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How Inclusiveness Becomes Elitist 1
Reflections on the Presbyterian Report on Families
by Don Browning, Religion, Culture, and Family Project, University of Chicago May 13, 2003
When Presbyterians (PCUSA) meet in Denver toward the end of May, they will either approve,
amend, or reject a new report titled "Living Faithfully with Families in Transition." It is the product
of a five-year study. It is also the first full-scale study by the Presbyterians of the troubled waters of human sexuality and family since their ill-fated "Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality,
Spirituality, and Social Justice (1991)."
This new document is a serious study, but it has many problems. From my point of view, it should
not be approved and should not be forwarded to Presbyterian churches for study. Presbyterians deserve a better document. Here are some reasons behind this blunt assertion.
The new report preaches inclusiveness of all people and all family forms. It is very preoccupied with the question of family form; it argues that good families are not defined by their form - whether
two parents or one, adoptive or biological, extended or nuclear, joint or centered on conjugal couple, married or unmarried, heterosexual or homosexual. What really counts, it contends, is
how the various forms function and the quality of their communicative process. This, it believes, is what the social sciences say and the Bible says also. Since the first half of the report attempts to
review the social sciences and only later is followed by an interpretation of the biblical witness, it seems to put more weight on the former than the latter. Unfortunately, the report is mainly wrong
about both the social sciences and the Bible; good family process is important, but on the whole, intact married couples do a better job of it. Why? They are on average more invested in both their children and each other.
The central problem, however, is the subtle elitism of the report. It more or less defines away the seriousness of evidence about rising rates of family disruption. The report does a relatively good
job of conveying statistical subtleties about rates of divorce, nonmarital births, single parenthood, and cohabitation; some trends are moderating while others are intensifying. But, for the most part,
the report suggests that things are not so bad. For example, time and again the report acknowledges the costs to children of these trends. But it ends by repeatedly saying that the
"majority" of children - whether born out-of-wedlock or from intact, single parent, stepparent,
blended, or adoptive families - "are doing just fine." What is the conclusion? "Church and social
policies should not discriminate among these families, but support all such families equally."
Nothing could be more true; all families should be accepted and treated with equal dignity. But
shouldn't church and society go beyond acceptance? Is there actually anything to do to help these
families? Is "acceptance," "support," "solidarity," "presence," and "right relationships" - the
favorite words of the report - really enough? Is there anything to do to also concretely aid families of divorce, address the instabilities of cohabitation, and reduce nonmarital births? The report is
astoundingly silent in responding to these questions. And when it says, the "majority" are fine, does this trivialize real suffering, both individual and social? Church and society do not take this attitude
toward other social problems. Take cigarettes: would the authors of the report say that the majority of smokers is just fine since only one in three smokers die?
Why is this attitude of acceptance and inclusiveness actually elitist? The report itself unwittingly gives the answer. Presbyterians are a very privileged part of American society and the authors of
this report know it. This may be why the authors are not very worried about the effects of family disruption; for the most part, Presbyterians do not experience them to the same degree as other
parts of society. The report shows that racially ethnic persons make up "20 percent of the U.S. population"; in contrast, "96 percent" of Presbyterians "are White." Presbyterians are better
educated and relatively rich with median incomes between $61,000 to $71,000, much higher than the rest of the nation. The report tells us that three-fourths of Presbyterians "are currently married;
only 19 percent…have experienced divorce." These are far higher marriage rates and lower divorce rates than the nation as a whole. Then the report says something else that is quite revealing:
"Most Presbyterians…were once children in the White, middle-and upper-income families of the 1950s and have been able to repeat that family form for ourselves."
This report demonstrates a truth about the liberal Protestant mainline churches that University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox has been describing in his recent writings. The mainline leaders
talk ethnic and family inclusiveness and diversity, but these denominations, for the most part, do not actually practice much diversity or inclusiveness. Local mainline Protestant churches, including
Presbyterians, pretty much do what they did forty or fifty years ago; they practice a conventional familism more or less characteristic of the now infamous 1950s. According to Wilcox, for the
most part they get educated, married, have children, and, to a higher degree than the rest of the population, their mothers stay home with the children. They are wealthier and more mothers can
afford to stay home. Mainliners experience divorce, but at a significantly lower rate than the rest of the nation. Some of their children have babies out-of-wedlock, but not at the rate of national
averages. Their traditions, their education, and their income give the members of these denominations more social and cultural capital to lessen the rate and consequences of these negative family trends.
So what is the problem? Why is "Living Faithfully with Families in Transition" implicitly elitist? The answer is this: by minimizing the consequences of family disruption, it does not help Presbyterians
handle these trends within their own ranks and it does not equip Presbyterians to reach out to the working classes, the poor, and various minorities who do indeed experience family disruption more
profoundly, partially due to the less favorable social, economic, and educational conditions of their lives. These groups want more than superficial acceptance and the vague language of inclusiveness;
they want concrete help and a theological framework that acknowledges, rather than minimizes, the challenges they face.
