The Crisis Of Family

How are Christian communities to interpret the contemporary crisis of family? Few doubt that the family is in crisis. But a crisis carries both danger and opportunity. Where is the danger? Where is the opportunity? These are questions for Christian communities to discern under the guidance of the Spirit.

But to discern among the various analyses and strategies, or even to create a new path, it is necessary to scrutinize the public debate on family. In order to understand the public debate, we need to set it within the context of its roots.

Tradition versus modernity

The contemporary debate on family has century-old roots in the rise of the so-called "modern world." The modern world defeated what we now call the "traditional world," where family and religion were central and strong in public life. Each of these worlds viewed history and the social structure differently, and therefore differed on the topics of family and religion set within that context.

The traditional world saw society as stable, organic, authoritarian, and religious, with family as central.

History really brought nothing new to the stable society, and change was considered dangerous. Society was also seen as organic, that is, all the parts were connected and everything was bound together. Finally, it was believed that only a strong authority could hold all the parts together and protect the stability of the structure.

The traditional world saw family as the basic building block of society. Family in turn reflected the assumptions of the wider society and was also stable in structure; it was assumed that the model of family could not change. Family was organic; the marriage bond was permanent, with divorce generally forbidden and unthinkable. Finally, it was authoritarian, with the father ruling over wife and children, like the king over the people.

Within this traditional society and family, religion was of great public importance. Religion blessed the social structure, teaching that it reflected the divine order of things. Hence to change any piece of the model, whether for family or for society in general, would not only threaten the social order, it would also violate God's design.

The modern world, by contrast, came to see everything almost in reverse. It saw the society as evolutionary, fragmented, free, and secular, with the individual as central.

History, rather than being a threat, offered the promise of a better future. It would supposedly liberate humanity from its bondage in tradition. We call this belief today the modern doctrine of progress.

The social structure, rather than being organically bound, was seen as fragmented. This thinking led to the separation of religion and society and to a stress on individualism and interest groups over against the earlier stress on the integration of family, community, and institutions. It resulted in the modern doctrine of pluralism.

The modern world rebelled against authoritarianism. It believed that the human good is sought primarily by liberation from restraint, the modern doctrine of freedom.

Family came into ill repute in this modern world, especially among the modern intelligentsia. It was often seen as the residual carrier of the oppressions of traditional society: patriarchy, sexual repression, religious superstition, etc. Marxists and Freudian psychologists, for example, developed powerful critiques of the traditional family. They offered instead a vision of individual freedom and sexual emancipation.

Religion also came into ill repute in the modern world. Like family, it was seen as a carrier of traditional oppressions. One stream of modernism, a soft variant more typical of liberalism, tried only to isolate religion and confine it to the private and personal realm where it would not interfere with secular society. Another stream, a hard variant more typical of communism, often tried to destroy religion entirely, or submit it to state control.

Thus in the vast, century-old traditional-modern debate, family and religion were linked with the traditional worldview against the modern world-view. Originally, conservatives who resisted modernization appealed to family and religion in defense, while those who fostered modernization either marginalized these institutions or directly attacked them.

Right and Left challenges today

Today, however, we have entered into what might be called a crisis of the modern world. In my opinion, the energies that fed the modern view are now exhausted. Secularization is proving shallow and sterile. People feel increasingly powerless against the mega-structure that dominates their lives. Autonomous technology and science (the secular religion of the modern world) now threaten to destroy the world--slowly by ecological contamination or rapidly by nuclear holocaust. And finally, with the triumph of individualism and permissiveness, people feel increasingly lonely and lost.

- The rise of the Right: Within this crisis of the modern world, we see a paradoxical shift in the ideology of the powerful controlling elites of our society. Increasingly they see the social system in crisis, and they are correct. But in order to shore up the social system, they begin to look back to authoritarian ways of protecting the social order.

This is leading to a new coalition between the large corporations, the military, and the political Right. This coalition in turn takes up the theme of family as a way of defending the capitalist system and building the coalition's political base. The coalition also reaches out to build an alliance with conservative religion.

In this view's analysis the United States is under attack on two fronts: 1) the internal threat of a permissive culture; and 2) the external threat of communism. Weak families are seen as crippling the country on both these fronts. They allegedly breed permissiveness, which weakens internal social discipline, and a failure of nerve, which leads to a lack of external determination against communism.

Communism may appear the main enemy, but in this view it is actually a symptom. The real problem is seen as cultural, as a sapping of spiritual energy and discipline in the West by modern secular liberalism. Communism only feeds off this cultural crisis but is still to be resisted with military might. In fact, the impression is often given that the strengthening of military determination against communism actually renews the spiritual energy and discipline of Western culture. Militarism thus becomes a religious ritual of renewal for a culture in crisis, a war god who will save the nation.

Liberals in this analysis are a Trojan horse paving the way for internal cultural collapse and external political domination. The battleground with the liberals begins on the terrain of religion, sexuality, and family. Abortion, sex education, pornography, easy divorce, feminism, and homosexuality are key moral issues attacked by the New Right.

But the Right links its "pro-family" cultural offensive with an anti-Soviet military offensive. Strengthening the traditional family is the foundation for defense against communism. At one extreme, homosexuality and feminism are seen as weakening United States character and thus undercutting the nation's military will to resist.

But if in the New Right analysis the crisis of family and society is fundamentally cultural, the battle is fought on the political field. It is seen ultimately as a contest for control of the state.

Liberals and their radical cousins are seen as building an alliance between big government and therapeutic professionals. As the foundation of family erodes, social problems increase. The professionals then step in, design compensating therapies, and look to the state to implement them. The alleged end result is that the family is further weakened and the state is further strengthened. The basic political conflict in this view, therefore, is between family and government. Ultimately, the pro-government forces are seen as leading us toward totalitarianism. Family is thus the bulwark against totalitarianism.

Perhaps the key leader is this New Right form of the "pro-family" movement has been Phyllis Schlafly. A more theoretical spokesperson is Onalee McGraw, whose work The Family, Feminism, and the Therapeutic State, has been published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Similar views can be found in materials from the Moral Majority or right-wing evangelists like James Robinson. Recently emerging Catholic voices include conservatives like James Hitchcock and the editorial positions of The Wanderer. This thinking is increasingly prevalent in the Catholic charismatic leader Ralph Martin, who draws on Hitchcock's social analysis.

This right-wing view is correct in pointing out the cultural bankruptcy of liberalism, the primacy of the cultural struggle, and the centrality of family for society. But the critique of liberalism points in a dangerous direction when it turns to authoritarianism and militarism as the solution. Indeed, by favoring such militaristic tendencies, it could help blow up all the families of the world.

Further, the New Right offers no critical reflection on the economic dimension of the crisis of family today. Instead, it would give a free hand to the giant corporate forces of the free market system. The cultural battle against permissiveness applies to sexual life but not economics. The failure of the Right to develop a military and economic critique thus opens the door for the New Left view.

- Revision from the New Left. Historically the Left has been indifferent or hostile to family concerns. The left intelligentsia assumed that the traditional family was a problem and sought to liberate people from it. This negative liberation from family appeared most powerfully in recent liberal feminism, which provided little reflection on what form of family, if any, would follow the destruction of the traditional family. Liberal feminism in turn received general left support.

In times past, the left critics of family did not yet feel the impact of the crisis of family. Karl Marx, for example, lived an eminently bourgeois life with his wife and children. Only the present generation of the Left now raises its children in the midst of the modern crisis of family. From them, therefore, we begin to hear the first shoots of an explicitly "pro-family" left theory. At present, this left revisionism on the family question is just beginning. Already it is provoking a virulent debate within the Left. But I assume it will gain increasing support and become in the future the standard left position.

An initial sign of a shift in the view of the family in the liberal-left culture is the recent book by Betty Friedan, The Second Stage. Perhaps the first spokesperson of contemporary liberal feminism, she argues that the women's movement must now bond with men to defend the family. In the author's words, family is "the symbol of that last area where one has any hope of control over one's destiny, of meeting one's basic human needs, of nourishing that core of personhood threatened now by vast impersonal institutions and uncontrollable corporate and government bureaucracies."

A more radical or socialist revision of left theory on family can be found in the fledgling movement led by former Ramparts editor Michael Lerner, called "Friends of the Family." Lerner's movement begins as a reaction to right-wing successes in this area, as signaled by his recent article in the Nation titled "Recapturing the Family Issue." But the statement develops its own theory of the family crisis.

If the New Right sees the crisis of family as fundamentally cultural (loss of spiritual purpose and discipline), the New Left, following Lerner, is beginning to see it as primarily economic. In this view, one might say that the family is hurting because of corporate domination of the macro-economy and male domination of the micro- or household economy. The twin problems are thus capitalism and sexism.

Lerner develops five areas of damage for the contemporary family: workplace stress brought home, a sexist culture where women bear double burdens and lack reproductive rights, the breakdown of community under the mobility of capital and retreat into the fantasy world of television and advertising, economic worries which lead to family violence, and the competitive ethic of capitalism.

Though the theme has not yet been developed by the New Left, it is probable that militarism will also be seen as a threat to the family: draining resources from the society, drawing the young into war, and possibly destroying all the world in nuclear holocaust. A "pro-family" left critique of the growing militarism of the society would probably link militarism with capitalism's need to defend its system in a time of general social crisis.

Thus in the crisis of the late modern world, both Left and Right are becoming "pro-family." They quarrel, however, over the nature of the problem and the solution to it.

For the Right, the problem is basically cultural: the weakening of spiritual energy and discipline in the society, leading first to internal permissiveness and second to communist subversion. The key enemies are liberals and their alliance with the expansive therapeutic state. The solution is to reduce or eliminate the social welfare function of the state, enact explicitly "pro-family" governmental policies (as defined by the Right), and to increase military resistance against the communist threat.

For the Left, the crisis of family is basically economic: capitalist and sexist control over production and reproduction. The enemy is corporate power and its ally, sexism. The solution is to be found with checking corporate power and providing government support for family issues (as defined by the Left). Presumably this would mean a gradual socialization of the economy. In addition, we can assume that the New Left "pro-family" movement will link with the peace movement.

Both interpretations, while claiming different root causes for the crisis of family--one cultural, the other economic--meet on the common field of politics. The Right, using political instruments like the proposed Family Protection Act, hopes to beat back social liberalism and shift government toward a more militaristic and authoritarian form. The Left, as illustrated by Michael Lerner at least, counters with a proposed Family Bill of Rights, in order to defend and perhaps expand an anticorporate and pro-feminist politics centered in the social welfare state.

Reflections for Christian communities

Christian communities should scrutinize the programs of these opposing forces to better understand the colossal struggle over family under way in the modern world. In my opinion, there are strengths and weaknesses in both positions, but in different ways both fall short of the depth of the crisis upon us.

The Right is correct that the basic problem is cultural, but proposes a frightening authoritarian and militaristic alternative. To eliminate permissiveness from sexual and familial culture, it would create a repressive military state. Yet all of this would only protect the autonomous choice of the giant corporations to pursue their economic will without moral accountability, and allow an unbridled military perhaps to destroy our world and all our families with it. Further, by reinforcing sexist relationships, the Right may even prevent families from developing new shared patterns of marriage and parenting, patterns which may prove indispensable for creative survival in the future.

The Left by contrast offers corrective insights. It points out the moral recklessness of the corporate economy and its damage to families. It also challenges the growing militarism. And it searches for new non-sexist and shared ways of parenting and of marriage itself. I am more sympathetic to the search of the Left, but even here there are weaknesses.

The Left fails to examine the deep cultural-spiritual roots of the family and social crisis. It continues to trust in the secular rationalism of the modern world. Despite this initial opening to family, it thinks normally only of individuals and the mass, with little sense of the delicate social fabric of mediating institutions and of the primary theme of community. The Left also betrays a moral shallowness in the sexual area, evidenced by its unwillingness to grant any moral status to unborn children in the abortion debate, and by its generally permissive sexual ethics.

I believe we are called to transcend the left critique from within and move to what may be called a post-modern, or radical-traditional, position on the crisis of family. This would entail among other things founding our analysis and strategy on a richer spiritual vision, and linking the macro-social crisis and the family crisis with the intermediary task of rebuilding human community.

It is not my purpose here to construct such a post-modern or radical-traditional perspective on the crisis of family. But we need to create more places where both the spiritual crisis and the social crisis can be linked in ways that transcend standard left and right categories. There families themselves could reflect on the interpenetrating crisis of family and society and release religious and social energies to transform both.

Joe Holland was an associate at the Center of Concern in Washington, D.C. when this article appeared.