We're Accountable To Our Children

Here in Britain our prime minister has donned his finest marketing hat and is tossing about highly emotive, family-focused sound bytes, assured to energise the public over Labour’s promise to inject millions into our educational system and social care for young people. Their goal being to help revitalise the ever-important ‘family unit.’

Recently, in America, seven children were ‘discovered’ living among animal faeces and bin liners of trash. This is despite the fact that state officials had previously cautioned the parents. The report claims, amidst the parent’s ongoing court appearances over a number of domestic violence matters, they simply ‘forgot’ about their children.

And yesterday, in the state of Tennessee, a mother of three children has been charged with first-degree murder. She allegedly shot her husband, who was the minister of a popular local church. Apparently, their three children witnessed the shooting. And already there are whispers of appalling domestic abuse being made.

How can we expect children who have never known a loving relationship to enter into one when they grow up? How can children become responsible parents when they have had no role models to emulate? And furthermore, today, how are we defining the ‘family unit?’ That’s a hot potato in itself!

I’m not being cynical, but we seem to be focusing more on incidental matters more than core matters. This isn’t to discount those who are fighting wars over oil, or national interests, or whatever personal banner you may carry. But when you look at what one bomb costs, both in money and in all the physical and familial destruction it can cause, and then look at what we invest in the family unit, it’s difficult not to see that something has gone dreadfully awry!

If everyone becomes wrapped in cynicism it merely becomes a blueprint for failure. Such pessimism is also an absence in faith – faith that we can make a difference and faith in humanity as the image God has of us. If we can succeed in saving a rainforest, or the world from a country’s fabricated global threat, or even a baby seal in Canada, then certainly we can save the family.

Success in anything we do requires looking forward and having an understanding of what our core values represent. We can’t profess from a pulpit the importance of family values, when it’s those very leaders who erode the definition.

In many ways the Church is in its infancy, in other ways, it is the culmination of centuries of values and commitment, based upon the Scriptures. We are laying foundations today. Our foundations must include our children. And we can’t simply rewrite the Scriptures to accommodate for our own convenience, weaknesses, or failures.

During our prayers for enlightenment, and unity, and world peace, perhaps we need to include recognising our responsibility to uphold the family as the crucible of all our values.

In the near future our children will hold us to account for the values we instilled in them today.

And I wonder whether we'll be able to look them in the face?


Almighty God, you have blessed us with the joy and care of our children. Grant us wisdom as we raise them, that we may be symbols of what is right and good. Give us strength that our own values may always be in the example of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

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And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of thy children. Isaiah: 54:13

When The Church Sins