So where does this leave the Presbyterians and other mainline denominations who share their
demographic profile? It means that they need to go back to the drawing board on family issues and go beyond the bland language of therapeutic acceptance. First, the Presbyterians must be
willing to talk more frankly about some of the real problems. Take marriage: the word is hardly mentioned in the new report. It acknowledges that intimacy is better if expressed in "committed
relations." It also states that children do better in "committed relations." But theologically, the church should be willing to say that sexual intimacy is better and that children do better in
committed marriages - marriages that are witnessed before extended family, community, and church. Since the Reformation, the Protestant churches have given powerful theological arguments
for why marriage should be legitimated and made public before the state as well - a point never discussed in the new Presbyterian report. The research of Linda Waite of the University of
Chicago shows that both successful child rearing and couple satisfaction - their health, wealth, peace of mind, and sexual satisfaction - increase for couples who go through publicly witnessed
marriage. A public marriage seems to do a lot for "committed relations." Should a report from and to the church fail to acknowledge these insights from both tradition and experience?
My research shows that the churches attracting true ethnic and family diversity are those holding out powerful family ideals that simultaneously emphasize marriage, equal respect between wife and
husband, programs for children built on these values, and also address the needs of single parents, stepparents, pregnant teenagers, and even cohabiting couples (often by positively and joyfully
helping them move toward marriage). Yes, they do this by accepting these families, but also by helping them to acknowledge human frailty, giving them practical skills, and aiding them to move
toward better marriages and family life for both themselves, their children, and the broader community and society. These churches overcome the privatism of middle and upper-middle class
people - their reluctance to talk about the personal aspects of marriage and family issues. The best Black, Asian, and White churches - the ones that are also growing - have simultaneously
strong marital preparation programs, divorce avoidance programs, relationship and marriage programs for youth, and support groups for single parents, stepparents, blended families, and the
divorced. Many of these churches address family needs within the membership as well as family needs in the surrounding community. Family becomes a foundation for their public ministries.
Sometimes the needs of gay and lesbian parents are addressed as well. These churches talk less about inclusiveness but actually end up attracting and including more diversity. They face
contemporary family issues more directly and end up having more to offer.
"Living Faithfully with Families in Transition" often reports the raw social-science data with
competence. The problem is the interpretation that it gives to this data. On the theological side, the report contains genuine insights into how early Christianity gave birth to more egalitarian families;
equality in gender relations is a value it rightly champions. But both its theological and policy recommendations are limited in number and disappointing in content. Its four theological
recommendations tell us that the Bible portrays diverse family patterns, that God can work through this diversity, that families should not put their own well-being before that of others, and that
churches should be both prophetic and forgiving on family issues.
All four points are in some sense true. It is certainly true that Christianity subsumes families to the
Reign of God. Christians are not saved by their families. They should not pursue the welfare of their own families at the expense of others. This does not mean, however, that Christians should be
unconcerned with the well-being of their families and that if they do actively help them they are undermining the Kingdom or Reign of God. The report subtly pits family well-being and the
Kingdom (Reign) of God against each other. When this is done, the critical leverage required to achieve a just society is actually lost. What would a just society look like if it did not have healthy families?
Furthermore, the report is quite selective in its emphasis on family diversity; it champions family diversity in the Hebrew scriptures, but it does not recommend a return of either patriarchy or
polygyny, two of the Old Testament's most powerful family forms. Nor does it acknowledge how the seeds of monogamy were sown in the Old Testament and later grew in the teachings of Jesus,
Paul, and the leaders of the early church. Polyandry is never mentioned as the kind of family diversity that it wishes to embrace. I doubt that the soft patriarchy of Promise Keeper families
would be welcome. The report has its own limits on family diversity.
The report does not provide a robust discussion of the full contemporary conversation about
marriage and family. The Presbyterian debate over homosexuality hovers in the background of the report, but it is not directly addressed. In addition, there is no recognition or evaluation of the
powerful new proposals that are being advocated by marriage and family legal scholars - proposals that would change the entire cultural landscape of contemporary marriage and family.
How would the authors of this report respond to new proposals from the American Law Institute that would virtually make long-term cohabiting partners equivalent before the law with publicly and
legally married couples? This means that some couples would wake up one day realizing that even though they never consciously got married, they would de facto be married before the law. How
would this affect the role of mutual consent as a mark of valid marriage - one of the great accomplishments of the Western marriage system put together by medieval Catholic canon law
and affirmed by the Protestant Reformation? How would the authors of the report deal with those legal proposals that would de-legalize marriage, i.e., take away its legal status and replace it, for
those needing the protections of the law, by individually negotiated contracts? Or how would they handle the emerging proposal to develop four or five kinds of legal marriages that primarily would
be authored and controlled by specific traditions and only lightly recognized by the state, e.g., a Roman Catholic model, an Orthodox Jewish model, a Muslim model that would recognize
polygyny, a Protestant model, and possibly others?
