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Home  News News Making the Best of a Bad Situation
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Making the Best of a Bad Situation |
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Written by bigpig
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Friday, 05 July 2002 |
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Page 1 of 2 FMeekins sent us this: "The stable of magazines published by Focus on the Family normally stand as reliable and reasonable sources of information regarding many moral issues with public consequences. However, one suggestion tucked away in the June 2002 edition of Citizen Magazine came awfully close to betraying the canons of common sense usually promoted in the pages of this periodical."
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FMeekins sent us this:
The stable of magazines published by Focus on the Family normally stand as reliable and reasonable sources of information regarding many moral issues with public consequences. However, one suggestion tucked away in the June 2002 edition of Citizen Magazine came awfully close to betraying the canons of common sense usually promoted in the pages of this periodical.
Each month, University of Texas Associate Professor of Government and Philosophy J. Budziszewski writes a short story feature for the magazine titled "Listening In" where a fictional college professor, based largely on Budziszewski's own experience, dispenses advice to both his students and personal acquaintances from a Christian perspective regarding a number of contemporary ethical concerns. In the essay under consideration here, the good professor counsels a Christian student who impregnates his unbelieving girlfriend.
The majority of the article answers the objections raised by the father-to-be as excuses to shirk the responsibilities he owes his expectant child. A number of Professor Budziszewski's comments hit the nail on the head such as when he condemns the use of public assistance by the able-bodied just so they can enjoy a college education. Yet like a pebble that gets in your shoe during a hike on a beautiful spring day, one course of action proposed is so shocking that it just about causes the reader to forget whatever else of value might be found in the piece.
In advising this young man with cold feet towards the pending family responsibilities he has inflicted upon himself, Budziszewski writes of the need for this particular couple to marry. It is in the alternative to marriage where even many a devout and sincere Christian would have to raise a red flag.
Budziszewski writes, "If there were grave impediments to marriage --- for example, if you had another wife or she utterly refused to marry you --- then you should give up the child for adoption to a Christian husband and wife who can provide a good home."
Budziszewski continues, "This would be a real sacrifice. However, the alternative relegating her to single momhood with you merely making visits and paying child support --- is unthinkable."
In the best of scenarios, parents making the mistake of procreating before marriage would probably wed. However, most of us realize that the world is far from perfect and for whatever reason a shotgun wedding is not always possible.
Should some woman who lets her defenses down to some smooth-talking gigolo be denied the love of her child? Likewise, why should the man who falls for some fickle jezebel be forced to forfeit the joys he might know as a father? Single parent families are far from perfect, but why should one sociological tragedy be compounded by another, namely separating children from otherwise loving and caring parents?
Often unmarried or divorced parents are known to fight like cats and dogs over the residential placement of their offspring and the arrangements made regarding their financial provision. But that speaks more to the character of the individual parents rather than as an universal justification for an absolutist policy. Just because some churches abuse the collection plate does than mean we should abolish offerings all together?
Where is this proposal found in Scripture and, even if implied from the Old Testament, where is it reiterated in the New Testament? The only Bible justification Budziszewski offers is Deuteronomy 22:28-29 which says that if a man seizures and lies with an unengaged virgin, he should pay her father fifty shekels of silver and marry her. It says nothing of the disposition of their children living under New Testament grace should these two decide not to marry.
The problem with many Christians today is that they preach that all the happy endings come about this side of eternity. For while marriage is preferable to single parenthood, it does not always end up as happily ever after even when the couple getting in the family way before marriage goes through with their wedding vows.
Once upon a time, several generations ago, there was a young Christian girl --- who did happen to actually exist but shall remain nameless --- who made a mistake. Expecting a baby, she got married.
However, this marriage was hardly the picture of ideal domesticity Professor Budziszewski assures us will come about when these errant couples simply tie the knot. In fact, their first child was born after her husband socked her in the stomach during a drunken rage. Things improved little form there as the family endured lives of such hardship that the children had to tie their worn-out adult hand-me-down socks around their legs with strips of cloth to keep them from sliding down their ankles. This woman died in her 40's, but in pictures I have seen of her many pushing their mid-sixties nowadays don't look as tired, old and worn-out. Was she really better off? Instead of one child, she ended up with ten.
Evangelical Conservatives speaking out on social and moral concerns have a hard enough time being taken seriously by a population apathetic about spiritual matters. Should the idea of having to forfeit one's offspring for having acquired them in a less than appropriate manner gains ground in either cultural or policy spheres, this particular movement may even find itself isolated from those otherwise willing to consider its agenda.
Copyright 2002 by Frederick B. Meekins
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