While marriages between men and women are the primary source of society’s bedrock values, this critically important institution is under a mighty assault today. Divorce, substance abuse, domestic violence, negligence in fulfilling family responsibilities, and a myriad of other failings occur too often in marriages. Such failings occur with equal frequency among churchgoers and non-churchgoers. Consequently, in our day the very foundation of society is threatened. For without the purest forms of compassion, mercy, cooperation, commitment, and sacrifice flowing out of strong marriages, there are seriously reduced prospects for the endurance and expansion of a just and civil society.
Role of the Church
It is imperative that churches redouble their efforts to encourage strong marriages. As the guardian and teacher of God’s truth, churches are the place where the secular and the spiritual meet. In His perfect wisdom, God has ordained the ecclesia, His called-out people, to teach His truth to the entire world and to model those values that honor Him. If the churches fail in either of these responsibilities, society will suffer.
According to the U.S. Census, the non-marital birth rate has gone up by 223.6 percent between 1970 and 1998. Between 1970 and 1998, the number of single-parent families has increased by 190.2 percent, and the number of children living with unmarried couples went up by 665 percent.
Christians need to recognize their divine importance in God’s grand design for humanity and recommit themselves to building strong marriages, strengthening weak ones, and restoring broken ones. On the heels of its primary responsibility to reach the entire world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the church’s next most critical contribution to society is its responsibility to lay a foundation for the building of strong marriages. It is my prayer that God would equip and empower us by His Holy Spirit to be instruments that encourage rock-solid marriages built on the foundation of the Solid Rock—the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dr. Richard D. Land is President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
* Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New York: Doubleday, 2000); Judith S. Wallerstein, Julie Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion, 2000); Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, The Divorce Culture (New York: Knopf, 1996).
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