TheImportance Of Family Religion

Last week we examined what is a Christian covenant family is. Wesaw the importance of family religion and the duty of the covenant head ofhousehold to ensure that it is maintained. This is consistently taught in theScriptures both of the Old and New Testaments (e.g. Gen 18:19; Deut 6:3-9; Josh4:6-7; Ps 78:5-7; Eph 5:26; 6:4; 1Tim 3:4-5 etc). We also suggested that thedecline of Christianity in the present generation has a lot to do with the factthat most professedly Christian families are no longer functioning as genuine,biblical, covenant families; or in other words, Christian fathers are no longerleading their families in worship and instruction. This assertion is notwithout historical substantiation. The fact is that throughout the history ofthe Christian church, whenever family religion is emphasised, biblicalChristianity flourished; and conversely, whenever family religion is neglectedChristianity is impoverished.

In the first 3 centuries, the very early Church Fathers such asIgnatius, the two Clements,Tertullian, etc, all emphasised the biblical role of the father to instruct hiswife and children in the Word. This emphasis on family religion continued untilthe 5^th century, wherewe are reminded by John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), that the "house shouldbe a church, and every head of a family a spiritual shepherd." No doubt,one of the key reasons why Christianity managed to stand more or less firm andpure during those formative years, despite many persecutions, was thisteaching. Sadly, with the invention of monasteries, celibate clergy, and thebanning of translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people,the role of the father as the spiritual leader of household was slowly eroded,and the church was in no time plunged into the darkness of the medieval ages.

By the grace of God, at the time of the Reformation, the Reformerssaw the importance of family religion. They not only promoted it vigorously,but being aided by the invention of the printing press were able to distributeBibles in the common language of the people, together with manuals andcatechisms for family instructions. As a result, family religion was revivedand biblical Christianity was to flourish again.

In England, this emphasis on family religion was to become thehallmark of Puritanism, so much so, that the Westminster Divines actually tookfamily worship for granted (WCF 21.6),so that while they produced a directory for public worship, they did not writeone for family worship. The directory of family worship that we often findprinted together with our confession was actually produced and adopted by thegeneral assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1647. In this document, theimportance of family worship is deemed so great that a father who fails to leadhis family in worship after repeated admonition is to be "suspended anddebarred from the Lord’s Supper, as being justly esteemed unworthy tocommunicate therein till he amend."

In any case, there is no doubt that the English Puritans and sothe American Puritans saw that the state of the church in general is directlycorrelated to the state of family religion in the homes which constitute thechurch. In 1679, the Synodof New England was convened in Boston in order to supply an answer to aninquiry by the General Court of the Massachusetts Colony as to what were"the evils that have provoked the Lord to bring judgements upon NewEngland"? The Puritan divines who made up the synod responded with 14reasons, one of which was: "There are many families that do not pray toGod constantly, morning and evening, and many more where the Scriptures are notdaily read so that the Word of God might dwell richly in them. There are toomany houses that are full of ignorance and profaneness and that are not dulyexamined and for this cause wrath may come upon others round about them as wellas upon themselves (Jos 22:20; Jer 5:7; 10:25). Many householders who professreligion, do not cause all that are within their gates to become subject untogood order as they ought (Ex 20:10)." (Cotton Mather, Great Works of Christ in America,1:48).

It was probably this neglect of family religion that brought aboutthe lull of Christianity just before the Great Awakening (1735-43). GeorgeWhitefield suggests this when he preached that "we must forever despair ofseeing a primitive spirit of piety revived in the world until we are so happyas to see a revival of primitive family religion." Family religion wassimilarly emphasised by Jonathan Edwards, who in his "FarewellSermon," reminded his Northampton congregation, that "familyeducation and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, allother means are likely to prove ineffectual" (Works I.ccvi). Sadly, the emphasis on familyreligion which came with the revival did not persist for long. This time, amajor contributor to the decline, was, surprisingly: Sunday School!

In 1780, the decline of Christianity on both sides of the Pacificwas so bad that England’sstreets were filled with boys and girls who not only did not know Christ butdid not attend church. Robert Raikes, who is famed as the founder of the SundaySchool movement attempted to solve the problem by starting Sunday Schoolclasses. The children in the streets were invited to attend free classes onreading and writing—on Sundays—provided they first attended church with theirteachers. But Sunday School soon evolved into the children’s education arm ofmost churches. Children were told Bible stories with the help of colourful picturesand catchy songs. But soon, what begun with good intentions became a bane ofthe church as it became a norm for children of Christian families to attendSunday Schools; and Sunday Schools concurrently became the excuse for theneglect of religious education in Christian homes as parents began to have thenotion that it is the church’s duty to instruct the children. Moreover, thechildren enjoy the ‘professionally’ conducted classes much more than boringcatechising by their fathers. Thus, parents more and more abdicated theirresponsibility to instruct their children to the ever popular Sunday Schools.Thus, what was designed to ‘church’ children of unbelieving parents became themeans erode family religion in Christian homes.

Is not the debilitated state of Christianity today directly due tothe neglect of family religion? Ask an average professing Christian today if heknows what family worship is all about, and you are likely to get a blank stareor a quizzical look because he has never so much as heard of the phrase. Worststill, ask someone from a church where family worship is taught, and you arestill likely to get sheepish look which says, "I’ve no time forthat." Such an answer betrays a compartmentalised Christianity or SundayChristianity that is no Christianity at all, for Christ says "If any manwill come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Lk9:23).

The importance of family religion cannot be over-emphasised. Ihave no doubt at all that we shall at the most be able to increase innumbers—of which will comprise largely of deluded-professors, almost-Christiansand hypocrites—unless we begin to restore family religion to our church. In oursubsequent articles we shall look at the biblical duty to catechise and theelements of family worship, which is, so central to family religion. But fornow, let us take solemn heed to Thomas Manton’s warning: "The devil hath agreat spite at the kingdom of Christ, and he knowethno such compendious way to crush it in the egg, as by the perversion of youth,and supplanting family-duties. He striketh at all those duties which arepublick in the assemblies of the saints; but these are too well guarded by thesolemn injunctions and dying charge of Jesus Christ, as that he should everhope totally to subvert and undermine them; but at family duties he strikethwith the more success, because the institution is not so solemn, and thepractice not so seriously and conscientiously regarded as it should be, and theomission is not so liable to notice and public censure. A family is theseminary of Church and State; and if children be not well principled there, allmiscarrieth: a fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second; ifyouth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in Church and Commonwealth;there is the first making or marring, and the presage of their future lives tobe thence taken, Prov. 20:11" (Epistle to the Reader of the WestminsterStandards)