Francis Chan Challenges Christians: Stop Idolizing Family, Put Christ’s Mission First

Francis Chan Challenges Christians: Stop Idolizing Family, Put Christ’s Mission First

Yep. Christians idolize the family. I’ve been blogging about that for a few years now.

(Link): Francis Chan Challenges Christians: Stop Idolizing Family, Put Christ’s Mission First

Excerpts:

• March 23, 2016|3:20 pm
  BY KEVIN PORTER , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
• Many Christians have lost their edge — their radical, burning fire for Christ, says preacher and author Francis Chan, a firm believer that while family is important, the mission of the Kingdom of God should come first.In a video message recently shared by (Link): ChurchLeaders.com, Chan says that after many Christians get married they place Christ’s mission on the back burner, spending their days in the bubble of relationships, children and the comfort of security.
• The preacher challenges married Christians to stoke the flames of their passion for Christ and his work, and to step out of their comfort zones to take more risks to further His Kingdom.

Why “Family Values” Defined Conservative Christianity (and Why “Religious Liberty” has Replaced It) – by E C Miller

Why “Family Values” Defined Conservative Christianity (and Why “Religious Liberty” has Replaced It) – by E C Miller

I am right wing, somewhat Christian, and believe that many Christians and secular conservatives have made the nuclear family and marriage into idols, which is wrong.

I am not opposed out-right to the traditional family, marriage, or to motherhood, and so forth, in and of themselves, but I am in disagreement at how so many right wingers and Christians elevate all those things to the point that they end up marginalizing anyone who does not fit the mould of “married with children.”

Anyone who is infertile, child free, divorced, never married, widowed, and what have you, is excluded or treated shabbily by the majority of “family values” obsessed right wingers and Christians, which again, in my view, is terribly wrong and unfair.

Here is an article explaining how and why the religious right elevated “the family” in their rhetoric:

(Link): Why “Family Values” Defined Conservative Christianity (and Why Religious Liberty has Replaced It) by E C Miller

Excerpts:

• From about 1970 until about 2000, American politics was largely driven by concern about the nuclear family. As established social hierarchies came under fire from the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, second-wave feminism, and others, conservative advocacy groups and their political allies demanded a return to the idealized family of the past. “Family values” became the rallying cry of a countermovement bent on holding the traditional line.
• Seth Dowland is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University. His book, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right, charts the influence of Christian “family values” advocacy across three decades and a variety of issues.
• RD’s Eric C. Miller spoke with Dowland about the project, the politics, and the significance of family in the United States.
• You introduce “family values” as the key term of the Christian Right in the late twentieth-century United States. Why was this term so influential for this group in this place and time? 
• Many of the political reforms enacted from the 1930s through the 1960s—particularly the expansion of the welfare state and the passage of civil rights legislation—attempted to expand equal rights to all people.
• Political liberals celebrated these developments, while conservatives looked around the nation at the beginning of the 1970s and saw economic stagnation, riots, sexual revolution, a decline in patriotism, and an increase in crime and drug use. Ministers and political conservatives argued that America was in decline. They believed that decline happened because of the demise of the “traditional family.”

A Pennsylvania man raped his sister, and their mother told her not to go to police

A Pennsylvania man raped his sister, and their mother told her not to go to police

Here we go again.

If “Family Values” or “the Nuclear Family” was the building block of society and could save people – as some Christians seem to imply – we wouldn’t expect to see news stories like the following. There is nothing sacred about the family unit.

There are never-married, childless adults such as myself who are ten times more ethical and godly than the deviants like we see in these types of news stories, who are in traditional family units.

(Link):  Brother Raped Sister—and Mom Told Her Not to Go to Police by K. Lipp

• January 25, 2016
• Edward Geier was convicted of 1,074 counts of sexual assault and molestation. Meanwhile, his mother—who told the victim, her daughter, not to report her brother—hasn’t been charged.

• A Pennsylvania man raped his sister, and their mother told her not to go to police.

• Edward Geier was convicted last week of 1,074 counts of rape and molestation for abusing his sister and step-daughter. The trial (Link): lasted two and a half days and it took the jury just a few hours of deliberation to decide he was guilty.
• While he faces life in prison, his mother is not facing any charges for telling her daughter not to report Geier’s rape to police—and even telling her to recant her accusation after she did tell cops.

