Because we live in an era of rampant family disintegration, multitudes of pro-family groups and organizations-—American Family Association, Focus on the Family, Family Council, etc.—have sprung up in recent decades. While each organization has a specific purpose, the majority of these groups seem to have an underlying theme: restore the American family to its traditional biblical moorings.

Someone once said: “As the family goes, so goes society.” How true! As the family has gradually disintegrated throughout the Twentieth Century and in the early part of this new millennium, so has society. The divorce rate in the last 110 years has gone from under ten percent to over fifty percent. Illegitimate births since the 1960s have climbed more than 400 percent, domestic violence has increased more than 320 percent, the percentage of children abandoned has quintupled and teen suicides have ballooned more than 200 percent.¹

Contrary to media bias and government propaganda, these family problems are not economic and not due to a lack of government intervention. These problems are ethical and spiritual in nature. They are the product of decades of unbelief and apostasy caused primarily by weak pastors, who have helped secular humanism and post-modernism replace Christianity as the predominant world view. The result: man’s de-valuation of God’s first institution—the family.

The late Ronald Reagan understood the gradual de-sensitizing of sin, which has fostered the current unraveling of the family. He strongly advocated returning to our roots:  

Strong families are the foundation of society. Through them we pass on our traditions, rituals, and values. From them we receive the love, encouragement, and education needed to meet human challenges. Family life provides opportunities and time for the spiritual growth that fosters generosity of spirit and responsible citizenship ... Let us summon our individual and community resources to promote healthy families capable of carrying on these traditions and providing strength to our society.²

Sound advice ... perhaps we should heed it.

—Jerry Schaeffer

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¹Grant, George, The Family Under Siege. Grand Rapids: Bethany House (1994), p. 35. 

²Reagan, Ronald (U.S. President), Proclamation 5281: National Family Week, November 15,1984.