Assault On the Family

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written in 2005 (13 years ago) and first published in  2007 (11 years ago). Dr. West asked me to publish it again. . .unchanged. The old references could be updated, but he figures you can relate to the old ones and recognize that things have just gone downhill from there. Thanks for being patient with his persistent insistence on “some things.“]
This may be the next in a long line of those who have been writing and talking about the assault on the family in America, but it’s time to “speak my piece.” Television is without doubt a major culprit in what I believe is the Enemy’s design to damage, an ultimately, prohibit many from knowing God’s design for families. The latest exhibition of dysfunctional and disorderly distress comes to us directly from Wisteria Lane, Hollywood. It’s not new, it’s just more blatant. Role reversal, adult immaturity, sexual infidelity, drugs, booze, divorce, murder, fraud and deceit are all pictured as normal operations in the neighborhood. Sure, I would llove to believe that everyone sees it for what it is (poisonous hype designed to extort money from bored, lazy, unsuspecting couch potatoes), but I am more and more convinced each day that our society has been dumbed down to the point that most people are unable to separate the fiction from the reality. Is that stuff on the afternoon garbage heap (Springer, etc.) for real? And even those among us who are a bit brighter fully realize that “the perfect marriage” between the “perfect couple” (Pitt/Aniston) lasted almost an eternity at four and a half years. What chance is there for those who are not perfect? I have to share with you my heart, however. I don’t think it is the TV, or the Hollywood off-again/on-again marriages, or the rising divorce rate, or the homosexual agenda, or the economy, or any other number of scenarios trotted out to convince us that Christian marriages and homes are passé that is the major problem. I can’t speak about marriages and home inhabited by “lost” folk. They are under the control of the Enemy and everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. But I can address Christian homes and families. We know there is little difference between the two (Christian vs. non-Christian) in the divorce/dysfunctional/booze filled/drug oriented/family-at-war/somebody is going to jail, arena. But there is a huge difference in what must be the operational agenda. Christian parents need to turn off the TV and turn on the Truth (spend time in God’s Word with your spouse and kids). Get your family up on Sunday and get them in a Spirit-filled, Bible believing, Truth teaching/preaching, lloving, caring Church. Get rid of those movies that pollute the mind, those video games that are vile and violent, that “Godliness is for jerks” attitude, that hate-filled “I’m better than you” mind set, the “I married the wrong person” syndrome, and the “my kids will turn out all-right if I build their self-esteem” idiocy, and start living in the light of God’s design for marriages and families. Pray together! Pray separately! Pray, and then pray some more!

And if you don’t know where to find the kind of Church that Christian families need, Drop me a note. I can turn you on to a few.