Families in Transition’ becomes ‘transforming’
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, December 16, 2003
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — “Families in Transition,” the controversial paper by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), has gone through major editorial revisions and the writing team has suggested that it should get a new name as well.
During a meeting of the writing team in Louisville on Dec. 12-13, members of the group agreed to propose that the title for the document be “Transforming Families.”
The 215th General Assembly (2003) rejected ACSWP’s first paper and mandated that the denomination’s social policy agency do a wholesale revision, including a theological overview that would give Biblical and theological rationale to its conclusions.
The first paper was widely criticized by many Presbyterians and sociologists who said “Families in Transition” failed to accurately reflect both current social phenomena and a theological grounding.
Since then, ACSWP has gone through a process of recommending revisions and has included on its writing team Presbyterians who were critical of the first report.
For example, Alan Wisdom of Presbyterian Faith and Action and William “Beau” Weston, sociology professor at Centre College in Danville, Ky., both theological conservatives, have joined the team.
And Charles Wiley of the Office of Theology and Worship prepared a section grounding the paper in the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s traditional understanding of marriage and family life.
Nonetheless, the revised paper — as it now stands — fails to state clearly what the PCUSA says about some of the controversial issues, including co-habitation, homosexual behavior and same-sex unions. The majority of the writing team prevailed in seeking to express limited comment and allowing readers to reach their own conclusions about lifestyles that conflict with Biblical teaching.
Besides the theological section, some of the most obvious changes in the paper included some reassessment of sociological data and a clear statement on marriage between a man and a woman as a key relationship socially and in the church.
In the previous paper, family was vaguely defined as a collection of people who chose to live together without marriage, thus that arrangement was held forth as a Christian standard. The previous paper also viewed other household arrangements as on par with marriage.
For instance, the former paper did not distinguish between a traditional marriage, co-habitation, same-gender couples and single or unwed mothers.
Numerous sections in the revised paper hold up marriage as a good gift from God, but they also acknowledge that God “can and does work in and through persons in all kinds of families, even those established contrary to God’s will.”
In some cases, the liberal members of the writing team preferred giving religious blessing to living arrangements outside of marriage.
Eric Mount, retired professor of religion and theology at Centre College, suggested that the paper recommend “betrothal” rites for co-habitating couples who say they plan to become married.
There were a few objections to Mount’s proposal and the panel never voted on recommending betrothal rights. However, Mount was selected to be the final editor of “Transforming Families.”
ACSWP will review the final draft turned in by Mount at its meeting in Louisville on Jan. 21-23. In addition, ACSWP will review papers on violence and religious terrorism, Iraq, scarce water resources and legalization of immigrants. Whatever is submitted to ACSWP as a draft is subject to revision by the social policy agency’s board.
The report paints a bleak picture that contrasts traditional teaching about marriage and families with social realities.
“In the church’s core documents, discussion of family and the rearing of children begins with marriage,” the paper’s section on theology says. “The church affirms that marriage is instituted by God, that marriage is good for human society, and that marriage is a form of family life that provides a suitable context for the nurture of children.”
But that is not the cultural reality, according to some of the sociological data included in the paper:
- Married couple households make up 53 percent of all U.S. households. A decline from 71 percent in 1970.
- Married people on the whole are happier, healthier, better off financially and more likely to be employed.
- Family research provides “strong evidence that on average children do better in healthy, intact two-parent (biological) families than they do in step-families, adopted families or single-parent families.”
- The U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the world.
- Divorce rates are usually higher among lower income families and less-educated people.
- Current data suggests that about 50 percent of the husbands and 30 percent of wives have had an affair in the course of their marriages.
- The majority of couples in low-conflict marriages who once considered divorce but decided to remained married report very happy marriages five years later.
- Studies show that children often experience divorce as “cataclysmic and inexplicable.”
- Divorce rates and problems in children’s adjustment are higher in remarriages than in first marriages.
- Non-marital births accounted for one-third of all births in 1998.
The tone of the paper is non-judgmental when applied to alternatives to the traditional family, but highly critical of government not providing sufficient financial resources for low-income families.
In the section written by Gloria Albrecht, a professor of sociology at Mercy University in Detroit and the consultant to ACSWP, much of the material blamed government for high divorce rates, non-marital births, teen pregnancy and the worse outcomes of some children of single parent families.
Albrecht said, “The unequal distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. has hit historically high levels surpassing all other modern industrial nations.” She said there has been a decline in government spending on education, housing and other programs that financially undergird families.
Weston and Wisdom challenged some of her interpretations of sociological data. But the disagreements between Albrecht and Weston and Wisdom were never resolved by the writing team.