and so forth? Does it aid Presbyterians in moral discernment? Does it point them toward patterns of family life that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8)? Does it extend an effective compassion to those who have been caught in the moral confusion of our time? Does it direct church members toward specific actions that they can take in their own lives, their local churches, and their communities to strengthen their own and other families?
By these standards, the ACSWP proposal is a crushing disappointment. The document gives evidence of great labor on the part of ACSWP and its task force that studied “families in transition” over five years. The footnotes and bibliography in the 47-page “full text rationale” show a wide reading and acquaintance with relevant biblical and confessional texts and current social science research. But at almost every crucial point, the proposed policy statement refuses to make moral distinctions or offer practical help. It does not so much deny biblical teachings as it side-steps them. Similarly, it ducks the clear implications of social science research into family problems.
The place to start in evaluating “Families in Transition” is the recommendations. These are the only part of the larger document being mailed to commissioners to the 215th General Assembly (2003). They are also the only part that is supposed to authorize actions by the denomination. Consider the unusual characteristics of these recommendations for church policy on family:
- The recommendations never attempt to define their subject matter, the family.
- The recommendations affirm, “Family life, in a variety of forms, is integral to created life, common to all peoples, and a vehicle through which humans are formed” (p. 1). But neither they nor the full-text rationale ever explain why this is so. They never delve into the biblical, philosophical, and theological notions that God created humans, male and female, to live in families.
- The recommendations mention marriage only once, within a list of the “many configurations of people who lovingly bond as family” (p. 2). They do not even hint that marriage may have a particular place in God’s providence for humankind. They take no account of the fact, briefly noted in the rationale (p. 5), that “three-fourths of us [PCUSA members] are currently married.” Of course, if we include the numbers of Presbyterians who were formerly married, or hope to be married in the future, or have parents who are married, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of church members has a vital personal interest in marriage. But the ACSWP proposal, oddly, does not share this interest.
- The recommendations give no specific guidance on childrearing. They state, helpfully, that “Christian families have the responsibility of teaching and practicing the beliefs and values that exhibit faithfulness to the God revealed in Jesus Christ” (p. 1). But they offer no insights into how contemporary Presbyterian parents might best fulfill that awesome responsibility.
- The recommendations mention adoption only twice, in the long list of the “many configurations of families.” They have nothing to say about whether adoption ought to be encouraged or discouraged, or how it might be encouraged or discouraged.
- In the end, the three dense pages of recommendations contain little beyond platitudes about calling the church “to renew its commitment to nurturing and sustaining family life in all of the cultures of all the peoples who comprise the entire human family” (Recommendations, p. 2). There is no specific recommendation that would change a single program in a single local church.
Choosing among ‘Biblical Traditions’
Only two paragraphs in the recommendations deal with “biblical traditions” regarding families. (Note the choice of the term “traditions,” rather than the more authoritative “teachings” or “commandments.”) These paragraphs contain no citations of any particular biblical passages. Instead ACSWP presents its own formulation of two selected elements of those “traditions” that appear to be congruent with its moral relativism about “diverse family forms.”
The first selected element is ACSWP’s observation that “biblical traditions present God as working through diverse family structures” (p. 1). The recommendations jump from this accurate observation to the dubious conclusion that: “Ultimately the structure of one’s family is not as important as how we allow God’s life giving and redeeming spirit to shape and work through our families” (p. 1). They do not seem to allow for the possibility that God might be doing two things at once: sending out his Spirit to penetrate even the most dysfunctional families, and at the same time working to transform the unrighteous “structures” of those families. The fact that God’s grace was extended to and through the prostitute Rahab, the adulterous King David, and the cohabiting Samaritan woman does not imply that God is indifferent to prostitution, adultery, and cohabitation.
The second selected element is ACSWP’s apt admonition that “the biblical traditions strongly warn not to promote one’s own family’s welfare over the inclusion and well-being of others” (p. 1). There is ample textual support in the Gospels for the assertion that “Jesus made clear that no family structure or relationship, whether defined by blood, law, or culture, should be exalted over loyalty to God” (p. 1). But once again the ACSWP recommendations leap to a questionable conclusion: that “all forms of family can be instruments that open us to service and participation in the larger community as servants of God” (p. 1-2). Is it true, for example, that an adulterous ménage `a trois and a faithful Christian marriage are equally fit instruments to prepare children to serve God’s kingdom?
