Comments

  1. Thomas Massaro, SJ says

    Bill Bole captures very well some of the dynamics surrounding the often facile invocation of phrases like “Christian model of family” today. And he rightly identifies Lisa Sowle Cahill as a most reliable guide to this controverted subject matter. I have been using this very book in teaching graduate courses in social ethics since its appearance over a decade ago, and all manner of students appreciate its nuanced presentation of the Christian heritage of reflection on family life and the contemporary challenges facing church and society regarding familial arrangements. Both Bole and Cahill do us great service by reminding us that everything about family patterns, in both empirical and normative aspects, is mightily complex and subtle. That generalization is not a cop-out or fudge factor, but a necessary and inescapable judgment that invites further dialogue, rather than cutting it off in a premature way. Thank you Bill and Lisa!

  2. I remember years ago seeing people march down Commonwealth Avenue. There were banners with a clenched fist with the slogan, “Smash the Family” under. Good plan.

    My guess is that the evangelicals are more concerned with what a Christian family is not than what it is. They hear about “hooking up” and families consisting of a woman and her kids by serial absconding fathers and they get worried. They should read Moynihan, maybe?

    • William Bole says

      Yes, I think their worries are justified–and not just because conservative evangelicals in the South have, bizarrely, higher rates of divorce and family breakup than Unitarians in Massachusetts.

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