Christian Leader of Pro Family Group Complains About Sexualization of U.S. Culture Makes No Mention Of Supporting Hetero Single Adult Celibates

Christian Leader of Pro Family Group Complains About Sexualization of U.S. Culture Makes No Mention Of Supporting Hetero Single Adult Celibates

From Jan 20, 2015:

(Link): ‘Darkness’ of Sexual Culture ‘Gone Mad’ Threatens America’s Future, Says Evangelical Leader Tony Perkins

This is not a post I intend to spend a lot of time on. I just wanted to shoot off a quick observation or two.

This Tony Perkins guy is a leader of the group FRC (Family Research Council). The FRC is obsessed with the culture wars, and stereotypical evangelical concerns of fighting abortion, homosexuality, and so forth.

First, I will include a few excerpts then discuss them below:

(Link): ‘Darkness’ of Sexual Culture ‘Gone Mad’ Threatens America’s Future, Says Evangelical Leader Tony Perkins

Excerpts

WASHINGTON — Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called on Congress to protect the religious freedom of those affected by the “darkness of unrestricted sexual license … gone mad.”

While America previously faced the threats of Nazism and Communism, today’s threats emanate from the Sexual Revolution, Perkins said Monday in his “State of the Family” address.

“The threats America face are not potential — they are clear, present and dangerous,” he said. “And ironically they come most sharply today not from the radical economic doctrines of Karl Marx, nor from the lights of what Winston Churchill called ‘perverted science,’ but from the darkness of unrestricted sexual license — a new Cultural Revolution — gone mad.”

Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

And some conservative Christians like to teach that becoming a parent is necessary to be loving, responsible, mature and godly.

If that is so, why didn’t motherhood produce those effects in this woman?

(Link): Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

• January 17, 2015

• Young child was found burning alive in Pemberton Township, New Jersey  
• Medics rushed to the scene and airlifted child to a Philadelphia hospital 
• However the newborn succumbed to its injuries a short time later 
• Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier, 22, has been charged with murdering the child 
• One resident said the woman told them she was burning ‘dog feces’   
• She has since been arrested as Burlington County Prosecutors investigate 
• A newborn baby has died after its mother allegedly doused it in a flammable liquid, set it alight and left it burning in a road.
• Witnesses say 22-year-old Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier got out of her car and stopped in the middle of Simontown Road in Pemberton Township, New Jersey, on Friday night and burned the child alive.
• Medics rushed to the scene and airlifted the young child, which was still alive and breathing when they arrived, to St Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia with severe burns.

• However the baby succumbed to its injuries a short time later.

  Emergency services were called to the scene after residents described a ‘commotion’ inside a nearby home before the horrific act

  The woman, who witnesses say lit the child on fire, was taken to Deborah Hospital, in Brown Mills, New Jersey according to NBC Philadelphia.

  She was then arrested after her condition stabilized.

  Neighbor Dave Joseph, 45, told Bucks County Courier Times the woman said she was burning dog feces and said she had a calm demeanor.

  Mr Joseph’s wife then notice what was really going on and screamed. The woman then tried to flee but residents stopped her.

• ..’Officers from the Pemberton Township Police Department were dispatched to Simontown Road just before 11 p.m. yesterday after a resident called to report the fire in the roadway.

  ‘At approximately 11:15 p.m., the baby was airlifted to Saint Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia and was reported to be alive and breathing at that time. The baby died approximately two hours later.

  ‘The investigation revealed that the infant had been doused with an accelerant prior to being set ablaze. Dorvilier was taken into custody at the scene.

  ‘An autopsy will be performed by Burlington County Medical Examiner Dr. Ian Hood.

  ‘The details of the baby’s birth are being investigated. The investigation is being conducted by detectives from the Pemberton Township Police Department and the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.’

AZ GOP (Republican) vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

AZ GOP vice-hair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

I am right wing and a Republican. Several left wing sites were reporting this story.

If it’s true, it’s strange and hypocritical. Although I am right wing and socially conservative, I do not agree with the habit of other right wingers and conservative Christians who place too much emphasis on family and marriage.

I’m rather puzzled when any right winger speaks out against helping families or single mothers, as this man has done.

Much of the time, right wingers complain about how single women are having abortions, or they complain about how many women are delaying childbearing or choosing to skip motherhood altogether, or they complain about how secularists and liberals are destroying marriage and the traditional family.

