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What Happened to the Family?

God instituted the family when he brought Adam and Eve together and told them to be fruitful and multiply. While people still get married and have children what passes for family today is very different than what was common even up to 100 years ago. People lived, worked, and died mostly in the town in which they had been raised. People had a depth of relational connections that is difficult to even imagine today.

One might see historically where the Industrial Revolution took men out of the home, public education took children out of the home, and feminism took women out of the home until today where a family might more closely resemble a boarding house where four people pursue their own work, friends, activities, and interests independently. In 1800 that average woman had seven children, today this is less than two. If children are from the Lord (Ps 127:3), then as a nation we have been telling him “no thanks” for over 200 years.

The technological changes over the last 200 years seem to confirm the parallel social changes. As life became easier and more comfortable, many came to see the social changes as indicating we were moving into a utopian future. The increase in suicide, drug overdose, divorce, and single parent homes represent a growing level of pain and suffering that no amount of cable TV, video games, and social media can completely mask.

In contrast to the older model of the family in a fixed location with many siblings cousins, aunts and uncles, today’s common model of children leaving home at 18 and infrequent contact thereafter leaves many with relationship needs that often are only superficially met. Checking a Facebook page is often like sneaking a peak through a window of your child’s home. Since we came to this point over several generations, many do not even realize the way it used to be.

Many think that the anemic state of the family today is the natural way it is supposed to be which often contributes to a sense of despair and hopelessness. If one looks at human history not as an evolutionary path to a utopian paradise, but as a Satanic attack of humans in an effort to take control of the world, one can begin to understand why the institution of the family has fallen to such a sad state, it has been under attack for centuries.

Satan has been largely successful in getting people to think that he doesn’t even exist. However, the bible tells us he does and is active. Since Satan cannot be everywhere at once, he needs to collectivize the world in an attempt to exercise control through surrogates. He needed to break up families (husbands from wives and parents from children) so that people could be directed by his influence more than that of their families.

Today the worldly superficial social connections that pass for “friendships” are usually a poor substitute for real relationships. Sadly, even in Christian circles having someone show their concern for you by asking how you are doing financially, what you have been learning from the scriptures recently, or what prayer needs you have is the exception rather than the rule. Even within Christian families these sort of questions are seldom asked.

To resist these worldly destructive forces, one needs wisdom, (James 1:5), a close relationship with Jesus (Philippians 4:13), and an immersion in God’s word (Ephesians 5:26).

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