Future of the Christian Church

Contemporary American society does not value motherhood precisely because it has overlooked the value of children. Children are seen as an optional life-enhancer, status symbol, or as an expendable resource.

Unborn children, under the current federal laws in 2007, incredulously have no rights, even the right to life. They are regularly and legally murdered without protest. Newly born children are seen as a burden to their parents and promptly "outsourced" to a daycare agency, which cannot possibly meet their needs. Children in modern American society are considered an obstacle to the development of their parents' career and financial plans and are therefore deemed undesirable. The society that fails to recognize the long-term consequences of radical individualism it has adopted will certainly suffer from its lack of foresight.

Children are the true wealth of the family, and consequently of society at large, because children are literally the future incarnate. Previous generations have been careful to recognize this and to make elaborate provision for their posterity. Today, investment in the lives of children is seen as inferior to the pursuit of other, more personal goals, such as the acquisition of material wealth or the advancement of the mother's career. Those parents who sacrifice their children's future for those short-term goals will pay a heavy price in the larger perspective as they lose the love and attachment of children who are the hope of their old age.

Today's parents, even Christian parents, seem largely unaware that they are losing valuable time to influence their children and direct them in the way they should go. Young children and teens are nothing if not impressionable, and they carry those early influences with them the rest of their lives. If parents wonder why their children do not hold the same values they do, perhaps it's because they failed to teach those values while the children were young. On the other hand, the haters of God are happy to pick up the slack; to use our own weapons against us, in a manner of speaking. Christian parents who bewail the state of our society ought to seize upon the opportunity to send their children forth "as arrows in the hand of a mighty man." Forming straight arrows takes time and care, and the parents who bother are well rewarded for their efforts.

Various studies have shown to our satisfaction the devastating effects of the demise of family life. A quick glance at a current newspaper shows alarming spikes in violence, plunging test scores in public schools, and a host of social ills we find ourselves helpless to stem. This widespread failure of the family unit imposes a great burden on the entire society which must then provide taxpayer-funded services to close the gap between the needs of youth and the inability of parents to meet them. Sometimes this takes the form of welfare, sometimes rehabilitation in a house of correction, and even years of tax-funded meals in the penitentiary, not to mention the drain on law enforcement resources. That's just the beginning.

What happens to a society that throws away one-third of its future? It perishes and is never seen again. The future, men and women, belongs to those who have children—but even more to those who influence them.

10-18-07