Almost everyone I know who believes in the tenets of democracy are extremely concerned about the state of family life in America. As reported in a former post, strong families are central to freedom and a strong, functioning democracy. Yet, over the past few years we have seen a serious erosion of family life and family values.
One of the most serious problems in America arises from the high number of couples that are not committed to working through the difficult issues of family life and give up far too soon on working things out. That leads them to either fore go marriage all together of to divorce leaving children with a single mom and, almost always, chronic poverty.
We have all head the dreadful statistics about the many kids being reared without a man in the home. The results of such a situation are awful. Think of it this way. You coach a Little League Baseball Team and can field only four members but the other teams all have nine men on the field against you. Who do you think will win every game?
How can kids reared without male mentoring compete with those who do have a loving father and mother? We know that monkeys separated from a parent in childhood become violent and unable to have natural sexual relationships. Do we not see the same behavior in many communities today?
The single best way to overcome these problems is by empowering churches and other community groups to help couples and families succeed in marriage and family life. Working with the kids is also important but that requires much work by counselors and experts while strengthening families and couples can be achieved with lay leaders.
Every church in America could have a ministry of strengthening couple commitment and family health. If they did, it would turn the nation around in a decade.
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