The recommendations contain only one-half sentence citing the PCUSA confessions. This is a passing reference to the “strong statements” in the Second Helvetic Confession “affirming the absolute importance of family-sustaining activities as ‘holy and truly good works’ equal in value to all other human activities” (p. 1). The other half of the sentence also mentions “John Calvin’s concept of the family as ‘little church.’” But ACSWP does nothing further to develop either of these rich concepts from our Reformed heritage.
A Sleeper Clause
The last page of the recommendations is an eye-wearying list of dozens of “previous General Assembly actions” that are to be reaffirmed. In most cases, the current ACSWP proposal gives over the most cursory account of those past statements. There is no mention of any points of controversy that this year’s commissioners might wish to revisit before giving a blanket approval to all those statements. Since the commissioners have not received any copies of those earlier documents, they will have virtually no information on which to judge the continuing validity of actions dating back to 26 years ago. The commissioners are being asked, in effect, to place a blind faith in ACSWP’s good opinion of those past actions.
The recommendations also request that the 2003 Assembly endorse one document that was never approved by a previous Assembly. This is “A Vision for Family Ministries” that was adopted by the PCUSA’s former Education and Congregational Nurture Ministry Unit in 1992. No copy of this document was included with the “Families in Transition” recommendations that were mailed to all commissioners. Commissioners will have to search for the document in an appendix to the full-text rationale that is available only on the PCUSA website.
Most of this “Vision” consists of the sort of relativist platitudes—“We celebrate the beautiful variety of relationships, and commit ourselves as people of God to work for and witness to the love and justice of God in all human relationships”—that are already too common in the proposed 2003 policy statement. There is, however, a sleeper clause in the 1992 “Vision.” It is an affirmation that “we commit ourselves to shaping an inclusive and caring community of faith in which single persons, single parent families, blended families, families with members of homosexual orientation…may experience acceptance, support and spiritual nourishment.”
The question that commissioners must ask is: Does this promised “acceptance” and “support” imply the church’s moral approval of heterosexual and homosexual relations beyond the bounds of marriage? If so, ACSWP’s proposed 2003 statement harbors a disguised attempt to undermine the longstanding teachings of the PCUSA and the Church universal on sexual morality.
This interpretation is supported by the stunningly complete absence of those teachings from the “Families in Transition” recommendations and full-text rationale.
The only reference to the biblical roots of this teaching is a single phrase toward the back of the full-text rationale, noting that Paul “vigorously rejected all ‘sexual immorality’” (p. 27). The ACSWP authors make no effort to define “sexual immorality,” and they say nothing about it in their recommendations. Indeed, their placement of quotes around the phrase suggests that they see “sexual immorality” as a category in Paul’s thought, but not their own. Regarding homosexuality, the rationale states merely that “Presbyterians hold starkly different views with regard to same-sex families” (p. 16). It says nothing about PCUSA constitutional standards expressing disapproval of homosexual relations. Those standards are supported by large majorities of church members. They have withstood 25 years of challenges, gaining increasing backing from the presbyteries in recent years.
A New Ethic: No ‘Privilege,’ No ‘Stigma’
Clearly, the ethical framework upon which ACSWP has built its proposal does not come from the biblical and confessional teachings on marriage, parenthood, and adoption. What, then, is the framework? The recommendations give only a few glimpses. Most revealing is the clause which “calls upon the church to reject principles or policies that would stigmatize any persons, and particularly the most vulnerable persons (children, the poor, the disabled, and so forth), based on family form” (p. 2).
This clause would be unremarkable if the meaning of “stigmatize” were to exclude a whole class of persons from the church and its ministries, treating them as uniquely sinful. The Gospel speaks strongly against this kind of moral caste system. But an examination of the full-text rationale shows that this rejection of “stigmatizing” means much more. It means that the church ought never to recognize any distinctions between “family forms.” All should be regarded as equally moral and equally beneficial.
The rationale contends that “church and social policies should not discriminate among these [different forms of families], but support all such families equally” (p. 12). It objects vehemently to any normative vision of family form that some families might realize more fully than others. “Therefore, no particular form of family that has existed in human history or that exists today should be privileged as the Christian family form,” declares ACSWP (p. 30).
