It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

Martins Ogbak, “African Family,” Tapestry, 2005

AS an adoptee and author whose work is largely influenced by the Bible and other books of scripture, I found John G.’s discussion of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy, the Religious Right, and Biblical examples of families over at Gay Spirituality & Culture an especially interesting read. Here are a few excerpts:

What I really want to think about in this post isn’t Mary or her pregnancy, but the reaction from many conservatives and Evangelicals to her and her pregnancy. Specifically, I am trying to think through Biblical examples of parenthood and family life, to determine what the Bible says about how to raise children. I think its an important exercise, because while I would not advocate Biblical parenting techniques unless psychology upheld them, Biblical dialogue seems to be missing from the religious Right’s critiques of families that eschew the “biological father and biological mother who are living together” model. Why is that? Maybe because Biblical examples of parenthood show that God doesn’t mind parenting models that the religious Right bends over backwards to condemn. Moral of the story: it would appear that one can embrace so-called alternative parenting and family models and still be a good Christian....

The Old Testament is rife with families made up of one father, his several wives and concubines, and a whole mess of children between them all. Jacob had two wives, Rachel and Leah. Even though he had more children with Leah, he loved Rachel and her children more. The discord caused by this drove the sons of Leah to sell their brother Joseph into slavery and tell their father he had been killed by a wild animal. One could view this story as an example of how polygamy can go horribly wrong, but the family lived under God’s blessing. Jacob was renamed Israel and one of the patriarchs of Judaism and Christianity....

Its [sic] really quite hard to find a Biblical story of a family that resembles the kinds of families the religious Right seems to think are the best for society and the best in the eyes of God. Even Jesus was raised by his mother and a man who wasn’t his biological father....

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At the end of the day, I’ll take common sense over dogma anyday.