April 23, 2001
Christian families face 'too much pressure'
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___ABILENE--The Christian family is buckling under the weight of unreasonable expectations, theologian Stanley Hauerwas said during Hardin-Simmons University's first T.B. Maston Christian Ethics Lectures.
___Hauerwas, professor of theological ethics at the Duke University Divinity School, delivered the lectures at HSU's Logsdon School of Theology April 9-10.
STANLEY HAUERWAS
___"The strength of the family historically has been its social, economic and political function," Hauerwas said. In close-knit agricultural communities, families provided social infrastructure, worked together to make members financially secure and wielded political clout, he explained.
___In today's commercial society, however, "the family is the 'accident' of the worker, not his essence" and an economic liability in a profit-and-loss business environment, he observed. "The family now is economically and politically secondary."
___The family's strength and weakness is its ability to provide deep relationships, particularly as people move often and do not enjoy deep relational commitments in the communities where they live, he said.
___"The family provides the one place for relations we have not chosen, but the family is unable to bear such psychological, moral burdens," he acknowledged. "The family is our hedge against loneliness, and that's too much pressure."
___Ironically, the rosy, family-friendly portrait often painted of Christianity is not accurate biblically, Hauerwas stressed.
___"Some say Christianity is very good for the family," he explained. "You know, 'The family that prays together stays together.' But if we remain faithful, Christianity will be threatening to the family," at least as Americans romanticize it.
___To illustrate, he told about letters written to his colleague, William Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University. Several times, Willimon has received letters such as the one that claimed, "You ruined my daughter's life" because her profound Christian experience led her to prepare to be a missionary rather than an attorney.
___"The Christian challenge goes deeper than expectations between parents and children," he said.
___Hauerwas challenged other family expectations of Christianity.
___Rather than seeing singleness as failure to find a mate and fulfillment in family, Christians should understand singleness "embodies the hope that God's presence has come, is present and is to come," he urged, noting individuals should be able to find relational fulfillment through the church, not exclusively in marriage.
___"Christian justification of family may be more that Christians no longer believe in the efficacy of Christianity," he charged, noting many Christians feel pressed to have children to perpetuate the faith. "God could call every believer to singleness and yet God would renew his church in each generation."
___Still, Hauerwas stressed he was not trying to denigrate marriage but rather to dignify it.
___"Marriage is possible for Christians because we first have been loved by God," he said. But the extreme focus on finding intimacy and fulfillment in wedlock "overburdens marriage," he said.
___The emphasis should be placed in the opposite direction--first finding relationship, intimacy and fulfillment through the community of the church and then living in marriage if God leads.
___"Baptism makes marriage possible," he claimed. "You need a community to hold you accountable when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity. Church is the place to hold you to the promise."
___Churches should establish at least two criteria for performing weddings, he suggested. First, both the man and woman should have been members of the church for at least a year. And second, they should be involved in a discipling process by mature Christians who have "survived" many of life's challenges.
___Christian families also need to give up the possessive notion of parenthood, Hauerwas added.
___"Christians, single or married, are parents" to the children in the church, he said. "Everyone in the community is to fulfill the responsibility to care for children. This is not restricted just to those who have children.
___"There is no more important responsibility than to raise up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Parenting is an office of the church, a responsibility. Children are not ours; they are the Lord's. Christian parents do not own children. Children of our bodies are gifts of the Lord, not our own possessions."
___Ultimately, family life should reflect a relationship with God, he said. "Marriage and family provide an opportunity to be for others what God has been for us."
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