While many factors have contributed to this truly diabolical, bureaucratic onslaught against the family, we might begin by looking within. The churchesâ?? failure or refusal to intervene in the marriages they consecrated and to exert moral pressure on misbehaving spouses (perhaps out of fear of appearing â??judgmentalâ??) left a vacuum that has been filled by the state. Clergy, parishioners, and extended families have been replaced by lawyers, judges, forensic psychotherapists, social workers, and plainclothes police.
Family integrity will be restored only when families are de-politicized and protected from government invasion. This will demand morally vigorous congregations that are willing to take marriage out of the hands of the state by intervening in the marriages they are called upon to witness and consecrate and by resisting the power of the state to move in. This is the logic behind the group Marriage Savers, and it can restore the churchesâ?? authority even among those who previously viewed a churchâ??s role in their marriage as largely ceremonial…. We all need to atone.
Stephen Baskerville Divorced from Reality
