Sexuality, Marriage and Family Life: Pastoral Guidelines

The REC extends special recognition to Dr. Melvin Hugan, who was the original drafter of this document. The basic structure and much of the content is his. Dr. Hugan is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Care and Counseling at Calvin Theological Seminary.

Pastoral Guidelines for Sexuality, Marriage and Family Life

Marriage and the family are in a severe crisis today in many areas in the world. One can even speak of a global crisis. It undoubtedly started in the Western world. In the wake of the first and second industrialization, boosted by the developments of the mass media and by the explosion of knowledge and information, a tidal wave of secularism washed over the Western world, affecting all facets of life and in particular family life. The Christian norms have lost their binding force on most of the people in the West. Sexuality has been dissociated from marriage and has become an object of desire and pursuit in its own right. Many people see marriage itself no longer as a permanent, life-long union, but rather as an experiment that may or may not succeed. Divorce belongs to the order of the day. Today the family is threatened in its very existence. Its very structure and fabric are in danger of breaking down and dissolving.

Although this whole process of the break-down of the family pattern started in the Western world, it is no longer restricted to the West. In the so-called emerging countries – after the period of colonization, which to a large extent left the traditional family patterns unharmed – industrialization and urbanization have caught on with a vengeance. The largest cities today are found in the Third World! Traditional ways of life, often having a stable, extended family as their basis, are giving way to different lifestyles that not only exchange the extended family for the nuclear family but also accept many of the disruptive values of the West. The result is a continuing disintegration of family life, a shockingly increased divorce rate and wide-spread single parenthood.

Therefore the Reformed Ecumenical Council of Harare, 1988, on the basis of an international study report, adopted the following pastoral guidelines, intended as a help for its member churches in every part of the world. Naturally these guidelines should not be regarded and treated as a ‘new law’. They are meant to help the family of Reformed people in finding a truly Christian attitude towards family life and all that is part of it. For these reasons the guidelines cover the following four areas: a. sexuality – humanity as a bi-unity, b. marriage, c. the nurture of children, and d. the family and the Kingdom of God.

A. Sexuality – humanity as a bi-unity

‘Male and female He created them’, we read in Genesis 1:27. Maleness and femaleness belong to the very essence of ‘man’ (Adam) as created by God. In this central statement of the biblical revelation on the creation of humanity as a bi-unity various strands are intertwined. God created man and woman as two different sexes, which implies that the whole or total human personality carries the ’stamp’ or ‘mark’ of being masculine or feminine. This is not only a biological attribute, nor is it an attribute related only to sexual intercourse within marriage. When we use the term ’sexuality’ it has this encompassing connotation.

This all-encompassing ’stamp’ or ‘mark’ does not mean that in every society man or woman has an identical place or task. For instance, in Balinese society there are many tasks performed by women, which in other societies are done by men, such as carrying heavy sacks or working in the field, while men may be taking care of the children or acting as midwife. In the Minankabau society in West Sumatra, the highest position in a family is occupied by a woman and not a man. Apparently societal and cultural developments assign different tasks and positions to men and women. This does not alter the fact, however, that even then the whole personality of the person concerned carries the ’stamp’ or ‘mark’ of being masculine or feminine.

In all cultural settings it is the responsibility of the church to take care of members in all relationships. Men and women of God must be given normal, spontaneous and liberating opportunities to develop their God-given potential of being man or woman in the full sense of the word. The church should provide sufficient opportunities for members of both sexes to participate in church activities. ‘Integrated’ adult Bible study groups and youth groups, for instance, provide good educational settings for the cultivation of normal relationships between the sexes. In such settings leaders should consciously try to underplay the cultural obsessions with erotic sexuality. Only when this is done will the church develop an atmosphere in which single men and women are accepted as full persons and not as individuals who have somehow missed the mark, because they have not entered into marriage. Single persons, apart from marriage, may find in the body of Christ a communal fulfillment that gives full expression to their humanity.