Beneath these rigid ideological axioms lies a particular modern school of sociological thinking. This school holds that marriage, parenthood, and adoption are merely external, “forms” of no inherent value. What really matters, in this view, are the larger social functions (economic security, education of the young, etc.) that are served by the forms. Thus the rationale asserts, as if it were self-evident: “There is no universal form of ‘the family.’ There are, of course, functions that every society must organize” (pp. 31-32). Moreover, the ACSWP authors maintain that “many forms of family [are] doing the work of families equally well.”
This refusal to “discriminate” prevents ACSWP from offering a useful definition of family. The best it can do is the following convoluted “description of contemporary U.S. families” on the penultimate page of the rationale: “A family is persons in any stage in the life cycle who are comprehensively bonded by birth, kinship, marriage, adoption, covenant, or mutual consent. At the center of such bonding is an enduring commitment to love and nurturance, mutual support in just relationships, and personal care and fidelity particularly through major life transitions and crises” (p. 32).
Dodging Past the Bible
So how can ACSWP adhere to its view in the face of so much contrary biblical testimony? It employs a series of dodges. First, the rationale delays its discussion of the “biblical traditions” for 23 pages. By this point, 70 percent of the way through the document, the basic themes have already been decided.
Second, the sections on the Old and New Testaments both spend far more space in sketching the social context of family life in the ancient Near East than in considering how the Scriptures themselves address that context. Indeed, they interpret much of what the Scriptures do say as a reflection of that background. For example, the apostle Paul “was deeply influenced both by Jewish law and tradition and by prevalent Greek moral culture concerning family, marriage, and especially sexuality” (p. 27). ACSWP apparently finds it difficult to hear the direct divine message that Paul and the other biblical authors believed that they had received.
Third, the rationale baldly asserts that the Bible supports its ideological assumptions. Frequently, these assertions are made without reference to any particular passages, and without any consideration of contrary scriptural evidence. “It is not possible to discern any single model of family structure in the Hebrew Scriptures,” according to ACSWP (p. 24). “In this overarching theological perspective [of the Old Testament], family form is less important than the function of the family as a place of faithfully committed right relationship with other adults, with children, with neighbors and strangers, and with God” (p. 25). The mass of Old Testament teaching on marriage and parenthood— with not a single verse speaking in terms like “the function of the family as a place of faithfully committed right relationships”—seems to have no influence upon the ACSWP authors.
Similarly, the rationale claims that “Paul’s letters contain no direct teaching about family in general” (p. 27). When faced with multiple counter-examples from Colossians 3, Ephesians 5-6, I Timothy 2 and 6, and I Corinthians 14, a new dodge emerges: these passages are dismissed as not “authentically Pauline” (pp.27-28). The fact that the Church still holds these passages, and similar passages in I Peter 2-3 and Titus 2, to be canonical and authoritative apparently does not matter to ACSWP.
The rationale charges that these New Testament household codes “originated in Aristotle’s teaching” (p. 28). They allegedly represent “a resurgent conservatism of a later first century generation” (p.28) that had nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Defying a basic principle of Reformed biblical interpretation, ACSWP uses one scripture passage to invalidate a host of others: “Clearly, the content and spirit of these restrictive regulations [regarding marital and parent-child relationships] are very different from the egalitarian familial community envisioned in the gospels as well as the new, profoundly free community in Christ that Paul envisions in Galatians 3:28” (p. 28). The authors never imagine the possibility that the household codes might complement, rather than contradict, Galatians 3:28.
Ducking Social Science Results
The rationale handles social science research in a manner analogous to its treatment of the Bible. Adamant in its conviction that all “family forms” are equal, ACSWP dodges any evidence to the contrary. It asserts, “Social science data shows that there is no predominant family form in the U.S.” (p. 16). This conclusion is manufactured via a statistical trick: The rationale counts childless couples, married couples with children in the home, and married couples whose adult children have left home as three completely different “family forms.” (In fact, of course, the same couple may pass through all three stages over the course of its married life.) When those three categories are added together, it becomes clear that marriage remains a common element in most U.S. families (and most families throughout the course of history, all around the world).
