Jesus: Weak on Family Values
according to the Gospels
In American politics, no notion is more sacrosanct than ‘family values’. Those words are always spoken, to borrow from Bob Dylan, “as if a wedding vow” (referring in his case to “equality” in “My Back Pages”). Republicans and conservatives — most especially the ‘religious right’ — have appropriated that term as their personal property, and no person of any political persuasion in this country has ever uttered a single word to qualify its exalted status.
Yet, according to the Gospels, Jesus made it abundantly clear that family can be yet another false consciousness. As much as any lust, a focus on the family can get between a person and the Kingdom of God. Given that the words attributed to Jesus in those pages are but a sampling of his teachings, for cautions against valuing family over the Kingdom of God to appear as much as they do, that must have been a pretty prevalent theme in his teaching.
[I encourage anyone who reacts positively or negatively to this post to read the Gospels and see what’s there.]