How Big Is Your Family Circle?

Did you have a good Easter weekend? Did your family gather around the table and break bread together? Who was there? Was it just Mom and Dad and the kids or is your family bigger than that?

In North America the idea of family is something we fight about. One of our fights is whether the concept is reserved for the biological family or whether it can encompass a larger variety of social forms. Some conservative Christians like James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family demand a return to the traditional Christian family. Focus on the Family is an evangelical organization dedicated to “helping to preserve traditional values and the institution of the family.” It is opposed to divorce, abortion and homosexuality as social practices that undermine the family. Its publications approvingly quote and publicize others who promote the concept of the natural family which is defined as “married mom and dad, with children”

Recently I was in Thailand attending a Christian conference. Over the course of the week a small group of us formed strong social bonds. In addition to this Canadian, there was a man from Costa Rica, a man and a woman from Argentina, a woman from South Africa and a man from Greece. We were all adults, mixed genders, multi-racial, multi-lingual and not related by blood or marriage. And yet, we shared food together, lent money to one another, traveled together, rescued each other and cared for one another. We drew a wide circle and called it family.

Is it too much to call this family? I don’t think so. Families have taken many forms over the last several thousand years. In Old Testament times the average Hebrew household numbered between 50 and 100 people. In North America it averages between 2 and 3. At the time of the Roman Empire, family could include slaves, clients and tenants of the property. The evangelical scholar Rodney Clapp concludes that “what evangelicals call the ‘traditional family’ is in fact the bourgeois or middle-class family, which rose to dominance in the nineteenth century – not accidentally alongside capitalism and, a little later, America as the ascendant world power.” The form of the family is a response to economics, politics and culture. What’s important is not the form of the family but the ethics of the family. Is it good? Is it safe? Is it caring and open to others? Does everyone participate in the decisions that affect them?

Freedom and mutuality, peace and justice are some of the characteristics of an ethical family. Does that mean constructed families are more moral than given families? No, even democratic institutions can be unethical if they do not care for and protect the rights and interests of minorities and dependent members.

I recently came across a poem that illustrates the ethics of family life. The author is Edwin Markham.

“They called me heretic and thing to flout
and drew their circle to keep me out;
but love and I had the wit to win:
we drew our circle to take them in.”

Does your family circle invite people in or keep others out?

First Published April 20, 2006