I don’t see how a party can on the one hand, say they support those things, but then turn around and want to punish or shame women who get pregnant prior to marriage but rather than have an abortion, decide to keep and raise the baby? That doesn’t make any sense to me, and I am a right wing Republican myself.

This politician’s views also work against the standard Republican or conservative Christian belief that a woman’s only, or most high calling in life, is to be a wife and mother.

You can’t be consistent by saying on one hand you’re deeply disturbed that women are choosing NOT to be mothers and wish they would chose to be mothers, and also arguing that women were created by God to do nothing but pop babies out (that’s supposedly their “highest calling or role in life”), then turn around and say you want to sterilize women so that they cannot be mothers and have babies.

(Link):  AZ GOP vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

by Travis Gettys
Sept 12, 2014

The recalled Arizona senate president who proposed the state’s controversial anti-immigration law said he could fix public assistance programs by forcibly sterilizing women who receive aid and by requiring drug tests for all recipients.

“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

He suggested drastic cuts to food assistance for needy families, (Link): reported Phoenix New Times, and he urged strict limits items that could be purchased what little help was available.

…“No cash for Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, you’d only get money for 15-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and powdered milk – all the powdered milk you can haul away,” Pearce said. “If you want a steak or frozen pizza, then you’d have to get a job.”

He also suggested Spartan accommodations and strict rules for anyone who received government housing assistance.

“Ever live in a military barracks?” he said. “You’ll maintain your property in a clean, good state of repair, and your home will be subjected to an inspection at any time, possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or an X-Box 360, then get a job.”

Despite his apparent endorsement of draconian policies, Pearce insisted he favored a small-government solution to poverty.

(Link):  AZ Republican Wants to Sterilize Poor Women: ‘If You Want to Reproduce, Get a Job!’

(Link):  Arizona Republican Advises Sterilizing Women On Welfare

Edit. Sept 23, 2014:

(Link): Russell Pearce’s resignation isn’t enough for protestors

(Link):  Top Arizona GOPer Russell Pearce resigns after sterilization comments

The far-right former lawmaker who helped push Arizona’s “papers please” immigration law has resigned as a top official with the state GOP after making comments about sterilizing poor women.

Russell Pearce, a former state senator, resigned as the party’s first vice chair late Sunday, the Arizona Republican Party announced.

On Saturday, the state Democratic Party highlighted comments Pearce made recently on his radio show. Discussing the state’s public assistance programs, Pearce declared:
“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

The comments were quickly repudiated by Republican candidates for several statewide offices.

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Related posts:

OFF SITE:

(Link):  It’s come to this: Planned Parenthood now attacking GOP plans to expand access to birth control

THIS BLOG:

(Link): Why Are Conservatives Forcing Mothers From Their Kids? by M. Walther

(Link): Former Democrat Mayor Dennis Doyle Arrested for Possession of Child Porn During Term in Office

(Link):   Family Research Center (Christian group) thinks people (including the Nuclear Family) should be cut off food stamps

(Link):  Judges who Force Insane, Negligent Women, or Addicts to Get Abortions or Undergo Sterilization – Also: Court Ordered Male Sterilization – Being A Parent Does Not Make A Person More Godly, Mature, or Responsible

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link): Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link):  Baby Making Fixation at Christianity Today Magazine Online – Shaming Women For Not Procreating, or For Delaying Motherhood, or For Limiting the Number of Children

(Link):  Editorial at Christianity Today Actually Suggests that It Takes Motherhood To Make A Woman Become Mature / Also: Homeless Mother Stays In Hotel Room and Makes Her Toddlers Sleep on the Street

(Link):  Conservatives and Christians Fretting About U.S. Population Decline – We Must “Out-breed” Opponents Christian Host Says

(Link): Fox News Channel Guest Encourages Female Host To Quit, Get Married, Have Babies – Look, I’m Right Wing, But Also A Never-Married Woman, and I Find This Obnoxious

(Link):  Christian School Fires Single Woman For Having PreMarital Sex But Offers Her Job to Her Single Boyfriend Who They Know Had PreMarital Sex Too (and similar news stories – Re Christian Employers and Sex)

(Link):  Republicans And Women: Single Women Vote Democratic Because They Wish They Were Married, Pundit Says

(Link): Women in Sao Paulo Must Provide Proof of Virginity to Be Hired as Teachers