Site Areas
Wedding Centre
Health Club
Marriage Clinic
Chapel
University
Citizen's Centre
Coffee Shop
Admin Centre

Contents
Articles
Books
CDs / Videos
Tips
Services

Resources
Forums
Membership
Contact Us
Site map
Link to Us

Search

Free Tell A Friend from Bravenet


In association with:

Marriage books and much more from Amazon.co.uk

Celebrate your marriage with flowers!

Set up your Wedding Registry!

Marriage and divorce advice from justask.org.uk

Take our Demographic survey

Family Friendly Site

   Home  > Books

Families at the Crossroads

By Rodney Clapp

What is the family?

This book looks at the impact modernity and postmodernity have had on how we view and experience family today and how Christians can live as family in a way that will make a difference in our society and demonstrate God's love and grace. It is a challenging book that has helped me to begin to make more sense of how my passion for marriage and family, built over many years of ministry in this area, can relate to real life in today's culture. I found reading this book a profoundly disturbing, but exciting and exhilarating experience. I was forced to "think outside the box" of my culture and preconceptions and to trust the author until I had heard him through. The fruits of this have been insights which have helped me to confront doubts and confusions that have troubled me, to rediscover my passion afresh and to make sense of some of the conflict raging around marriage and the family today. Christians reading this book will be challenged to find new ways to live as family together both in their homes and within the church.

In the first two chapters the author challenges us to look critically at our beliefs about family in the light of history and in particular biblical history. He challenges the use by many evangelicals of the term "traditional family" and shows how it in fact refers to the bourgeois middle class family of the nineteenth century. He also looks at the values of today's western society and the influence of modernity and post-modernity on present day attitudes to relationships, marriage and the family. The author argues that the family has taken different shapes and forms over the years and that these have been deliberately constructed to serve particular purposes.

We are left with the question as to whether there is anything natural and unchanging about family that we should be aspiring to, Looking at the work of anthropologists, three constants about the family can be identified. First of all it delineates specific bonds which controls the effects of our natural sex drives and sexual competitiveness, removing individuals from sexual competition and availability, thus bringing order in society. Secondly it provides a safe environment for children to grow and be prepared for life in society. Family has proved over the years to be the most efficient way to reproduce and rear children. Thirdly men and women are different, something even now admitted by the feminist movement, and family provides structures that help them to deal with those differences by complementary division of roles, labour and goods.

While the experts identify these characteristics as natural, the author argues that natural to us is not instinctive as it is in the animal kingdom, where animals are driven by biological necessity. Humans are more subject to social influences and human family derives its naturalness from social necessity. Parents, church and nation influence our perception of what is natural or best serves the survival of the family line, the mission of the kingdom or the state respectively. Since our view of what is natural is coloured by these differing influences then conflict and difference of opinion is bound to arise. In the postmodern world we are therefore to be found arguing over which form of family should be preserved, supported by law, taxation policy and the media.

What as Christians can we bring to this debate? We believe that what is good and true about the family is revealed through the biblical story of God's people and Jesus himself. The author summarizes what can be said by the church - the creation of the family was by God in Eden, the fall marred the family before it had reached its full potential. This has obscured our vision of what is good and natural about family, and we need to look to the kingdom as taught by Jesus. The hope of the world lies not in the biological family itself, but in Jesus and the kingdom that he inaugurated, lived out today by the people of God, the church. The challenge to the church is to recognise the influence of its contemporary culture and to look beyond these to the absolutes, the God given plan and order, and how these can be lived out in the time and place it finds itself in. The church acts as an "ark" offering to all a sense of direction and hope in our fragmented world.

The lost art of Christian family

Order now from Amazon.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.


In this book
- Review

Sample Chapter
- What is the family?
- The lost art of Christian family
- The Superiority of Singleness
- Covenant or Contract Fidelity
- Family - Open Door or Private Haven

More Books
- How to Enjoy Your Retirement
- Women, Men and Marriage
- Rainbows through the Rain
- The Sixty Minute Mother

Hot Picks
- 6th National Relationship Education Conference
-
- Take the Couple Check-up!
- Marriage first aid
-
- Marriage help for friends
- Deepen your love & marriage

Discuss
- Marriage news from around the world
- Coffee Shop Chat - have some fun!!
- Marriage Problems - ask for help!
- Visit the Index

Send to Friend

E-Mail this page to a friend


 2-in-2-1 Today
Take our Couple Checkup - put your relationship on strong foundations by checking out the strengths and growth areas!
Difficulties communicating? - 55 cards to improve your couple communication
What people say about 2-in-2-1 - we thrive on your feedback!
Couples Wanted!! - for TV and press enquiries - tell your story!
Cyber sex and Internet addiction - is the internet threatening your marriage??

Top

Copyright ©1999-2024 2-in-2-1 Limited. All rights reserved. Disclaimer Privacy Statement