On this Sunday in Fiji, I’m amazed at the sleight of hand by which conservative Christians have anointed themselves the great proponents of Family Values. We should be very much ashamed. For the importance of the family was one of the great insights of Enlightenment philosophers who worked so hard to free the West from religious tyranny. Yet not only have resurgent theocrats managed to usurp “family values” virtually unopposed, the greater irony is that the Holy Writ reflects “family values” that should rightly scare the Jesus out of anyone and repeatedly construes the “family” as a threat to religious loyalty.
Nose firmly pinched between thumb and forefinger, I recently wandered the websites of Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, both of which are major political organizations dedicated to protecting their miserable understanding of “family” from, among other things, the horrors of homosexuality and unbridled feminism. Rejecting the “humanistic notions of today's theorists,” Focus on the Family draws instead on the “wisdom of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethic.” It sees itself as “nurturing and defending the God-ordained institution of the family and promoting biblical truths worldwide” and reflecting “the recommendations of the Creator Himself, who ordained the family and gave it His blessing.”
Brochure published
by the FRC, explaining why
the Defense of Marriage Act
is not enough The Family Research Council takes a more neutral tone but is actually more threatening. It endorses a very narrow notion of “family” which it seeks to impose on society as a whole:
Family Research Council champions marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society. Properly understood, "families" are formed only by ties of blood, marriage, or adoption, and "marriage" is a union of one man and one woman. We believe that the law should recognize only these traditional definitions of marriage and family and that public policy should encourage formation of such families and discourage alternative "family" forms.Given the many different shapes and sizes of human families and civilizations past and present (including the polygamous extended families of the biblical patriarchs), the FRC’s claims are ludicrous from the outset. But setting that aside, one wonders what would happen if they decided that Birkenstock sandals were good for feet -- would they force everyone to wear them? Or if they determined that families thrived best in two-story Cape Cod cottages -- would they ask the Federal Government to raze Manhattan?
Although the Family Research Council avoids excessive religious language and even claims the support of “social science,” its agenda is based in religious belief. According to the FRC, “God is the author of life, liberty, and the family” and the FRC “promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.” It claims further:
In the United States, the Judeo-Christian worldview has provided a sound basis for the flourishing of our national culture and our political system. FRC, in the tradition of our Founding Fathers, works to encourage the free worship of God as a great good for individuals, couples, families, communities and the nation.Supporting a wide slate of restrictive policies that include outlawing abortion, protecting society from (while offering a contemptuous “sympathy” to) homosexuals, and eliminating embryonic stem cell research, the FRC advances a social and political agenda that stinks like theocracy.
What I find especially interesting about both the FOC and FRC, however, is that their references to actual scripture are appallingly scarce. The reason for that is obvious to all who care enough to read the Bible for themselves. I wonder what kind of parents today would want to draw upon “biblical wisdom” when dealing with “a stubborn, rebellious son,” for the Bible demands the following:
In such cases, the father and mother must take the son before the town. They must declare: ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey. He is a worthless drunkard.’ Then all the men of the town must stone him to death. (Deuteronomy 21:20-21)Parents who suddenly find themselves transported back to biblical times would be advised to retain some proof that their daughter was a virgin when she married just in case their new son-in-law decides to accuse his bride of having slept with another man. If they have that proof, then the man faces a fine of 100 pieces of silver (a meager punishment, considering how often the punishment for even trivial offenses is death). If not, however, the results are dire:
[Suppose] … her virginity could not be proved. In such cases, the judges must take the girl to the door of her father’s home, and the men of the town will stone her death. (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21)Meanwhile, for men unlucky in love, rape might be an appropriate path to marriage and a long lasting relationship – but such men need to make sure that they take their prize in public:
One can, of course, go on at length, identifying pernicious bits of “biblical wisdom” that bring comfort only to the cruel. Seeing the Bible as the source of family values would be utterly laughable were it not for the fact that powerful Christian organizations have been allowed to claim the moral high ground on the issue and exploit their defense of family values as a way to promote theocracy. Moreover, comparing the specific rules and laws of a violent iron age patriarchal society to our own would be totally unfair were it not for the fact that today’s conservative Judeo-Christians shamelessly look to that society for wisdom on how to shape our own. Keep in mind: we need search neither far nor long to find out what happens when such wisdom is set into action. Let us not avert our eyes: in countries where theocratic barbarity prevails (different name for God, same values) -- Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia -- women are still today being stoned to death.If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman … he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
An equally important point to consider is the place of the family in biblical Judeo-Christianity as a whole. Setting aside the many horrifying ways the Bible illustrates Judeo-Christian family values, we should understand that Jehovah’s primary focus is never on the family but on making sure his people worship him and him alone. He expects fathers to administer some rather tough love to maintain religious discipline:
Suppose your brother, son, daughter, beloved wife, or closest friend comes to you secretly and says, ‘Let us go worship other gods’ …. If they do this, do not give in or listen, and have no pity. Do not spare or protect them. You must put them to death! You must be the one to initiate the execution: then all the people must join in. Stone the guilty ones to death because they have tried to draw you away from the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 13:6-9)In the New Testament, Jesus doesn’t make the family a major priority either. He neither marries nor has children (except in the movies: as Jesus hangs on the cross in the Last Temptation of Christ, his dreams about familial bliss suggest that taking on the role of the Son of God may have resulted from a tragic misunderstanding of God’s own family values.) Jesus rejects his mother’s and brothers’ pleading requests to see him, pointing to his disciples instead and saying: “These are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48); Clearly this is not the kind of family that the Family Research Council has in mind. Finally, if anyone has any doubt about Christ’s contempt for traditional “family values,” let’s listen to him declare that he came to earth in order to tear the family apart:
Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household! If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. (Matthew 10:34-38)Far from celebrating “family,” one of the most consistent themes running through both the Old Testament and the New is that “family values” threaten the undivided loyalty owed to God. From Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac to Jesus’ assault on natural familial bonds, the Bible repeatedly confronts the faithful with the choice between family and God -- and demands that they choose God or face annihilation. Indeed, the words of Jesus anticipate the notorious political messiahs of the 20th century who likewise came to tear families apart: Hitler, Stalin, and, most notably, Pol Pot, whose assault on family values enjoyed astounding success. The similarity between biblical theocracy and political religions like National Socialism and manifestations of Communism is striking: they all demand the sacrifice of familial love and affection for the preservation of their rigid ideologies.
