Households of Faith
by Emily Hunter McGowin
I wish I had Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God when I lived less than 2 miles from Focus on the Family campus headquarters. It’s no surprise that they prioritize the nuclear family over just about everything else. I attended church with many who worked there, and even taught Sunday School classes with some of their employees. (While teaching through First John, I’ll never forget the number of wrinkled foreheads in response to my statement, “We need to focus on our spiritual family, not just our biological one.”) Focus employees appeared to have the perfect family model according to conservative, ‘cultural Christian’ norms of the day. As a philosopher in training and seminarian, I naturally questioned some of the assumptions that upheld this ideal family model but did not pursue answers at the time given my academic focus being elsewhere. Fast-forward 20 plus years and I can safely say that my understanding of family has significantly evolved.
Summing my impressions of Emily Hunter McGowin’s release I would say: Households of Faith is a tour de force in helping us shape a thoroughly biblical and pastorally rich model of family. She offers a highly practical, deeply personal, and exceedingly relevant theology of family that resonates with inspired Scripture and with everyday life. Now that’s a winning combination!
I do have a few more things to say, so please read on. Comments here touch on important points I discovered from the first two chapters, though every reader will find great wisdom from every chapter.
Chapter 1, “Searching for the Biblical Family” questions long-held assumptions and sheds significant light on the ideal of family that will likely surprise most Christians in the Western world. After a very helpful and careful summary of both the Old and New Testament scriptures, McGowin astutely claims that, “the Bible does not offer a paradigm of the family for its readers to emulate. Instead, it assumes the existence of families in various forms and settings, and offers stories, wisdom, ethics, and theology for understanding and living within those families today” (p 28). She concludes with the need for two skills: discernment and improvisation, both of which “require effort, intentionality, and practice, and both are essential to following Jesus as individuals and families today.” In many ways, the remaining chapters spell out just how this looks and feels within the confines of scripture.
The teachings of Jesus on family are covered in Chapter 2, “Beginning with Jesus” where she boldly asserts, “one’s love for Jesus … should be so strong that one’s love for family looks like hatred by comparison (Lk 14:25-35). What kind of rabbi teaches his followers to love their enemies but hate their mother, father, spouse, and children?”
Not only does Jesus “relativize natural kinship” insisting that “allegiance to him supersedes allegiance to kin” (cf., Mk 10:34-39), this measured principle coincides with Jesus’s statement regarding money, “You cannot serve two masters” noting that “a life of mercy, compassion, and service to neighbor is incompatible with a life of total allegiance to one's own kin” (pp 34, 36-37).
Let the reader understand.
McGowin (rightly) emphasizes that Jesus “never talks about gender roles or gives instructions based on masculinity or femininity.” In fact, “Jesus repeatedly subverts the whole notion of human hierarchies on which the idea of gender roles is built” (pp 42-43; cf., Mk 10 and my post here).
When tested by the Pharisees on divorce, Jesus’s use of Genesis 1-2 is instructive (see Mt 19; Mk 10). His point, McGowin says, is “to highlight the joining or unity of the spouses” (p 44). She keenly observes that
When Jesus moves from humanity as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) to “become one flesh” (Gen 2:24), he links the distinction between human beings as male and female to the “one flesh” unity of spouses. That is to say, the joining that takes place in marriage depends on the distinction between the sexes, who were created together as God’s image. Marriage, then, is a one-flesh unity-in-difference that depicts vividly God’s created purpose in human beings: representing God on the earth together …. Again, there is no hierarchy in this account. Neither gender roles nor cultural notions of masculinity and femininity are at play. To find either in Genesis 1:26-27, especially as Jesus interprets it, one must import it into the text …. [note too that Jesus] never mentions procreation as the reason, or even a reason, for marriage. (emphasis mine, pp 44-45)
Regarding the creation of woman from Genesis 2:18, 22, two points are made, both of which are embraced by most scholarship: 1) ezer kenegdo (“helper suitable”) is defined as "an ally in a task” indicating not subordination but partnership in carrying out an assignment and 2) “the woman is by no means derivative of the man; she is his side, or one-half of a whole … not to emphasize the difference between Adam and Eve … but their similarity. Put simply, Adam and Eve are made of the same stuff. Eve is not an alien creature but his ontological equal. She is Adam’s side—his very own flesh and bone—the best ally possible for priestly work in God’s presence” (emphasis original, pp 46-47).
Again, my findings only scratch the surface, but I wanted to get something published here so others will tolle lege (take up and read)! There is so much to think on (or re-think). As I said in the beginning, my understanding has evolved on what a ‘biblical’ family looks like and McGowin’s work only enhances my position. In many ways, this book solidifies it. This is no maneuver to ‘de-construct’ my views on family or move beyond scripture. Instead, Households of Faith brings me back to the inspired text, challenges my assumptions, and grounds me in what God intends for family.
Finally, a great way to engage this content would be a discussion group around each chapter. What better way to encourage family growth!
Read it. Understand it. Discuss it. Live it.