Families at the Crossroads

By Rodney Clapp

Family - Open Door or Private Haven

Chapter Seven looks at "Welcoming children and other strangers". The author defines "strangers" as those who cross geographical, racial, sexual, political, moral or religious boundaries, those who are "other" from us. The typical human reaction is to fear those we do not understand or who are different from us, but Christians are called to offer hospitality and concern for others. We learn a great deal from children because they actually come to us as strangers, we have to get to know them when they are born and they bring challenges to us as they invade our "world". How many parents recognise the statement that we hardly know ourselves until we have faced living with our children. The author reminds us that our children do not exist simply in relation to ourselves but also to God, the epithet that they are on loan to us for a while, but ultimately have to learn to stand for themselves. Children also challenge our culture's fear of admitting dependence on each other. Shamelessly children display their dependence on us and remind us that we are connected to each other and cannot live "as an island" and still be whole.

Christian parenthood teaches us to practice hospitality first of all to the strangers that come along as our offspring and then to other strangers who cross our path, who are our brothers and sisters either in the wider church or the outside world. Ultimately we learn more about our relationship with the one who is so utterly "other" from us, that is God himself.

For me this rang bells as I looked back at how much I have learnt about myself and about God through motherhood. Parenthood can be frustrating, painful, exhilarating and joyful in the space of a few hours and every day. Few other relationship have brought me such personal challenges. It would have been easy perhaps to operate on superficial level and avoid the challenge and pain, but how much I would have missed had I done so.

In Chapter 8, the author tells us that no Christian home is a haven. He looks again at the wall modernity has erected between public and private worlds. Postmodernity has broken this down, yet many Christians are resisting this in an attempt to keep the Christian home as a private haven. Yet it is not all bad news, the effects of postmodernity offer church and family great opportunities as well as challenges.

So long as Christianity is relegated to the private world it can have little impact on the world around it. We do God and his purposes down if we do not emphasise that He is Lord of the world, the nations, the universe. The challenge we face today is to let God be the God of all our world, of every part of our lives. The early Christians met in their homes, but not as private havens, they were places where ordinary people could be invited in to share in the good news. By learning to practice hospitality, first with our children, then with Christian brothers and sisters and finally with non-Christians, the home can become a mission base. Our relationships and fellowship with other Christians beyond the nuclear family, affirming our commitment to the church, makes a significant statement about the gospel and its relevance to ordinary people today. The author offers a number of practical ways in which we can bring together our public and private worlds as Christians and the benefits that ensue as we look beyond the relatively narrow agenda and needs of the nuclear family to making a real impact as the family of God.

The crossroads at which the Christian family stands offers us the opportunity to rediscover God's real purposes for the biological family and the family of the church. It offers us an opportunity to bring back together the disconnected parts of our lives. After reading this book, I feel challenged to re-examine my own understanding of "family" and excited at the opportunities God is offering us to make a real impact on our society today. After all He is the all seeing almighty God who invented marriage and the family and I believe he made them to endure.

Reviewed by Liz Percival of 2-in-2-1.co.uk

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