Biblically Decentralizing the Nuclear Family

 

Evangelical Christianity has idolized the nuclear family. 

 

For those unfamiliar with the term, a nuclear family (also called the elementary family, atomic family, or traditional family) is a two-parent household consisting of a father, mother, and their children. This family unit, which is both deeply valuable and profoundly biblical, has been around since the days of Adam and Eve. But in a post-Christian culture where family values have been under attack, it’s been increasingly easy to become so defensive that we find our sense of identity and security in something God created rather than the Creator Himself.

We’ve all been there. We want to be godly men, women, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers. We want to show the world what the family was meant to be. We want to garner praise and celebration from our fellow church members as we cross milestones and enter into new life stages. But how much of your church subculture revolves around these goals?

Making a Good Thing the Ultimate Thing

As Scott Sauls, writer for Relevant Magazine, argues, “In the modern West, faith communities have been known to elevate the nuclear family as the apex of human existence…But like any good thing, when family becomes the main thing, it can cause more harm than good.”

The nuclear family has been dismantled by our society. And though the family structure God designed is worth protecting, I often wonder if Christians have felt such a need to defend the family unit that they have lost sight of why it’s worth protecting. Instead of holding the nuclear family in high esteem because of how it points to a greater eternal reality, we mistake the metaphor for the end goal. 

Identifying Idols

You may be reading this and thinking, “Not my church. Not me!” 

And to this, I simply ask: How do we know? What are the warning signs that something has become an idol?

For years, I thought that only immoral, corrupt, or evil things could be idols because God gave us good and godly things to enjoy. But even good things can become idols when we place too much stock in them. Something has become an idol when you find yourself placing heavenly expectations on earthly things. This can be identified by simply observing your reactions when expectations aren’t met.

• When your child rebels, what is your immediate gut reaction?
• When your spouse lets you down again, what do you feel?
• When your parent restricts freedom or oversteps a boundary, what emotions arise?
• When your sibling does that thing they always do, how do you respond?
• When you attend another wedding or baby shower where your friend’s longing is fulfilled while you’re still waiting, where does your mind go?

If the impulse that comes up is panic, devastation, rage, despair, overwhelm, or a compulsion to regain control, then there may be an idol at play. In cases like these, the unmet desire itself isn’t wrong. We were created for heaven, and it’s valid to find earth lacking. But we can’t keep seeking little “g” gods when we have an almighty God that fulfills all our needs!

Objectifying Outcasts to Win Culture Wars 

Idols like these often extend past our individual hearts and become strongholds for entire churches, communities, and cultures. The symptoms of collective idolatry are felt most by the outcasts, who become the symbols of our culture wars. We stop seeing unwed mothers and foster kids as people and start seeing them as case studies to prove our points, win our arguments, and reclaim our governments.

But family, the way God intended it to function, was meant to include the outcasts, not objectify them. As Christians, we are part of a spiritual family that transcends gender, class, race, culture, role, and ethnicity. The Bible speaks of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all believers and how we can relate to one another as members of God’s family.

Decentering the Nuclear Family

If we create church communities with the nuclear family at their center, then anything else feels abnormal, weird, or even otherworldly. Our subcultures and unspoken rules orbit around each person finding their place as wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers. Anyone who can’t claim those titles feels like they don’t belong. 

We need places where families can be strengthened and marriages can be fortified. There is a place for that – but it’s not at the center. 

When our subcultures center upon the nuclear family, weddings become like our Superbowl, and baby showers become like our Olympics. This is evident in our family-friendly media. 

When Pedestals Crumble

For the Duggar family, stars of 19 Kids and Counting, the wedding and birth episodes were the highest-grossing by a landslide, but at what cost? Jill Duggar, whose wedding and children’s births were captured for the world to see, just released a book called Counting the Cost, documenting the toll this took. Her family was seen as the “perfect Christian family” that every Christian family wanted to be. And though their family unit of 19 kids could be dismissed as merely a caricature, there are ways in which this desire to be a good-standing Christian family has seeped into all of our lives. While some people live out their faith through extraordinary adventures as missionaries and traveling evangelists, the litmus test many of us feel the pressure to live up to makes us ask questions like:

• Am I a good role model as a godly man or a godly woman?
• Does my marriage inspire others in my community? Are we a Christian power couple?
• Are my kids well-behaved? Do they exude the Christian values I’ve instilled in them?
• Does my behavior, dress, demeanor, and involvement gain church member’s approval and praise? Does my spouse’s? Do my kids?

Though these desires tend to have the best intentions at their core, they also reveal our deep needs to prove ourselves, gain approval, and display what people want to see, even if our reality is a lot messier.

The Centralization of Family Harms Everyone

For the Duggar family, many viewers felt betrayed when reports of sexual misconduct began to surface, revealing that their shiny, happy exterior was far more complex than it had appeared. This family, who had become a figurehead for an unattainable goal, then felt the wrath of idealists whose ideal was shattered and cynics whose suspicions were confirmed. 

But the story of the Duggars revealed that we all suffer when our church cultures place the nuclear family at their center. In this unfortunate ecosystem, no one is left unharmed. The unmarried adults, widows, divorcees, and blended families feel like they don’t belong. And at the same time, the men and women who have taken on their godly roles as wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers feel an insurmountable pressure to perform. When their marriage is in shambles, and their kids are in crisis, they feel like they have failed. When the nuclear family is central, even those who fit well into this framework are harmed. 

The Freedom to Desire More for Ourselves

We should care that our idolatry harms outcasts. But we should also recognize that we are all crushed by our own idolatry. The solution isn’t to throw out the nuclear family entirely, nor is it to cling on for dear life. The solution is to create church communities that hold the value of family in its proper place, allowing space to honor the God-given gift of family, space to authentically heal from devil-driven dysfunction, and space to find a home within a spiritual family no matter how you fit (or don’t) into a nuclear family.

When faced with the problems and challenges of our day, American ideals like the Leave it to Beaver family uplift a nuclear family as the answer. Alternatively, deconstructivist ideologies propose a sharp divergence from the traditional family as the answer. However, if we are to discover the true answer, I am urging us all to reject this false dichotomy and realize that biblically, we must approach the topic from an entirely different perspective. We can appreciate the gift of the earthly family while allowing it to point us toward a heavenly family. When these ideals are in their proper place, we can enjoy the benefits of both without placing our heaven-sized dreams on earth-bound functions. 

As with most earthly conundrums, the answer is not in becoming content with less, as our philosophers and realists are so bound to suggest. Instead, the biblical answer to every earthly problem is almost always to believe there is even more available to us when we lift our eyes. Family can get messy, and not fitting into a family can feel even messier. So, when we are freed from the compulsion to fit ourselves and others into this mirage of displaced dreams and disproportionate expectations, we can experience the rejuvenating freedom to simply show up as we are and let God show off.

Join In The Discussion!

Whether this post made you angry or enthusiastic – whether it felt like someone was attacking the thing you hold most dear or whether someone was finally putting words to something you’ve felt for years – there is more to come. This is merely the first installment in a series of posts exploring the role of family within the church…And it might not be going where you think it’s going. So come back each week to tune into the discussion and leave your comments below telling me what you thought I missed or how these concepts have impacted your life and church, too!