Despite the growing body of research indicating that divorce, cohabitation, and single parenthood do not yield the same results for adults and children that marriage does, the rationale insists that there are no significant differences. It reports that “75-80 percent of children who have experienced divorce and 90 percent of children in intact families score within the normal range of achievement and adjustment” (p. 11). Then it fudges the 10-15 percent difference, inferring that most “children of single-parent families, step- or blended-families are doing just fine” (p. 12). ACSWP does not raise the possibility that there might be many children in such families who are “within the normal range,” but still feel deep hurts from the absence of a parent (usually the father). The authors cite one scholar who hypothesizes that the poorer well-being of children in single-parent homes is mostly due to “less income” and “frequent residential moves that keep such families from establishing a stable community” (p. 12)—as if this hypothesis proved that single parenthood were not a problem in itself.
Of course, it is important to assure despairing single parents that there is hope for them and their children. It does not improve their situation, though, to pretend that they face no greater obstacles than married parents. On the contrary, a frank recognition of those obstacles is the first step toward offering single parents the support that they need from the church and society. But this is just the recognition that ACSWP refuses to make. It evades the issue: “Clearly, a warm, loving family of any form is a better environment for a child than a hostile, conflicted family of any form.” (Note the unstated assumption that intact marriages and families with a parent absent by someone’s choice have equal probabilities of being “warm and loving” or “hostile and conflicted.”)
Regarding “same-sex families,” the rationale cites only a single review article finding that only “some slight differences exist in attitudes and behaviors” of children raised in such families (p. 16). ACSWP takes no notice of the incompleteness and methodological shortcomings of much of the research on which the review article was based, as well as the prior pro-homosexual commitments of many of the researchers. Nor does it cite any social scientists who question whether households with “two daddies” or “two mommies” ought to be encouraged.
Where Have We Heard This Before?
ACSWP’s relativism regarding “family forms” does not imply that it has no values that it aims to promote. When it puts aside one set of moral categories—in this case, the biblical teachings on marriage, childrearing, and adoption—it substitutes a new set. In place of marriage, the rationale exalts “committed relationships.” It lays down the moral principle that “it is in committed relationships that sexual intimacy is best expressed” (p.32). Likewise, the love of a mother and father for their children is reduced to the function of “nurturance.” If stigmatizing means judging that some relationships are healthier than others, then ACSWP knows how to stigmatize. It deplores “the predominance of patriarchal interest” (p.24) in the Old Testament and the high teen pregnancy rates in the United States today (p.15).
The theological problem with these new moral categories is that they lack any anchor in a transcendent revelation of God’s will. The Scriptures, for instance, do not supply any guidelines for “committed relationships.” The practical problem is that these categories are almost impossible to define in any objective sense. What does “committed” mean, for example? This approach leaves no room for accountability to any kind of standard.
Yet ACSWP’s new morality is not really new at all. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has heard this same line of thinking before. In 1991 the General Assembly debated a report from its Special Committee on Human Sexuality entitled “Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spirituality, and Social Justice.” That report criticized traditional sexual ethics that “have focused on the form rather the substance of sexual relationships” (Minutes of the 203rd General Assembly, Part I, p. 280). It proposed a new approach: “The moral norm for Christians ought not be marriage, but rather justice-love. Rather than inquiring whether sexual activity is premarital, marital, or post-marital, we should be asking whether the relation is responsible, the dynamics genuinely mutual, and the loving full of joyful caring” (p. 288).
The “justice-love” report dodged biblical teachings by emphasizing “the richness and diversity within Scripture” (p. 273). It argued that the “Christian tradition does not endorse one correct form for family life” (p. 285), and “there is no one family form that is statistically normative in this [U.S.] society” (p. 285). It offered only the haziest of practical guidance for Christian families: “The challenge before the church is to discern and support those family patterns that display genuine moral substance and possibility, that support growth in the capacity for justice-love, and that serve human needs with enthusiasm” (p. 285).
This 1991 report was defeated overwhelmingly. The Assembly adopted instead a pastoral letter that proclaimed: “We have reaffirmed in no uncertain terms the authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. We have strongly reaffirmed the sanctity of the marriage covenant between one man and one woman to be a God-given relationship to be honored by marital fidelity. We continue to abide by the 1978 and 1979 positions of the Presbyterian church on homosexuality.” The 215th General Assembly (2003) will do well to give a similar response to the current ACSWP proposal on “Families in Transition.”
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Mar/Apr 2003).
