Critical Race Theory

In my previous post about the attack on the traditional family, I defined the traditional family and established its importance and value. I also shared some examples of how the family is under attack. I then answered the question, “Why is the traditional family under attack?” My answer is worth repeating here:

First, the family is so basic and important that it is the focus of most attacks seeking to upend or destroy the culture.

Second, family is the most important part of our social structure, especially for Christians. That is why Satan and his allies are doing everything they can to destroy the family.

Third, as I wrote earlier, some espousing anti-family ideas may not even realize how they are subverting families. Because Satan is the chief enemy of the family, they are doing the devil’s work without even being aware of it.

Finally, the targeting of the family is intrinsic to the agenda of WOKE ideology.

Clearly, those who oppose God and His plan for humanity want to destroy the traditional family because it stands in the way of their desire to rule in God’s place.

In this post I will answer the question: “Where did the contemporary attack on the traditional family come from?”

We will look at the Marxist roots of today’s attack on the family as expressed by Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Wokeism.

These are born of Marxist thought and are the contemporary children of Marxism, seeking to overturn traditional culture and, with it, the traditional family.

The Attack on the Traditional Family has Marxist Roots

It is a fact that the traditional or nuclear family is declining. Fifty years ago, 42% of American families fit the traditional model. Today only 22% of families are traditional.

Today there are those who argue that the traditional family was a bad idea, a mistake, and its loss is a good thing. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/ But where did this idea come from?

John Mac Ghlionn provides a summary worth quoting in full:

In his “The Communist Manifesto,” Karl Marx famously argued that women were ystematically oppressed by the ruling class. Marriage, he argued, only served to strengthen the power held by men and further diminish the position of women in society.

However, his close friend and compatriot, Frederick Engels, really attacked the idea of marriage and the nuclear family. According to the German, they were both capital constructs. In his book, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” Engels identified the primary cause of women’s oppression: the nuclear family construct. He argued that the idea of the traditional family was inextricably linked with the capitalist agenda. To defeat capitalism, the construct must be deconstructed, demolished, and dealt the deadliest of blows.

Engels’ philosophies played a prominent role in the rise of socialist feminism, a movement and ideology that came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. At this time, in the United States and beyond, ideas about abolishing the nuclear family made their way into academia, revolutionizing both gender and family studies. This, in turn, changed the way graduates viewed (and still view) the likes of marriage and the nuclear family. Socialist feminists have, for years, claimed that the nuclear family is an instrument used by the patriarchy, an idea initially put forward by both Engels and Marx.

Thus, the decline of family values has Marxist roots. It is ironic that communism, which called for the masses to unite, has proved to be instrumental in attacking the highest form of unity: marriage. And this attack has proven to be deadly.

In The Naked Communist, FBI Special Agent W. Cleon Skousen documented the communist plan for the United States. This plan includes 45 goals, two of which are pertinent to our topic. 

Goal #40 discredits the family. Teachers tell students not to tell their old-fashioned parents what they’re learning or that they’re pretending to be the opposite sex or insisting on opposite-sex pronouns. Schools discredit the Christian values of parents. Consequently, after leaving high school, 75–85% of students from Christian families leave the church and cancel out their parents and their beliefs.

Goal #41 takes children away from the “negative influence of parents.” UNESCO, the education arm of the communist U.N., was created in 1945 to secure government control over children. Even though President Trump withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO, its pernicious tentacles were already deeply embedded in the fabric of our schools. So now we see government school boards telling parents they have no rights over their own children’s education. Government pre-K and kindergarten are another communist tactic to gain control of children at an early age.

Attack on the Family: Critical Theory

Critical theory is a contemporary extension of Marxist philosophy. It takes up the communist plan to destroy the traditional family.

Perhaps one of the greatest points of tension discernible between critical theory and Christianity is seen in its disposition toward the family. One critical theorist, Marcuse, believed that one of the greatest negative achievements of civilization is the nuclear family. Civilization, for him, is built upon the principle of domination. Definitions of sexuality and morality that surround the family all flow from the Judeo-Christian concept of the nuclear family. Marcuse suggested that the family should be replaced by socialized, (i.e., secular) alternative institutions. The family, in his view, should be controlled by public powers. The perpetuation of this desire to redefine the nuclear family has been well illustrated on the Black Lives Matter website. Only after several months did the group take down its highly controversial statement regarding its subversive mission to undermine the nuclear family, which read, “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/christianity-or-critical-theory

Critical theory not only wants to destroy the traditional family. It wants to move all education out of the home and under government control (that is, a government saturated with critical theory). The state must teach our children to ensure oppression doesn’t continue.

Attack on the Family: Wokeism

In her book Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology Noelle Mering shares these insights on how the Wokeism views the traditional family.

In striking at marriage and the family structure, woke ideology ultimately strikes at Christ himself. Each of the three distorted dogmas of the woke—diminution of the person, rejection of reason, and contempt of authority—is restored through the engine of a healthy family.

Firstly, the family is deeply personal. Secondly, it fosters order and reason through the transmission of virtue necessary for the well-functioning of the micro society that is family life. Thirdly, the family introduces its members to rightful authority, not through control or domination, but with the care and wisdom to maintain boundaries and nurture a love for the good. It is an authority undergirded by the trust and love that deep affection engenders.

The revolutionaries, from Marx to Marcuse, seemed to know this with remarkable prescience. Their plan to demolish the family, though it sounds like the rantings of a madman, has turned out to be the most obvious and yet insidious tactic in their playbook. Like a long-term game of Jenga, pull at one stabilizing piece of the tower and the entire thing collapses in on itself.

Attack on the Traditional Family: Some Thoughts

The attack on the family began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve gave into temptation and ate the forbidden fruit. Cain’s murder of his brother Abel strengthened Satan’s offensive.

In modern times, Marxism and its progeny have spearheaded the attack on family. And the attack is not lessening. For example, the Biden administration’s pandering to the LBGTQ community, rabid support for abortion, and disdain for parental rights all contribute to the destruction of the traditional family.

In the next post in this series, I will show how the sexual revolution, abortion on demand, and the LBGTQ agenda attack the traditional family and contribute to its demise. In the last post of the series, I will present some ways we can defend the family as God intends it to be.

Some Questions for You

Have you experienced attacks on your family? If so, in what way?

Do you agree that the family is under attack? If so, why? If not, why?

Please let me know your thoughts by commenting on this post.

 

May God bless you and your family and keep you strong in the faith.

Related Reading:

Christianity or Critical Theory? 

The Nuclear Family was a Mistake 

³ For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. ⁴ For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. ⁵ We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3–5 ESV).