Whose Family Values?

Whose Family Values?
By Ross Coggins

 Ross Coggins is a prolific writer and Christian ethics activist, recently retired from the Foreign Service with the U.S. State Department. He is a former staff member of the Christian Life Commission and prior to that was a Baptist missionary in Indonesia. He and his wife, Doris, have two married daughters and three grandchildren. Native Texans, they now life in Sherwood Forest, Maryland in a new house where his study looks out on the Severn River.

The most cynical con game in the American political arena is Family Values. Politicians who consistently vote against every measure that would really help families campaign shamelessly on the family values platform. Talk-radio demagogues who cater to the lower end of the intelligence scale viciously attack, in the name of family values, those publicly supported programs most supportive of families. The religious right dedicating their pulpits to the proposition that God is a card-carrying member of the Radical Religious Right castigate those in government who promote real solutions to family distress. Churches not identified with political extremists which are, sadly, also non-prophet institutions for the most part, offer tepid and generally ineffective responses to those who would make religion a holy-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. There has been quite enough Christian Coalition harrumphing about family values, as though they held a monopoly in that area. No public figure supports or defends divorce, irresponsible parenthood, welfare cheating, drug abuse, juvenile crime, or any other threat to traditional family values. Conservatives and liberals alike suffer the pain of broken or dysfunctional homes.

William Bennett, author and Reagan administration cabinet member, frequently praises “traditional family values.” In his current book, The Book of Virtues, he cites ten virtues around which our society finds consensus: self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship, work, courage, perseverance, honesty, loyalty, and faith. He calls these virtues noncontroversial and nonpolitical. They are non-political in the sense that the government can do little about them beyond exhortation and example. The churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions can promulgate these values better than the government can. Neither Republican nor Democratic administrations can point to superior results, however, in promoting them.

When it comes to politics, the important question to raise bout family values is, “What steps can government take to strengthen families?” How provide better family health? How undergird family stability? How can Christians support those social structures which enable citizens, particularly the young, to achieve their fullest potential? The reality is that cynical politicians habitually hoodwink many voters into believing that legitimate legislation to strengthen families is somehow a betrayal of conservatism. This is a powerful, logic-defying appeal to many Christians, especially evangelicals. Special interest lobbyists love it when the political dialogue is manipulated to this know-nothing level.

Don’t believe me on this. Go to any good library or to the stacks of a reputable newspaper and read the exact arguments of proponents and opponents of those legislative measures which had the most positive impact on American families. Some of those are listed below. Even something as fundamental as child labor laws had to be achieved over vociferous opposition to this intrusion of government into business. It is the rustiest of ironies that these very forces are generally perceived as the guardians of family values, while the heirs of the early social reformers are unrealistically seen as a negative influence. Thoughtful Christians should ponder the fact that most family-strengthening legislation in this century originated with the innovators, and the advances had to be achieved in the face of spurious appeals to “conservatism.” The following delineation of some of those pro-family advances is offered to help set the record straight. For special emphasis, the list is arranged and displayed to the right on page 27 (Below on the WEB based Journal).

The list could go on.

What Christians know about Jesus tells us that God cares when people suffer and that we should strive to create compassionate responses to suffering. Imagine what the impact would be on families if the advances delineated above were rolled back in the name of “reform” in order to support “Family Values.” Should not a prophetic church true to God’s high calling in Christ Jesus, declare God’s judgment against moves by either political party to take such actions?

There are those in today’s leadership in the Congress who, flushed with victory, have declared that they have a mandate from the electorate to do just that in regard to some of the aforementioned family-strengthening advances. Remember, that mandate was composed of 18% of the nation’s eligible voters. How many Christians support it by their failure to go to the polls and vote?

Of course, some “conservative” politicians broke ranks and supported some of the above achievements or, more often, got on board when the issue was settled in public opinion. Recall Hillary Clinton’s recent reaction to Robert Dole’s strong defense of Medicare, which he felt was threatened by the administration’s health care bill. She reminded the Senator that he had voted against Medicare when it was enacted. No politician today, no matter how impeccable his conservative credentials, can win by attacking Medicare or Social Security or promising to put children back into sweatshops. Today they support what their ideological forebears once fought. It would be political suicide not to do so. This is a time for thoughtful Christians to stand up for family values in the broadest sense, supporting important government initiatives for families and drawing insights from the church to define and strengthen the values and general health of families. “Bleeding hearts” and “do-gooders” may well be the most Christlike folks around. No, bigotry, hate, and lack of compassion are not family values.

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