Writing
a generation ago, sociologist Christopher Lasch pointed to the
weakening of the family as the most significant and dangerous
development of our times. In his book, Haven in a Heartless World,
Lasch described the breakdown of the natural family as a calamity for
the society at large, as well as for the individuals whose lives are so
directly affected.
Tellingly, he also wrote this: “The first thing to understand about
the present crisis of the family is that it did not materialize
overnight.” Indeed, it did not. The current crisis of the family must be
traced to economic, political, social, and ideological causes. But
there is another cause as well. The family crisis is a theological
crisis, and this must be the church’s first concern.
The first theological fact about the family is the truth that the
natural family (the family consisting of married parents of the opposite
sex and their biological and adopted offspring) is not a product of
human social evolution. The Bible reveals that God created human beings
to live and to thrive within the context of the family, constituted on
the foundation of marriage.
Genesis reveals God’s act of creating human beings as male and
female, uniting them in the covenant of marriage, and assigning to them
the responsibility to multiply and to exercise both dominion and
stewardship. The perfection of marriage was made clear by the fact that
the man and the woman were naked in the Garden, and they were unashamed. Continue at Al Mohler
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