Each man and each woman is a complete image of God. Therefore, being single does not mean an incomplete humanness. Yet the differentiation into two sexes does mean that man and woman are attracted by and to each other. In seeking and finding each other, they fulfil an intention of the Creator. Sexuality, in both the total and the restricted physiological sense, plays its own indispensable part in this process (cf. the Song of Songs!). Yet it is evident from Scripture that it is God’s rule that sexual intercourse belongs within that life-long, committed relationship that we call marriage. This relationship is governed by the norm of ‘troth’ (implying faithfulness, trust, respect, honesty, loyalty), which includes the call to sexual fidelity in the more restricted sense.

It is evident from Scripture itself that the ‘form’ of marriage in many ways is different from what we find in contemporary society. Today a marriage is solemnized by the state, either directly (the couple goes to an official of the state) or indirectly (the pastor acts as the representative of the state). In the Bible it is much more a family matter, although even then it is afterwards recognized by the community as an official marriage-relationship. In the Old Testament we even encounter forms of polygamy. Therefore, the various parts of the Mosaic Law which deal with the relationships between men and women cannot always be applied directly to our present cultural setting.

In addition, the church should realize that the external form of a marriage is not the decisive factor. The content and the quality of the marriage is always determinative. Even so the value of the ‘form’ should not be depreciated. In whatever way a marriage may be contracted, once it is contracted, it is a relationship that is determined by the biblical norm of troth.

The Church’s tasks concerning human sexuality

1. The church, therefore, must proclaim clearly and unambiguously that sexuality is a wonderful gift of God, intended for the enrichment of human life. This gift is not restricted to marriage, but is present whenever a man and a woman, or a boy and a girl fall in love with each other. When they decide to share their lives in the bond of marriage, they may enjoy this gift to the full in the mutual sharing of their lives. Their life-long, one-flesh union gives them the time, space and support to grow in receiving and giving love and thus to meet their deepest needs for intimacy.

2. The church must proclaim clearly and unambiguously that according to Scripture sexual intercourse belongs to marriage alone and that, therefore, premarital and extramarital sexual relations are disorderly conduct. In this area of life, too, God’s rule is fitting, orderly and wholesome, and corresponds to our own deepest created nature and to the structures of family and society.

3. Because marriage was instituted to be a union of one man and one woman, any third person disrupts the marriage, whether this third person be concubine, another wife, a lover, or a casual sexual contact. Adultery has the power to tear asunder the unity of marriage. It is the foolishness of sin that leads some to believe that they can love two people at the same time and that the quality of the marriage relationship need not suffer by the formation of a similar relationship to another.

4. The church must make clear the destructive effects of promiscuity upon the human personality as well as upon social relationships. Recreational sex alters sexuality from a force which draws one to another and binds the one to the other, into a force that turns the person into her or his own self, promoting isolation, loneliness, and self-love.

5. The church must seek to prevent the growing prevalence of unwed parenthood. Promiscuity is a major source of this kind of parenthood. Children who are born and grow up without a father or, in some cases, without a mother, are often the result of sexual freedom that does not restrict intercourse to marital relationships. When social attitudes change and it becomes acceptable to be sexually active outside of life-long, committed relationships, the incidence of birth to unwed mothers and fathers multiplies rapidly. The social, educational, economic, and spiritual consequences for both the child and the parent are well-documented. Teenage pregnancies and unwed parenthood are major factors in family poverty, child abuse, and unstable adult relationships. Single parents experience role-demand overloads; there is not enough time, energy or skill to do all that must be done. The children bear much of the brunt of the sexual freedom of the parent. In its preaching and teaching the church must make clear the tragic results of this way of life and make clear that this kind of life is against the will of God, thus trying to prevent such problems.

It is also the responsibility of the church, however, to minister to those who are experiencing these problems. Realizing that we are all ‘fallen’ people, the church must provide the support and the additional parenting that the single parent family lacks. It must encourage the congregation to stand around these parents and these children in a spirit of love and compassion.

6. The church must see that adequate biblical sex education is provided for its youth. Such education should primarily aim at teaching the young people that the core of the relationship between a man and a woman is marital troth as a mutual sharing of selves. Sexuality is part of this mutual sharing of selves. Within this context the church should address the nature and purpose of sexuality as well as the social, psychological, and moral consequences of misuse. The church also has the duty to train the young people in right living, which means in this case ‘how to say No’. The church must train them in dealing with peer pressure, in resisting social norms about sexuality, in making with other young people mutual covenants on chastity, and in holding each other accountable for their behavior. The role of peers in maintaining right conduct can be as powerful as the role of peers in inducing wrong.

7. The church must hold out hope to those who are caught in the many forms of sexual addiction. Sexuality can become a power that enslaves and constricts freedom. It can overcome the will and render persons helpless. Such addictions, not unlike those of alcohol, can have powerful effects on marriage and family life. The church must communicate the liberating power of the Gospel through confrontation and hope and, above all, through a love that sets them free.

8. Today the larger community increasingly sees homosexual behavior as an acceptable variant of sexual behavior or at least is willing to tolerate it as such, the church must maintain that sexuality as willed and intended by God is that between a man and a woman. Homosexuality is not an alternative form of sexuality, but it is a divergence from the order that God established in his creation. In the face of the changing morality in society at large, the church must continue to say this. At the same time, however, the church must give evidence that it is aware of the heavy burdens its homosexual members have to bear in a life of sexual abstinence. They often feel very lonely and frustrated, either by not daring to tell others that they are homosexually inclined or by not being understood and not being able to fulfil the sexual urges they see in themselves. The church must support them in a loving and understanding way, accepting them as full members of its community, surrounding them by its prayers and offering them the warmth and security of the communion of the saints.

9. One of the fearful consequences of the so-called sexual freedom and its concomitant behavior may be the contracting of venereal diseases or AIDS. The latter is a disease that is caused by a virus living in those cells of the human body that defend us from infections and cancers. Today in all cases the illness is fatal, for no cure has yet been found. It is likely that during the next decade most Christian communities, at least in Europe, North America and Africa, will be in touch with people who are infected by AIDS. Some will have contracted AIDS through sinful behavior, both through homosexual and heterosexual promiscuity, and from improper drug use. Other victims of AIDS suffer through no fault of their own. They may have been infected by a spouse or a parent, or by a blood transfusion. Reformed Christians will have to face the challenges of how to deal with victims of this disease.

The first challenge is for forgiveness for victims who acquired the disease through their own sinful behavior. Unfortunately Christian congregations so far have a bad record. AIDS victims coming from a Christian background usually testify that other members of the congregation, sometimes including even their own families, show them condemnation and repulsion rather than compassion. While these victims are already overloaded with feelings of guilt, rejection, loneliness and alienation, the compassion of the Christian community is withheld from them as well. Christians belonging to the Reformed community, and in particular the office-bearers within this community, should always remember that their Savior also died for their own sins. He did not turn away from them, because they are tainted by sin and guilt, but came to seek those who were lost. Christians therefore should follow his example and offer to the victims of AIDS not only understanding, patience and love, but above all the hope of the Gospel.

The second challenge is to care for the victims. The churches must educate their members about the disease, so that unreasonable fears may be quieted. They should understand the progress of the disease and develop methods of care, so that God’s love may be shown to the unfortunate victims of this epidemic.

10. The church may never forget that its first task is always to hold forth this hope of the Gospel. Although God’s law and his Gospel are inseparable and it is the task of the church to preach them both, the primary task of the church is to proclaim the Gospel of God’s forgiveness. This Gospel covers all our sins, also the sins of our sexual life. The apostle John writes: ‘If any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’ (I John 2:2).

B. Marriage

Part of God’s creative activity was the institution of a normative structure for the family. Central to that normative structure is the marital relationship. All other family relationships grow as limbs from the well-rooted trunk, formed by the uniting of a man and a woman in marriage. The Scriptures also indicate that procreation is to occur within marriage and that the responsibility for the nurture of children belongs primarily to this same marital pair.

A stable marriage is the foundation on which the family is built. The Biblical principle is clear: ‘Persons who marry should remain faithful to each other as long as they both shall live’. This means that the norm of ‘troth’, which implies loyalty, devotion, trust, commitment and care is the key to the development of a good marital relationship. Fidelity should not only be understood in the negative sense of not committing adultery, but it should first be understood in the positive sense of cultivating and nurturing mutuality, sharing and emotional openness. At the root of sexual infidelity is often the lack of understanding of and obedience to this fundamental norm which governs marital relationships in their totality. The covenantal nature of the marriage vows and their concrete implications have to be worked out in these relationships. In this task the church has an important guiding, admonishing, supporting and educational role.

In doing this the church should constantly bear in mind that there is an increasing variety of family forms, in particular within industrialized societies. These changing family forms, roles and relationships are often not due to the individual actions of people alone, but are primarily a result of larger factors in society, beyond control of the individuals themselves. Such factors include urbanization, industrialization, increased educational achievement (especially for women), the increased participation of women in the workplace, secularization, etc. To understand and respond effectively to the changes, the church needs to be aware of the enormous impact of such structural factors.

Mainly due to them the numbers of singles, couples without children (whether by choice or not), and single parent families, especially those headed by women, have increased and will continue to do so. The church may not ignore these changing patterns but must address them seriously, positively support them and incorporate them equally into the life of the church.

There is also a great increase in non-marital relationships. Especially among young people, but sometimes also among the older ones, cohabitation seems to become ‘another form’ of marriage. Not all cases of cohabitation, however, are identical. It makes a difference whether a couple starts living together while not married, having promised faithfulness to each other but not being ready yet to make the promise publicly before the official of the state and/or in the presence of the congregation, or whether they, by way of trial, live together on a non-committal basis. The former case relativizes marriage less because of the intention of getting married at some later stage. The latter case exhibits no similarity with marriage, because there is no real promise of fidelity and permanency.

Although the church cannot accept either of these forms as a legitimate replacement of marriage, it nevertheless may not ignore these members but should continue to deal with them in a pastoral way. It should encourage them to accept the responsibility of the marriage vows and thus establish a family nucleus that is in conformity with God’s purposes and is recognized by the entire community.

The churches’ role in marriage

1. The church must bear witness that marriage is a source of happiness to humankind, that it need not be an area of conflict, a constraint to freedom, and the source of unhappiness. The church must demonstrate convincingly, not only by its words but also by the marital lives of its members, that in spite of pain, in spite of anger and sin, in spite of suffering, marriages can be and still are happy, deeply satisfying, productive of growth in human personalities and better by far than any alternative relationship created by man.

2. At the same time the church must take care not to idealize marriage. In all honesty it must recognize that all kinds of injustices are occurring within the framework of marriage. Also in so-called Christian marriages abuse of power, rape, incest and the like are taking place. It is the task of the church in its preaching and teaching to emphasize that not the mere ‘form’ of the official marriage constitutes a God-willed relationship, but that the ‘quality’ of the relationship is determinative in God’s sight.

3. In spite of these necessary qualifications the church must hold up marriage as an honorable estate. It must do this by the way it celebrates weddings, symbolizing by word and action the deepest meaning of this event. By means of the wedding ceremony the church holds up marriage for the community to acknowledge and to celebrate, and for God to confirm and to bless. Unfortunately, the marriage ritual is often clothed in old-fashioned terminology and patterns of thought, which do not really convey what the contemporary church wants to say. The church in every age, therefore, is called to reexamine the marriage ceremony to determine whether it conveys the biblical message for marriage today.

By so modeling and by so celebrating marriage, the church inspires those who intend to marry as well as those who are married, assuring them that life long commitments and the covenant formed by them are possible. God’s grace is sufficient for our needs.

4. The church must become and be a support community to married people: encouraging, guiding, reconciling, and healing. Marriage is not simply a private affair between two persons but also a social institution. The church as well as society and the state have a great interest in strong and stable marriages. In accordance with its own nature and task the church must do its utmost to support the marriages of its members and also, when and where the need arises, the marriages of those outside the church. It must provide communities of support, whether in the extended family, the congregation, small groups within the congregation, or counseling centers. These must become the settings in which other Christians exercise their gifts for ministry to married couples.

5. The church must teach and model marital fidelity. ‘No divorce’ is more than a formal law; it belongs to the very nature of marriage. Marriage is a relationship based on a covenant and the vow that forms this covenant is unconditional. It contains no ‘as long as’, ‘until’, or ‘unless’. The man gives himself to the woman and promises to share life with her ‘from this time forward, for richer and poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and health, till death us do part’. Likewise the woman gives herself unconditionally to the man. No other human covenant has such an unconditional character. Each time, therefore, such a union is established, it is little short of a miracle. No one deserves to have another commit himself or herself to such a shared life, no matter what the conditions of that life shall be. It is simply a gift of grace which each presents to the other.

This covenant of marriage provides the stability necessary for the formation of other family relationships and for the nurture of children. The family tragedies of ancient and modern societies bear witness to the devastating effects of easy divorce, serial marriage, children born outside of marital relationships, and orphans whose family has been destroyed by the death of parents.

The church must testify that such covenants can be kept only by loving and by being loved. But love is a gift of God, given to those who seek it. Permanence in marriage is not a natural characteristic of marriage but primarily the result of sanctification that produces love, peace, longsuffering, forgiveness, and self-control (cf. Gal. 5:22,23).

6. The church must proclaim clearly that one cannot lay aside the permanence of marriage without altering the very nature of marriage itself. When our Lord was asked a question about the reasons that justify divorce, he did not refer to law, but called his hearers back to the creation of man and woman. It belongs to the very nature of marriage that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and that the two become one flesh. For this reason marriage cannot be but life long.

To make marriage conditional and to lay aside marital fidelity is to distort not only the marital relationship itself but the family as well. The church therefore by preaching and teaching must convey the true nature of marriage, what is God’s will for all who are called into such unions, and the nature of the gifts of love, patience, forgiveness, and fidelity by which such permanence is finally achieved.

7. The church must not only teach people and call them to marital fidelity, it must also show them that, in spite of the propaganda of much of modern media, such marriages still exist and in large numbers. In fact, throughout the world (even in the many countries where polygamy still exists) marriage as a life long union is still the most prevalent form of union of man and woman. Marriage is God’s gift to all of humankind, to the believer as well as to the unbeliever and it has been, and still is, a force for good in family and social life.

The church must bear witness that marriage is a gift of God not only in its inception but also in its continuance. In this sinful world, where the devastating effects of sin are visible anywhere, it is not a miracle that many marriages fail but that so many succeed, that so many, Christian and non-Christian, rich and poor, young and old, are sustained by the daily grace of God through their lifetimes, providing the stable foundation for the birth and nurture of children and the formation and growth of the human family.

8. The church must minister compassionately to those who are experiencing the brokenness of human life under sin in their marriage. The very nature of marriage has been distorted by sin in many ways, not the least of which is that instead of a relationship of mutual giving and submission to each other, it has become a relationship in which each seeks to dominate the other. Instead of a common lordship over all creation, each seeks to lord it over the other. In the history of humankind it has usually been the man who has lorded it over the woman, ordering her to submission and asserting his ’superior’ male authority, although there are also cultures in which the woman, usually the mother or grandmother, is the dominating figure. In the latter case we have to do with ’superior’ female authority.

The church must proclaim clearly and unambiguously the message of Ephesians, that Christ came to break down every dividing wall of hostility between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, and that He does this also by calling out to mutual submission in the fear of Christ (Eph. 5:21). The redemption of marriage means that we no longer ask ‘who is boss’ or ‘who shall sit at the right hand or the left hand in the Kingdom’. Those are ‘gentile’ questions (Matt. 20:20ff.). In the Kingdom of God each asks, how can I serve you as Christ served the church, willing to submit even his life that his bride might be holy and without blemish before God (Eph. 5:25-28). The struggle for power and authority continues to plague marriages. The church must clearly distance itself from all such unholy struggles and enterprises, including exegetical attempts to establish lordship by authority.

9. The church must exercise a ministry of reconciliation. Conflict, anger, bitterness, and alienation characterize all marriages to some extent and some marriages completely. When God in Christ reconciled the world to Himself, He also broke down the dividing wall of ‘bitterness, wrath and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice’ (Eph. 4:31). the church must call married partners to confession, forgiveness, reconciliation, and renewed obedience. To achieve this, the church must listen deeply and carefully, but it must also speak forthrightly, yet always with promise. It must encourage, sustain and support.

In doing this it must also stress the importance of working on problems before they get out of hand. It must constantly and emphatically advise its members who have marriage problems to go for counselling rather than trying to avoid the problems. The church itself must provide support in a corporate ministry of friends, fellow-Christians, and family. Experience has shown that support groups for married people, singles and families can be of great help.

10. The church is especially called to reach out in compassion, support and forgiveness when a marriage dies and its dissolution is confirmed by divorce. It must be careful in making judgments about the responsibility of each in breaking the marriage, recognizing the complexities of the deeply intimate relationship that marriage is. However, when sinful conduct is overt, the church must speak in rebuke and call to repentance. Divorced persons must also be supported pastorally, similar to the manner in which other persons are supported in great tragedies. They need compassion, encouragement, and guidance. The church may not abandon them. It must hold out the promise of the renewal of life in God’s grace, a renewal that may also include the possibility of a new marital relationship.

11. The church also has a responsibility toward those who remain single or who, due to whatever circumstances, become single. It must make clear to them that being single does not mean an unfulfilled or truncated life. Singles undoubtedly have their own problems, which should not be underestimated. The church must by its fellowship provide them with a community in which they find shelter, companionship and warmth. At the same time the church must show them how they can use their own gifts in the community of the church and in society as a whole. In the sphere of the Kingdom of God the single person is of equal importance to the married person. Scripture even praises those who remain single for the sake of the Kingdom (cf, Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:33).

12. The church must emphasize the great value of friendship, with a view to both married couples and single persons. Marital relationships are often overburdened by unrealistic expectations of partners who do not realize that a marital relationship is no substitute for friendship. Both the marital relationship itself and family life as a whole can often receive great enrichment from genuine friendships with married couples or persons of the same sex. Genuine friendship is a great gift of God, which enriches all parties concerned and at times may even complement what is lacking in the family relationship or in the relationship between parents and children.

C. The Nurture of Children

The family is the place God chooses not only for the creation of the next generation but also for its nurture. It is to females and to males who cleave to each other and become one that He gives the blessing of new life and into whose care He gives its nurture. The molding of new human beings in his image is a task for fathers as well as for mothers and it is pervasive of all of life: sitting at home and walking along the road, lying down and rising up (Deut. 6:4-9).

1. The family is the provider of physical security: of safety, food, shelter, and physical closeness. In this way the family offers the child the basic feeling of belonging and of unconditional love, while the child itself at a very early age learns to trust its environment, other humans and, incipiently, God.

2. The family is a provider of moral values. It teaches what is good and what is bad, what is wise or foolish, helpful or destructive, right or wrong. It teaches that there is law – that we do not live in a world of chaos, a lawless world in which each person is a law unto him or herself, but that this universe has order and that transgression of it is not without consequence.

Moral knowledge, however, to be complete must empower as well as inform. Empowerment is fostered by imaginative and intuitive participation in family virtues, integrating events such as the celebration of birthdays and anniversaries, and in family life in general. Unfortunately, the programming found on television and in the entertainment world in general threatens such participation and fragments family life.

3. The family nurtures by word and deed: by giving instruction and by setting patterns of behavior for the child. Family members, especially parents, should not only say what is right, but also show the child how to do right: how to be loving, kind, forgiving, honest, thankful, and trustworthy. At the earliest and most formative age the family teaches by patterning behavior, by insisting that the child do this or do not do that. Only later is the command given also explained, and later still is the reason for the command also comprehended and appreciated.

4. Parents teach how to work and how to rest, and how to worship God by doing both. As God placed us in the world to have dominion over it, so parents teach children to become builders of culture. Work is not simply a means of earning a living. It is, rightly understood, the God-given task of humans in the universe. It encompasses all the roles of humankind, including parenting, citizenship, church membership, and one’s profession and labor. Human beings were placed in the world not just to exist in it but to till it and to keep it. So, parents teach children to worship God by building cities, cultivating land, creating music, learning skills, etc. The family that does not recognize the gifts of children and does not teach them to use these gifts productively in God’s world has failed its children.

But the family has failed equally if it has not taught the children how to rest. Life is not all work and our welfare does not finally depend upon our efforts but upon God’s provisions. Keeping the fourth commandment in our day is first trusting that God will provide apart from our efforts. Only in such trust we can lay aside work, enjoy God’s good gifts, celebrate his grace and worship Him. The nurturing of both work and rest in the lives of children is essential to their happiness and well-being.

5. Most importantly, parents nurture children by recounting to them the stories of God’s life with his people as found in the Holy Scriptures. In these stories, told in the context of family devotions, children learn how God dealt with his children in the history of Israel and above all in the coming of Jesus Christ, his Son. They hear the stories about Adam and Eve, about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, about David and Solomon, about Levi and Zaccheus, and many others, and they learn that these stories are their own story, that this history is their own history and that it defines who they are and what they shall become.

6. The most difficult period in the nurturing of children usually is when they become teenagers and/or young adolescents. In this period of their life they are open to all kinds of experiments, seeking their own way in life, in particular searching for their own identity. Parents need much wisdom in guiding them through this often turbulent period of their life. They must give them the freedom they need to develop their own identity, but must also give them guidance by showing a deep interest in what they are doing and by giving them the example of a wholesome, integrated Christian life. At all times they must remember Paul’s instruction to the fathers at Ephesus: ‘Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4).

7. It is the task of the church to encourage parents in the Christian nurture of their children. In their home visitation program pastors and elders must give special attention to this aspect of family life. Young families, in particular, should receive guidance, either by educational training or by bringing young parents together in small groups so that they can support and encourage one another and be supported and encouraged by others. Wherever possible the church should provide educational material that can assist parents in the responsibility of nurturing their children ‘in the Lord’.

8. Although the church shares in all these nurturing roles, it is primarily given to parents to fulfil these tasks. They do so not in family classrooms but in the daily interchanges of family life and in the rituals of work and rest, worship and play. The church is the supporter of these roles. The church teaches parents as well as children, and supplements what parents do. The nurturing roles of parents are usually shared with teachers in the church and the school, with grandparents and other family members, with youth leaders in the church, and with family friends. The primary responsibility, however, rests on the parents. Fathers as well as mothers must be encouraged to accept this responsibility and to give it the time and energy it requires. Fathers as well as mothers must establish close and affectionate bonds to children, even at a very early age. Grandparents must be allowed to function as sources of comfort and affection, when parents are harsh, and of wisdom and insight, when parents overreact to the moment.

9. The church should also encourage parents to provide their children with Christian education. This may not be possible in all countries or regions, but wherever it is possible parents should do their utmost to establish Christian schools and thus give their children the opportunity to receive their education in a Christian context and atmosphere, determined by the message of the Bible. Likewise the church itself is under the obligation to instruct the children of the Christian congregation in the Christian faith.

10. The church has an additional responsibility to witness to the state concerning its laws and policies that affect family life. This witness should address matters such as divorce codes, tax policies, child care, and family abuse. In such witness the church should also remind the state of its own limits and its task to support such intermediate structures as schools and volunteer organizations which aid the family in fulfilling its purpose. In particular, the church should affirm the primary responsibility of parents for the nurture of their children and encourage the state to provide genuine opportunity for parents to educate their children in accord with their religious convictions.

