By John T. Chirban, PH.D., TH.D.
WE HAVE GOOD REASON TO ASK, WHAT VALUES?’ AND “WHOSE VALUES?” are we applying in raising an Orthodox family in North America because the message of our faith and the notion of family are challenged today as never before.
A new report by feminist researcher Shere Hite scorns the traditional family as “outdated, and the cradle of many of society’s injustices” —and so, she concludes, “It’s not worth saving”.1 She states that children have more need of “warm and mature people around them than the archetypal two-parent family, and are better off growing up in a single parent family than an atmosphere poisoned by gender inequality. So, Ms. Hite concludes that a family can be made up of any combination of people whether heterosexual or homosexual who share their faces in an intimate way.
I will not defend the traditional family that Ms. Hite condemns; rather, I will discuss the unique characteristics and significance of raising an Orthodox family that are, in fact, different from the excesses that may occur in “the traditional family” and certainly distinctive from leading us to the extremes that Ms. Hite suggests. READ MORE
