Not Aligning Pastoral Ministry and the Church with the Modern Family is to Align with Fascism

Last updated on: May 26, 2023 at 8:15 am by Julie Nichols

Not Aligning Pastoral Ministry and the Church with the Modern Family is to Align with Fascism 2023-05-26T08:15:13-05:00 Julie Nichols

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Since I served in conservative Christian ministry for so long, I was gravely naive to what was actually happening in the world. For most of my career prior to secular employment starting during COVID, I thought the traditional nuclear family was more prevalent than it actually is. Boy howdy; was I wrong.

Once COVID hit, once I started serving in the secular Educational Therapy world, once I started serving in both ecumenical and Catholic LGBTQIA+ and disability inclusion ministry, reality hit me like a freight train in a good way. Different types of families ARE reality.

According to Pew Research and also through the article below by the Family Equality Council, here is the reality of the modern family which the Church must recognize and properly align with reality.

1. Americans are putting off life’s big milestones. Today, the median age at first marriage is 29 for men and 27 for women—the highest in modern history. (In 2013, more than one-in-four (26%) of people ages 18 to 32 were married. But in 1960, well over half (65%) of Americans were.) Mothers are also waiting longer to have children. In 1960, women ages 15 to 24 accounted for 40% of mothers with infants. By 2011, that number had dropped to 22%.

2. Today, an American woman, on average, is expected to have 1.9 children, compared with a total fertility rate of 3.7 children in 1960. Current levels are below the “replacement rate” of about 2.1 children, the number of births needed for children to replace their parents in the population.

3. Some 3 million (37% of) lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults have had a child at some point in their lives, according to the Williams Institute. Among women under the age of 50 who identify as LGBT (and live alone or with a spouse/partner), about half (48%) have a child younger than 18. Some one-in-five LGBT men say the same.

4**. Families today are more blended and differently constructed.** Nearly half (44%) of young people ages 18 to 29 have a step sibling. About half as many (23%) of those ages 50 to 64—and just 16% of those 65 or older—have a step sibling. More babies are born to unmarried mothers than ever before.

5 Intermarriage among people of different races is increasingly common. In 1980, just 7% of all marriages in the U.S. were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity. In 2010, that share has doubled to 15% of all new marriages in the U.S. Hispanics (26%) and Asians (28%) were most likely to “marry out,” compared with 9% of whites and 17% of blacks.

Here, I will add two more facts about LGBTQIA+ people and their families from the Gallop poll.

6. LGBTQ. Approximately 4.3% of adults in the U.S. identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or
queer (LGBTQ). That means that there are more than 10.7 million LGBTQ adults in the U.S.(Romero 2017; Gallup Poll 2017).

7. Married. While the prevalence of marriage in the general population continues to decline, the
number of same-sex married couples has increased significantly in the last decade as LGBTQ
people gained the freedom to marry nationwide. Nearly 1.1 million LGBTQ people in the U.S. are married
to someone of the same-sex. That means, there are more than 547,000 married same-sex couples nationwide.
(Romero 2017; Gallup Poll 2017).

https://www2.census.gov/cac/nac/meetings/2017-11/LGBTQ-families-factsheet.pdf

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/04/30/5-facts-about-the-modern-american-family/

Since all people are equally-sacred and equally-created in God’s image, the Church must minister to current reality and realize that the traditional nuclear family is now one variation of many variations of families. To not treat all people and all variations of the modern family as equally-sacred is to place less value on some people than others. This is antithetical to the Gospel. To not do so is to align with fascism which is a great danger to LGBTQIA+ people and their families, some racial groups, various types of families, religious minorities, and more. We do not want a repeat of any variation of the Holocaust which is starting to happen right now in the USA, Eastern Poland, and Russia.

God forgive me for not understanding this much sooner.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 23, 2023

All Lives are Equally-Sacred, An Icon Created in Prison

Next Post

May 27, 2023 Standing with Civil Rights, Not the Oppressor, A Current Worldwide Threat

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 July 2025 May 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz