Family Values and Fascism

First family. Wait till you meet the kids.

A friend avers that the sanctity of the family is next only to the sanctity of God himself. 

A common view, these days, among those on the right, and among Christians.

I urgently need to disagree.

Logically, family here is equivalent to nation: either is a useful social unit, based on shared genetics and shared experiences. The difference is only in scale.

Now what does it sound like if you speak of the “sanctity of the nation”? If you guessed Fascism, you guessed right. This was the core idea of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. It is not just incompatible with Christianity; it is antithetical to it.

So too with “the sanctity of the family.” It automatically denies the brotherhood of man, and goes ugly places. Crimes as awful as those of Nazi Germany, if on a smaller scale.

No question that family is desirable and useful, just as is a national government. Both give us the warm fuzzies. Exactly for this reason, there is a danger of idolatry, of overvaluing it. Money is useful too; so is sex. But there is immediately a problem if you think of money or sex as sacred.

For my marriage ceremony, we were free to choose our own Bible reading. Not coincidentally, it is extremely hard to find a good Bible reading, unambiguously praising marriage.

How about St. Paul?

“But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don't have self-control, let them marry. For it's better to marry than to burn.”

There’s damning with faint praise, surely.