Home

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

The Family Idol

by Ken Ewert

The growth of homeschooling over the past two decades is a wonderful providence of God. Thousands of Christian families have taken their children out from under the tutelage of God-denying fools and are now training warriors for Christ's kingdom. This is no small step forward. These young men and women will be leaders. They will be influential as their lives grow out of the soil in which they have been rooted.

The advance of homeschooling in the past twenty years is part of the bigger picture of Christians embracing their God-given responsibilities as parents. This renewed resolve on the part of homeschooling and non-homeschooling parents alike is cause for rejoicing. It is good, and yet, it is not enough. By itself, and without proper relationship to the church, the family movement will not yield sustainable good fruit.

"Family values" has become the code name in American culture for Evangelical Christianity. This is not good news. It is a reduction of the gospel—the power of God unto salvation—to a message of moralism which, of course, is no gospel at all. Instead of Jesus Christ and his word as the foundation of all, we have "moral values" at the centre. And instead of the church of the living God being the "pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15) we have the family as the foundation of all things good. All we need to do is "turn our hearts toward home," and everything will be just fine.

Now we have the family school, the family business, and, increasingly, the family church. The first two entities are legitimate; the third is not. The family as the church has at least two variants. The first is the "home church." Those who take this path reject the authority of the institutional church and set up shop for themselves. Now Dad conveniently wields not only the rod, but also the keys of the kingdom. This is wrong, dangerous, and idolatrous.

The church is founded not on our common blood lines but on our common baptism: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:27-28). In putting on Christ we put on allegiances to a new family, and these loyalties transcend those towards the family we were born into.

God has declared that the water of baptism is indeed thicker than blood: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26, s.a. 18:29). The responsibilities we now have to love "one another" go beyond our individual family and may even cause us to side against our family. To "shrink" the church to the confines of one's own family is to reject the Spirit's work in the church and substitute a false church. The waters of baptism are wider than the family's blood lines. Christ's church is bigger than my family.

The second variant of "the family as church" is more common, but a little harder to recognize. These families do belong to local churches, but they see the church as having value and authority only insofar as it contributes to their family. Their involvement in the church is one more choice they have made to have the best for their children. The church has value in the same way that piano lessons are good for Sam and a math tutor is good for Linda. The church helps them produce good kids.

Because these parents do not understand their organic connection to Christ's body, they see all fellowship, responsibilities, and ministry within the body as optional. Will I take part in the men's meeting or ladies prayer? Will we practice hospitality and take someone into our home this Sunday? Will we serve with the church at the food bank? It all depends on how these things contribute to my family.

This too is making an idol of the family. This too posits the family as the true church—the true body of Christ. And this too rejects the Spirit's work. He has made one body, with many members who lay down their lives to edify one another with their gifts (1Cor 12). The Spirit has created the church. We have created "family-ism."

Homeschoolers will produce leaders. But what kind of leaders will we produce? Those of us who love Christ's church will produce Spiritual leaders who will speak prophetically to a society dissolving in individualism. But families who embrace "family-ism" will train up offspring whose power is not in the Spirit but in their individualism. Having roots trained to grow up and inwards, rather than down and outwards into the rich soil of Christ's body, they will find their descendants to be far too insular, self-absorbed, and culturally impotent. This is not the generational fruit anyone hopes for.

"Family-ism" has been birthed by a wayward church that has forgotten who she is. The problem is first and foremost with the church, not the family. Rather than edify the body through the faithful preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and the practice of church discipline, the church has reduced herself to a family-centred ministry.

But the church is not a para-family ministry. She is not merely a combination of various families. She is not, as one church has named herself: "Households of Faith." She is the family of God, "the household of faith" (Gal. 6:10). The church is the fulness of Him who fills all in all (Eph 1:23). The church has been given the keys of the kingdom to bind and loose on earth so that it may be bound or loosed in heaven (Matt 16:19).

The family as an idol will fall. The Lord shall cause a reformed and reforming church to provoke families away from this error and towards true reformation: "They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation" (Deut 32:21).

Return to Volume 9, Number 2.