Family Life Resources•Newsletter
| NYM
Ministries
Family Life Resources•Newsletter |
| Subscribe to receive Today's Native Father with all its features FREE, | Articles Index | Read current issue of TNF | |
|
PRODUCT/RESOURCES INDEX |
This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #142, December/January, 2005. Related articles from this issue: |
Houses of Cards: Weak Foundations to Avoid by David Hertzler |
|
Unsound definitions of “marriage.” “Cohabiting (common-law) women have rates of depression more than three times higher than married women and more than twice those of other never-married women.” “Women in cohabiting unions are more than twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence than married women.” “Married men and women each report higher physical and emotional satisfaction with their sex lives than either single or cohabiting men and women.” “The absence of a permanent commitment hinders the development of qualities such as self-sacrifice, empathy and trust that are critical to the success of an intimate union.” -Focus on the Family, April, 1996. Moral Relativism This is the view that right and wrong are matters of individual choice and based on culture. Families building on this foundation often produce children who do not know what is right or wrong. A tribal leader recently admitted that one reason his young people are committing suicide in record numbers is that they do not have a belief system strong enough to guide their lives. Materialism Families building on this foundation view material success and progress as the highest values in life. There is little room for things of the spirit. These families can become obsessed by a desire to obtain material possessions or frustrated by the need to maintain them. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, describes materialism as one of “the most dangerous threats to families in the world.” Permissiveness This shaky foundation is often disguised as “tolerance” or “freedom of choice.” “Permissive parents lead children to drink,” claims a BBC News report, December 15, 1998. In one country, “children whose parents showed them support and love were less likely to try alcohol while those whose parents were less strict about underage drinking were more likely to drink.” Individualism Today technology and a job-rich economy are making families economically independent of each other. Children are being mass-educated in large schools. The elderly are warehoused in nursing homes. The traditional extended family is being split up into nuclear units that have plenty of freedom but little support. Ironically, this individualism does not produce individuality, the ability to stand alone with integrity for what is right. D.J. Tice, Editorial Writer of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, finds this scenario scary and wonders whether “the price of our boundless modern individualism may ultimately be more than society can bear” (March 2, 1994). |
|
