On the family in Australia - 1

My answers to some questions put to me by a friend doing a uni assignment on 'family values'.

Question 1 What do you believe is the current state of 'family values' in Australia today?

From the outset I would say that I am not sure what 'family values' are, though I know what they are usually held to mean in public and political discourse in Australia - a kind of social conservatism about policies effecting domestic life. I think the terminology itself needs to be questioned and clarified, especially by Christians - and I am sorry that various Christian groups have chosen to use this terminology as medium of expression. The Christian gospel is about the free offer of forgiveness to people of all family backgrounds and none, and the welcoming of them into God's own family. Christians call each other brother and sister because they now share together the same heavenly Father. It's about following a person, Jesus Christ, rather than subscribing to a set of 'values' or principles. So if it has anything to do with family values so-called, it is in a very secondary sense.

If we mean to talk about 'the family and how it is upheld and supported': well, it is a complex picture: I think Australians are very family-oriented in some respects. As in most Western cultures, this means for us the small, nuclear family with just a few members rather than the extended family. You do hear Australians talking about 'putting the family first' and so on. But, there is a tension: we also sense that having a family is a trap, socially and economically. So, people are putting off marriage or marriage-like relationships until later, and then also putting off children. Economics plays a big part here: Australians are working harder than ever before to give their families the lifestyle they think they need - or not having a family because they think it will be too expensive.

This is actually putting a lot of pressure on families, on the one hand, and producing a generation of singletons on the other. It is much harder for families who would prefer it if one parent was able to stay at home with the kids to actually make that choice than it was even twenty years ago.

Question 2 Where do you believe we are going right/wrong in regard to these values?

Well, it depends who you mean by 'we'! Do you mean 'Australia as a society' or 'the governments of Australia'? We have lost this distinction quite a bit in our society - we expect the government to do everything for us and to engineer society to reflect and inspire our 'values'. We have forgotten that we need not wait for this to happen, or that in some respects the government has no business telling us what our family values are or are not. This is a real limiter to public discourse about the family and relationships in our society: that we can only think in terms of what is legal or illegal, and not have a civilised discussion about what we think is right or wrong (or perhaps, wise and unwise). So, importantly, we are going wrong in the way we frame the discussion in public.

Inevitably, however, I acknowledge that it is more complex than this. We do have to have divorce laws; we do have to decide what we together think 'marriage' is or isn't. We do have to make policies about work and how these will effect people trying to live in family units.

I think we as a society have lost the work-rest balance and fallen for the trap of thinking that material prosperity will bring us happiness and security. I think we have forgotten how important it is to just spend time together. It was amazing to visit regional France recently and find all the shops closed on a Sunday, because it was the traditional family day - and the parks and beaches were full! This seemed a very sensible way to live. We Australians used to be good at this: we were known for being laid back. I think we are now quite uptight. Speaking in general terms, we have lost the ability to enjoy life - which, as a Christian theologian, I think means we have lost the ability to recognise the goodness and beauty of the world God made.

Ironically, conservative governments have often made life harder for families while apparently supporting them.

Question 3 What are your personal moral values and how do these compare with that of the Anglican Church?

That's a hard question to answer, because the Anglican Church in Australia is divided into regional groups called dioceses, and each diocese is free to make its own policies as it tries to express its obedience to the Christian gospel by reading the Scriptures.

On the whole, I agree with the stance on most moral issues that my own diocese, the diocese of Sydney, takes. But I regard my personal moral values as open to change as I read and re-read and reflect on the Bible and on the life and character of Jesus. I hope that not only my personal values will be changed but indeed my own character.

And of course, it is not just a matter of having moral values, it is a matter of following Christ in what we do as well. We could do much much more, but I think the way in which we seek to support the community through welfare work and charity, and in advocacy for the poor and socially deprived, refugees and asylum seekers, and those in prison are expressions of the church's moral values to which I would wholeheartedly subscribe.


Question 4 Are there any claims that you would disallow as constituting a 'proper family'?

Again, it depends who is asking, and why. I do not have in mind a strict definition of 'proper family' - the Bible doesn't speak in these terms, and actually talks about some very unorthodox families indeed!

Most often this kind of question comes up in public debate when we are discussing what are in reality fringe or extreme cases: can a lesbian couple get public funding for IVF and so on. These cases effect a minuscule amount of people to be fair, and are quite uninteresting in terms of shaping our ethics overall. The trouble is, we tend to start our discussion of ethics for the whole community from this point and ask, 'what can we allow?' instead of saying 'what is the picture we would like to aspire to?'

I do think - and I think most Australians agree with me, religious or not - there is a special place for the ideal of a monogamous relationship of life -time commitment between a man and woman open to the welcoming of children into the world. We can have this ideal and encourage it and support it and still recognise that human life is inevitably more complicated than this. In the Bible there is a special emphasis placed on caring for 'widows and orphans' - those who do not have the security and love of a family in the ordinary sense - so already there you see a recognition that not everybody lives in a family with two parents and a number of kids. So, rather than discounting various forms of life-sharing as proper families or not, I think this particular form of it ought to be accorded a special honour in the community - as is generally
the case today.

I would be supportive of same-sex couples being afforded the same protections as de facto heterosexual couples as regards their wills, and their assets and so on, as a matter of natural justice. But I don't think these arrangements are marriages - I don't think it is wrong for the community to reserve this designation for differently gendered relationships.

Question 5 From your position in the Church, are there any types of 'families' that you
would claim to have a negative impact on society and run counter to 'family
values'?

No, not really. I think the media wants to portray the church as sounding quite panicked at this point. And we aren't! Besides which, if something is wrong, its wrongness isn't measured merely by its impact. If polygamy, for example, could turn out to be quite positive in its impact, then that wouldn't change my view on it (I'm against).

Actually, the polygamy example is interesting: most liberal/secular Australians, and particularly feminists, would be opposed to polygamy as a type of family arrangement, and would think that it ought to be illegal, or treated with extreme caution under the law. So, our community doesn't believe that in 'anything goes' as far as types of families are concerned. But what is going to give us our standards? On the whole the reason why we in the West don't have polygamy is precisely because of our Christian heritage.

I do think when parents follow their own personal and sexual fulfillment as their right over their duties to their families then we will see a generation of children who bear the scars. I think experience is actually bearing this out. The baby boomers on the whole have been dreadful parents! My experience of teaching in a relatively wealthy school was that it was very obvious which kids felt abandoned and neglected by their parents. And it was obvious which families had become afraid to say 'no' to their children too. Families with parents who are never home aren't helping, certainly. That is definitely counter to family values.

There are of course certain types of very religious families that have a negative impact on society in that they teach a hostility to the community and that it is necessary to withdraw from it.

I think, too, that when parents fail to give appropriate boundaries and guidelines to their children and their teens, then this has an extremely negative impact.