THERE WAS A STRIKING lack of balance in the editorial of the DAILY NATION on Thursday, September 8, under the headline Church Must Recognise The Change In Times, where the subject of our declining marriage rate was discussed.
The editorial writer noted that over the last ten years, marriages have declined from 3 676 in 1996 to just 1 925 in 2015. “There are some who no longer view marriage as a necessary step,” it was written.
Marriage may be the “right thing to do in the eyes of God”, but “there are those who are comfortable in their common law relationships”. The conclusion was that “the church must understand the changing times . . .”.
All this, at a time when Barbados is convulsed in an agony of crime with gangster-style shootings now a common occurrence. When ordinary law-abiding citizens in some districts are afraid to sleep in their beds.
When the drug and block culture has taken over many young men, robbing them of productivity and pride. When even our girls are now surpassing men in lawless behaviour. When teachers in some schools fear for their lives.
When the Attorney General “hears” that guns are prominently displayed at some fetes. When nearly every time we see the plight of some hapless family being put out on the street, we see loads of tiny tots and mothers, but no fathers.
There are several reasons for this catastrophic state of affairs, but the first ten have to do with the awful state of our homes, the lack of suitable parenting and the tenuous thing that has replaced commitment between partners.
Best solution
The editorial was blind to this. The product of these dysfunctional homes inevitably then permeates the entire society – the workforce, the judiciary, the professional class (legal, medical, scientific), commerce, the public service, the church, the political class, the media, the arts and so on, until the whole society is compromised.
A fallacy exposed in the editorial is about marriage being “right in the eyes of God”. The implication is that marriage is okay for the God-fearing, but irrelevant if you don’t believe in God. God created marriage, true, but not that it should be “right in His eyes”. It was created because it is right for society.
In an imperfect world, it simply is the best framework, the best foundation, the best solution, the best answer to the myriad problems of human partnering, having children and raising, nurturing and educating those children, inter alia. Marriage is not the only solution, but all said, it is clearly the best.
A simple proof: a woman says “I am a single mother”. The implication is all too keen: I have to do it all alone – work, raise kids, provide for them, put them through school, pick them up, look after myself and so on. It may be said in pride, but there is always an implied lament.
The conclusion that the “church must understand” is therefore an invitation to mediocrity, if “understand” also means “accept”. If Nelson Mandela accepted the wickedness of apartheid, where would South Africa be today? If Dr Martin Luther King Jr accepted the racism of his day, there would be no President Obama today.
Truly understanding means reinforcing the ideals of mature love, commitment and stable family life.
People eventually will do what they want to do. The church must understand human failing. But a caring church, understanding God’s perspective, and seeing the living proof of a society falling short of that perspective, can have only one supreme message for the home – man, woman, marriage.
– TREVOR R. SHEPHERD