Those truly interested in honoring family values should not be looking at biblical Judeo-Christianity. They should begin with the Enlightenment, considering writers like Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume. Looking especially at the bonds of familial affection, these writers saw evidence of a human moral sense; this innate sense provides the basis for a morality not imposed by God but drawn from the hearts of human beings.
In response to those who reduced all of our “natural dispositions” to self-love, Hutcheson published An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (1728). Here he argued that alongside self-love, humans possessed -- "implanted in the human Breast" -- “affections” that included “an ultimate Desire of the Happiness of others.” He insisted that these affections “rise from the very frame of our Nature.” He pointed out that human "Offspring ... could not be preserved without perpetual Labour and Care” and that “Parents must often check and disappoint their own Appetites, to gratify those of their Children”; thus such affections are critical for our survival. Although Hutcheson was writing more than century before Darwin, he anticipates the case that these moral affections are crucial for the biological survival of the species.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Adam Smith followed up on Hutcheson’s arguments (those who cite Smith’s Wealth of Nations in support of unfettered capitalism should also read Moral Sentiments, which Smith felt was the more important work). Nothing was more naturally pleasing, he insisted, than the vision of a harmonious family:
With what pleasure do we look upon a family, through the whole of which reign mutual love and esteem, where the parents and children are companions for one another, without any other difference than what is made by respectful affection on the one side, and kind indulgence on the other; where freedom and fondness, mutual raillery and mutual kindness, show that no opposition of interest divides the brothers, nor any rivalship of favour sets the sisters at variance, and where every thing presents us with the idea of peace, cheerfulness, harmony, and contentment?
According to Smith, our natural sympathy for the well-being of others is not limited to family; rather, it extends (with decreasing degrees of intensity) throughout our social relationships -- from family, to friends, and to the nation.
Finally, when we speak of family values, we should think of David Hume, whose cheerful and unabashed atheism was a thorn in the side of his Christian contemporaries. When the pious Family Research Council insists that the family is the “foundation of civilization and the seedbed of virtue” they might very well be citing Hume, who felt pretty much the same. But whereas the FRC feels the family is under attack and tries to keep it narrowly defined, Hume is both more generous and more optimistic. In An Enquiry Concerning the the Principles of Morals (1751), Hume imagines for a moment the following:
Suppose … the [human] mind is so enlarged, and so replete with friendship and generosity, that every man has the utmost tenderness for every man, and feels no more concern for his own interest than for that of his fellows. … And the whole human race would form only one family; where all would lie in common, and be used freely, without regard to property; but cautiously too, with as entire regard to the necessities of each individual, as if our own interests were most intimately concerned.Clearly no such condition prevails, Hume says, “but still we may observe, that the case of families approaches towards it; and the stronger the mutual benevolence is among the individuals, the nearer it approaches.” Ultimately, Hume identifies a certain progress as families form societies, and as distinct societies develop mutually advantageous relations. “History, experience, reason,” he writes, “sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.” While conservative Christians try to preserve family values that are musty, niggardly, and mean, the family values we see in Hume appear as promises of generosity, tenderness, and mutual benevolence, unfolding as our human sentiments evolve. His are far more worthwhile and far more useful.
Conservative Christians should not go unchallenged when they assume moral authority and champion "family values" based on the “wisdom of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethic." For this backward wisdom is hollow and this retrograde ethic will have us killing our loved ones with stones. The "family values" of the Enlightenment, however, look to the future. We should recognize the affection we feel for our families as a part of our human nature, and develop those affections to make the world a better place.
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