What BLM and Jesus Agree About the Nuclear Family

Disclaimer: My view expressed here does not necessarily represent the respective views of other AMI pastors.  

I am not entirely sure whether Jesus would necessarily disavow one of BLM’s goals: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” Also known as the traditional family, a nuclear family consists of husband, wife and children; obviously, it is heterosexual in nature.
In any case, it seems as though Jesus also sought to disrupt the family structure as evidenced by what he said when told that his “mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to talk to [him].” While “pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mt. 12:48-50).

Does Jesus not sound anti-family here inasmuch as BLM is anti-family? But their similarity ends here because the difference between their intentions to disrupt the family is as night and day.
For BLM, its disdain for traditional family is a logical extension of their desire to “foster a queer‐affirming network” and “free [them]selves from . . . the belief that all in the world are heterosexual.” But, despite this add-on goal seemingly unrelated to “black lives matter”, BLM should be lauded for wanting to “support each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children.”

Historically, beginning from the days of early church and prior to the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries, many people still lived in a hamlet hub of extended families where everyone knew each other and worked, including children, to live hand-to-mouth. This was no suburb where nuclear families live in isolation from one another despite their spatial proximity. But it would be a consequential mistake if BLM assumes that the African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” precludes having a father and mother at home as the principal caretakers of their children. It is not without reason that the first family appearing in the Bible consisted of a father and a mother.

The process of elevating family as a private haven began during the Industrial Revolution when nuclear families left their farms to work in urban factories, living in cities among a myriad of strangers. It was a tough life exacerbated by long hours, poor working conditions and meager wages. Typically by the day’s end, the urban workers, feeling spent and insignificant from doing repetitious work, escaped to the privacy of their modest homes to unwind.

This kind of urban family, however, is not what conjures up in our minds when thinking of a nuclear family; rather, it is white urban dwellers who had the affluence, means, and incentive to relocate to what would become the suburbs in the mid-20th century. Dubbed as “white flight,” the relocation was the culmination of rising income resulting from a booming economy, developments in transportation and a massive migration of Black people from the South to northern cities in the mid-20th century.  There in the suburbs, a nuclear family had their private haven where its members hoped to attain security and comfort; there they had sufficient space to focus on leisure and entertainment (and lots of it). In such a comfortable existence, dependence on God and love for Him comes a distant second to family.

Jesus himself was not too enamored with the Middle Eastern-prescribed family structure of his day. Nor did he like the high priority people placed on family; so much so that he said, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:37).

Jesus is still saying this today because we focus on the family too much, and as a result, we neither seek nor obey God as we should. Too often we put family above God because we believe that, according to sociologist James Davidson Hunter, “an earthly family is meant to be a shelter, a solid, dependable ‘ear’ that will hear and understand, as well as a place . . . to run.” We operate under the assumption that “only through the family can we hope to achieve security, a sense of well-being and belonging.” As a corollary to that, this version of family often relegates God to play second fiddle in our lives.

But, unlike BLM, Jesus isn’t about to upend the nuclear family; rather, the Lord seeks to disrupt its priorities and then to redeem it to serve God’s purpose on earth; Joshua put it best when he declared, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Jos. 24:15).
A redeemed family would see itself, not as a private escape from the world, but as an institution (along with the church and parachurch) that reaches out to the lost and underprivileged with tangible expressions of God’s love, including the gospel. Instead of getting children to do every recreational and extracurricular activity available under the sun, the parents in a redeemed family would take their children to places where they can “look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27).

So how did I, as a father of three now grown children, fare with respect to operating as a redeemed family? A few months before we entered Mexico to begin missions work in 2001, I wrote in a blog: “Once we are on the mission field, hopefully, the whole family will be involved in doing God’s work in Mexico; at least that is how we are praying.” How did that go?
Well, it was a mixed bag: while it thrilled me to no end to see my wife and oldest child in particular constantly share God’s love with the underprivileged people, I, as a father, often failed to exhibit proper characters of a person redeemed by Christ’s loving sacrifice on the cross. It is only by God’s grace that our family has been sustained amid problems.

As for BLM, I don’t necessarily fault them for not upholding biblical norms and values since it is not a Christian organization. Nevertheless, since I am a Bible believing Christian, I will cheer when BLM says something biblical, like “black lives matter” since Black brothers and sisters are created in God’s likeness. (In fact, all black lives matter, including those whose deaths don’t fit the BLM’s narrative.) However, I will keep my distance when BLM refrains from being biblical, like their reasons for disrupting, if not simply to dismantle, the nuclear family structure.