One area where most of us need to take stock is that of the family, implying marriage or its substitute, the upbringing of children and the coping with all the missiles that life throws at each one of us.
The Christian Church has traditionally made much of the sanctity of marriage and family values, and recently politicians have invaded the pitch with their solemn admonitions as to how we should conduct ourselves as dutiful parents and responsible citizens. Over recent decades government legislation has legalised homosexual relations between consenting adults, has instituted easier divorce, legitimised single parenthood and supported medical fertility practises which would have horrified past generations.
The result of these and other factors has been a slackening of sexual mores to a point where promiscuity is common especially amongst the young, and there has been: an astonishing rise in abortions for psychological and social reasons; a soaring divorce rate; an increase in co-habitation and an increasing prevalence of single-parent families.
No sane person would doubt that a solid, secure and loving families form the building blocks of a balanced, healthy and civilised society. When family life breaks down the natural care and compassion people normally have for one another is replaced by fear and anger and lawlessness.
On the other hand, there is also the opposite danger of sentimentally making the family unit the be-all and end-all of human existence. And likewise investing the western form of romantic marriage with a super-sanctity that in point of fact it does not have in the Christian scriptures.
Lest the reader should think this some anarchic attack on Christian marriage let me point out some facts about Jesus himself. Although brought up in a presumable happy home, Jesus put all this behind him when he began his public ministry. One day, whilst talking to the crowd when a message came to him that his mother and brothers were outside and wanted to speak to him, Jesus tartly replied: "Who is my mother and who are my brothers but they who do the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" Matthew 14.48-50.
Again at the start of his ministry Jesus called twelve disciples to leave everything (wives, children and home) to follow him. To reinforce this need for total commitment to God, Jesus uttered these startling words, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes even his own life - he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14.26-27. Now the Christ who inaugurated a gospel of love could hardly be calling his followers to hatred, but the word is used idiomatically, to emphasise the fact that our commitment to God should over-ride all other considerations.
The upshot of all this, as I understand it, is that neither marriage nor family life at their best are ends in themselves but a means. Certainly from a religious point of view, a means not only of procreation, but of preparing us for life at a higher and more glorious level than that of earth.
After all, at their best what does marriage and family life do for human character but to instil caring love and trust, respect and patience towards each other and a generally unselfish attitude towards life ? Whatever facade we may display in public, at home we are known for what we are and it can be a furnace where our characters are formed. The disturbing fact that it is precisely in the home where human relationships break down only shows that in the home, as elsewhere in life, much more is needed than goodwill and always trying to be nice to each other.
This fact of our human weakness and sin is honestly faced in the Biblical accounts. Our shortcomings in the area of sexual relationships are not swept under the carpet as in Victorian times. The great Biblical figures of Jewish history, like Abraham, Jacob, Solomon and not least the greatly revered King David are shown warts and all! The popular sentimental notion of marriages made in heaven with the two lovers meeting who were just made for each other finds no justification in the Bible at all. Archbishop Runcies's words at the wedding of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana about "it being the stuff of which fairy tales are made" was absolute nonsense and not because that particular marriage sadly failed. The fact is that the structure of marriage and the life of the family is meant, as I've already said, to prepare us for greater things: not simply to keep the human race going, but to prepare us to live with our Creator God for time and eternity. And let it be said also with regard to those people who do not marry but remain single, for whatever reason, they are still part of a family and whatever their sexual proclivities, they can still make, and often do make relationships which are mature and wholesome. After all, our Lord himself was single and there is not a scrap of real evidence to show that he was otherwise.
And this brings me to the millennium and any resolutions that need to be made. We will not deal with the problem of broken marriages and fractured families by making moral compromises and opt-out clauses, by making it easier for people to extricate themselves from the mess they may have made of their lives, nor on the other hand by introducing draconian measures to make marriages work and families love one another. If only we could help people to see that God ("who sets the lonely in families" Psalm 68.6) has instituted marriage and family life in order that we may learn how to live in relationship with each other and to prepare us to live under His loving rule or Fatherhood on earth and supremely in heaven. God has made it so, not only in order that we should breed, like animals, but enter into a creative relationship with God and all our fellow human beings.
The current mechanistic, worldly view that it's all a matter of genes and testosterone and selfish indulgence needs to be seen for what it is, an insult to the human spirit and in its place to recognise that these institutions, whilst never to be thought of as ends in themselves are central part of God's redemptive plan to share with us His glorious love as seen in the life of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Let's march into the new millennium, for better, for worse, the wed and the single person, the family and relatives that we may "be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12.2. Whatever the cost, life works best on this planet earth when done God's way.
Douglas Graham