Greeting brothers and sisters in Christ! Please read this short message, and then see below for upcoming fellowship opportunities.
Every day the world around us shows us how far it is removed from God's ways, and every day we find ourselves more in need of deliberate realigning with His desires for us and our families. We are called to be salt and light, so completely removing ourselves from the World is not usually an option - we must be 'in it', but not 'of it'. We need to encourage each other on that road, and that is why Biblical Families exists. We do not want to be only focused on plural marriage, though that is an important part of how we support folks, it's not the primary identifier for those of us in it, nor should it be for anyone. We have recently restated our focus on God's patriarchal order, which is how every 'Biblical' family should want to order themselves. We had a great discussion on this at our recent summer retreat, where we traced the history of patriarchy and the enemy's attempts to destroy our families, and society, by denying the virtue of God's ways.
Indeed, the word itself is now a completely negative trigger, even in the modern church - a search for "biblical argument for patriarchy" returns mostly negative references. Those Christians who do still favor a form of male headship in the home, prefer "complementarianism" or just "traditionalism" in a wistful nod to the 1950s. I don't want to get into semantics here, or talk about the civic realm of patriarchy, what we are focused on is the God-given roles for men and women in the home - and specifically calling out men to lead their wives and children, with love, in a way that brings security and peace. Is 1 Corinthians 11:3 an eternal truth, or was it a cultural nod from Paul? Obviously, we believe the former, and we need to not be afraid to state it, and live it, and be ready to be reviled for it. And as we were reminded at the retreat, we men need to be clear in how we submit to our own head - we are not the ultimate authorities in our own homes, if Christ leads.
In our retreat discussion (sorry if you missed it, try to join us another time!) we found a lot of agreement around the idea that the modern movement away from patriarchy had deep roots in the Industrial Revolution - taking men out of the home for longer periods, and giving women jobs with another authority. We are not saying it's wrong for women to work outside the home in any particular situation - just that it was a societal factor in moving us away from a more Biblical order. These roots then blossomed with the full sexual revolution and feminism around the 1960s.
Mostly likely this is not new to you, and you agree with it - but you also see how tough it can be to maintain the structure we want in our homes, when all the world attacks what we think is good, through every form of media and entertainment. This is where we need to stand firm.
Immediately after the retreat I had an interesting experience. We visited a conservative farming Mennonite community in rural southern Tennessee. (Horse and buggy conservative - you would think they were Amish if you didn't know your Anabaptist groups.) It was a very moving experience for me - my roots for several hundred years are fully in persecuted European Anabaptists. They have 20+ stores in a small area, and we sampled food, drove by their open-window schoolhouse, and saw many men and boys at work, and women grinding food in their front yards (it was a hot day, and they don't do A/C - some solar or generator for refrigeration is allowed). Several stores had their literature out (including "The Snare of the Smartphone" - they are not wrong!) for outsiders to take. But of most interest to me were these 2 small booklets, which I cannot find digitally:
A God Centered Marriage, The Wife's Role
A God Centered Marriage, The Husband's Role
These short volumes are awesome, even though their context is primarily farm-centered family life, and I wish we could have some of the contributors (they are compilations from wives and husbands) come participate with us.
I asked myself how do they still get these roles so right, so Biblical? And the answer was obvious: they skipped the Industrial Revolution (and nearly everything since!), and they keep the outside world's distractions to a bare minimum. You know why they don't have cars, yes? It's not because gas motors are somehow evil, they don't think that - it's because the ease of travel outside of community leads to a level of engagement with the world that they know is seductive and distracting. The same reasons, of course, for television and the Internet.
I am not proposing we go "full Amish", though many of us see the benefit in some level of self-reliance, and I also appreciate the benefit of community, and wish it was more available to those of us living plurally. What I am pointing out is the reality of the world's distractions, and how they affect us in our homes daily. Let us be aware of how at odds with God's patriarchal order nearly everything we receive from the outside is - and be wise at how we protect our families from as much worldly garbage as possible. Let's discuss this online.