11. In our day and age the church must in particular speak out against all the forces that threaten the life of unborn children. In almost every country of the world abortion is legal in some circumstances, and in many countries it is very common. From the very beginning of its existence, however, the Christian church, with its sense of the sanctity of life, has championed the rights of the unborn child and forbidden abortion. The Christian congregation of today must continue to adopt this attitude. Life is the free gift of God (cf. Ps. 139) and it is not at the free disposal of humans. Only when a choice has to be made between the life of the mother and that of the child, or in the case of conception after rape, may abortion be considered.

The church must vigorously oppose the modern tendency of aborting new life on social grounds or because of the risk of a birth of a child with severe mental or physical disabilities. Equally the church has the responsibility to share the burden of the life and nurture of such children. The church may not lay obligation upon prospective parents without insuring the provision of economic, social and emotional means to nurture the children of the poor, the disabled, or the children of single parents.

The church must take a public stand on these issues, making them the subject of its preaching and teaching, and encourage all its members, in particular those engaged in medicine, politics, and the social services, whenever they have opportunity, to plead the cause of the born and the unborn, whenever they have opportunity.

D. The Family and the Kingdom of God

The Gospels teach that our loyalties to the family can be too strong; the family can be a dangerous competitor to discipleship and to the Kingdom of God.

The church therefore must teach that:

1. The family may never exist for its own sake. When it does, it becomes idolatrous. It may never command primary loyalty, become the primary source of personal identity, or assume ultimate value.

2. The family may never be a closed community and therefore seek the welfare of its own to the exclusion of others. It must have place for the stranger and the sojourner. Thus, the primary characteristic of a Christian family is hospitality, the willingness to share life and goods and space with others. These others must include in particular the poor and the outcast.

3. The family was created to be provisional. The ultimate purpose of marriage and of the family is to give way for the family of God by nurturing its members for membership within that larger family. In the new age there will be neither marriage nor giving in marriage, for marriage belongs to this age only. The family loyalties and identities of Jew and Gentile, Brahmin and Coolie, of this or that clan, caste, or tribe will be transcended.

This new age has already begun and Christians must begin to live as though it were already here. Therefore, the church must form fellowships and communions that transcend family and clan loyalties or racial and class distinctions. The church must live by the Pauline word: “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11). By doing so the church helps the family to break out of its natural tendency to identify with its own kind and to protect its own over against all those who are different. The church must acknowledge and clearly proclaim that closed families of this kind are primary causes of the perpetuation of racism and class distinction. In such strong families loyalties are primarily and sometimes exclusively limited to themselves. Such families are concerned for the nurture, education, welfare, and spiritual health of “their own kind.” Such families fall short of their Kingdom purpose and by seeking to save their lives, they lose them.

4. The church must not only proclaim God’s word of warning, it must also set forth the vision of what can be and what shall be. The church must inspire families to reach beyond themselves and experience the richness of the multi-racial, multi-class, multi-cultural family of God. It must truly become a family – a place where all, single and married, old and young, sinners and righteous, black and white, powerful and weak, poor and rich, find a place to belong. By becoming such, a church helps families to fulfil their Kingdom purpose.

Concluding Remarks

We believe that these guidelines, which have been drawn from the teaching of Scripture, apply to all people in all cultural settings, whether they are young or older, married or no longer married or single. At the same time the various cultural settings should be taken into account, when these guidelines are applied.

When the apostle Paul gave his ethical instruction to the congregations, he always took into account the cultural, social and political situation in which the particular congregation found itself. A chapter such as I Corinthians 7, dealing with all kinds of sexual issues, can be understood only against the background of that particular situation. It should further be noted that in one instance only did the apostle appeal to a command of the Lord (verses 10,11). On other instructions Paul gave his advice as one who had received mercy to be faithful (verse 25), and for which he was dependent upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit (verse 40). So, on the one hand, Paul’s advice, along with the Lord’s commands, belongs to Scripture, from which we derive our guidelines for today. On the other hand, as the apostle himself did, the church today, and its office-bearers in particular, should pray for the Spirit’s guidance so that these guidelines, derived from Scripture, may be applied in a wise and spiritual manner.

Reference: REC FOCUS – Vol. 3