"Living Faithfully…" seems not to know of these proposals now being actively considered in the
backrooms of law schools and in some cases adopted by foreign countries such as Canada, France, India, and South Africa. Since the report hardly speaks of marriage as a legal category
and feels more comfortable with the language of committed relationships, one gathers the idea that a general societal move toward the de-legalization of marriage might be quite acceptable. But I
doubt that average Presbyterian lay people will be quite as open to this possibility. At least, this is not the way they are living today. This suggests that average Presbyterians may be quite happy
with the grand cooperative synthesis wrought by the Reformation that made the institution of marriage simultaneously a personal and consensual institution, a legal and public institution, and for
those who wish it, a religious institution deserving the blessing of the church.
The practical policy recommendations are also few in number and wanting. The report briefly calls
on both church and society to increase "time for families," encourage "family-sustaining wages," reduce economic "pressures on all families," and resist the cultural values of "materialism,
consumerism, and individualism" that ensnarl and damage families - all good proposals. But they are very general and not well developed. What concretely churches should do and what
government and market should do are not well delineated. In fact, no specific programmatic proposals are advanced for either church or society anywhere in the report. This is surprising;
many good ideas presently being vigorously debated in our society are entirely ignored. There is no discussion of new proposals that churches should systematically introduce youth and couples to the
powerful new marriage education programs and inventories. There is no consideration of proposals that all Presbyterian churches should become part of the growing community marriage
movement where churches of different denominations cooperate in setting common standards of marriage preparation and mentoring. Should churches cooperate with such programs as the highly
successful National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancies? Should churches address no-fault divorce laws or support revisions in divorce law that put the financial well-being of children first?
What specifically should churches do for single parents, stepparents, blended families, the children of divorce, adults who have been divorced, and adults caring for elderly parents? Does the vague
language of acceptance and support go far enough?
"Living Faithfully…" seems to want government and market to address the time deficit that afflicts
families today. This is the problem of both mothers and fathers functioning in the wage economy, out of the house, and away from their children sometimes as much as 90 or 100 hours a week.
Here the report is on to something. Americans work 150 hours a year more today than they did ten years ago and between seven and nine weeks more a year than Europeans. The market has
spread into the lives of American families with a vengeance, sucking parents into the cost-benefit and efficiency preoccupations of our heated economy and leaving less and less time for home,
children, and their own personal lives. There are vigorous proposals abroad to limit the spread of the market, but the report discusses none of them. One proposal calls for the gradual reshaping of
our culture and social system so that couples with children work in the wage economy no more than 60 hours a week combined; this could be 30-30, 40-20, or whatever, with single parents
working no more than 30 hours. Salaries, benefits, and flexible hours would need to change significantly for this to happen. Where does "Living Faithfully…" stand on such ideas? Does it
have ideas of its own?
What other specific things would it have government do besides guarantee a minimum wage? Some people are suggesting that child deductions on income taxes be raised to $8,000 or $9,000
per year, the level needed if they had the same value when first introduced in the 1950s. Would the authors of the report raise the earned income tax credit, reduce or eliminate the marriage
penalty, support or resist government entering the marriage education field, support or resist the renewal of TANF, encourage or reject the covenant marriage movement of Louisiana, Arizona,
and Arkansas, or support or resist the intersector cooperation on marriage education now promoted in Oklahoma and Florida?
It is clear that the report advances more ideas about what government should do than it does about what churches should do, but, even then, there are very few concrete proposals about what
any sector of society should do, churches included. This seems to be true because, in the end, "Living Faithfully…" spends most of its time arguing that there really isn't much of a problem with
families that warm acceptance by churches won't cure. It also imagines that if this warm and unstigmatizing acceptance is forthcoming that poor people, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and all kinds
of diverse families will come flocking into mainly White and middle and upper-class Presbyterian churches. I doubt it, for the simple reason that the entire report functions to explain away the family
problems of these groups. This report is a marvelous example of how elitism can silently march under the banner of inclusiveness.
We should always be appreciative of hard working committees that give us reports to study on important topics. I hope, however, the Presbyterians in Denver decide that this report is not quite
good enough and works to produce a better one.
Notes
1. The following essay reflects the individual opinion of Don Browning, director of the Religion, Culture, and Family Project (RCFP) of the University of Chicago. It is informed by the research
of the RCFP, even though it does not reflect the opinion of that project as a whole. Browning most recently is the author of Marriage and Modernization: How Globalization Threatens Marriage
and What to Do about It (Eerdmans, 2003) and senior advisor and producer of the PBS documentary "Marriage - Just a Piece of Paper?" (RCFP office, 2002).
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