Family: Then, Now, and Forevermore

It goes without saying (but I say it anyway) that our culture is very different from the first century AD. One of the important differences concerns family. While in our culture a family can be fragmented--living separately and growing further apart geographically--a household (which included more than blood relatives) in the first century was generally together: they were those connected to the "householder"--the authority figure of the household because of family or living attachment. Contrary to the Michael Bluths in our culture who hold their families together often without official power, households were held (most often) because of cultural power. A further difference between 21st century North America and 1st Century Hellenistic cultures was that the household was the primary social unit, contrary to our culture which often emphasizes the individual as the social unit. (Think about it: How often have you heard that kids are raised for independence? to make their own way? to be their own person? How many heroes are exalted as "self-made wo/men" who become the individual without the aid of others?)

Into this milieu (and the background of his own Jewish faith), Jesus announces that his mothers and brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God (Mark 3). In other words, he starts redrawing the primary social unit around the one whom he calls Father. Jesus breaks down what could be a god, an idol (the family), to replace it with the living God. He redraws these boundaries not because he is against family (the most basic form of household), but because as its Creator, he intends it for all. It makes sense, then, that the vision for this great reacquaintance of family we have never known is ultimately pictured as a wedding (what else could it be?).

Injustice and Idolatry

I like Andy Crouch. His thought resonates with me, encourages me, and gives me hope for new roles and projects of the local church. I recently heard a lecture from him on Culture Making in which he discussed the issue of idolatry and injustice. Crouch points at the connection between idolatry and social issues in so many of the prophets. The reason this is the case, he says, is because injustice is idolatry. When there is injustice, it is because the image of God has been skewed in both the powerful and in the less powerful, creating the social relationships of injustice and exploitation. (He credits much of this insight to a gentleman named Jackamar Christian, if I hear him correctly.)

Consider one of his examples. Crouch says that whereas idols originally seem to ask for very little of the worshipper, they ask increasingly for more and more until ultimately they ask for what is dearest, even children.

So think about idolatry in terms of addiction. Whereas at first substances and experiences that ensnare us ask for very little and offer something wonderful in return, they ask for more and more of us increasingly. This, he says, is the nature of addition: "True addictions end in the death of the user." Addictions "eradicate the life and agency of the user." Addictions thus reveal the experience of idolatry.

Here's what I'm thinking about: What are we addicted to that claim more and more of our lives in our culture?