{"id":10253,"date":"2009-11-16T14:00:03","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=10253"},"modified":"2009-11-16T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T19:41:00","slug":"what-do-we-mean-by-families-are-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/11\/what-do-we-mean-by-families-are-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"What do we mean by “families are forever”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at my other blog<\/a>, a reader posted the following question: <\/p>\n

On a related LDS family matter, many of us have been confronted by Mormon missionaries with a message, or even a free DVD, of \u201cFamilies are Forever.\u201d A sincere, respectful question: isn\u2019t this motto a solution in search of a problem? That is, what Christian believes there is separation or division among the blessed in heaven? Of course, Jesus himself teaches in extremely plain and simple terms, and Christian history has always held, that there is no marriage in heaven as we know marriage. But, shared Christian belief realizes that the communion among believers in heaven results in a bond significantly greater in love than what we perceive in our knowledge of marriage. That bond is a consequence of the everlasting worship and praising of God. Why wouldn\u2019t God be the focus of any discussion involving the word \u201cforever\u201d?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s what I answered:<\/p>\n

\n

As far as the \u201cfamilies are forever\u201d motto, it is often communicated as a fairly bland traditional family values message to which few people would take exception. (Indeed, that\u2019s part of its purpose: in addition to the overt message about the importance of families, there\u2019s the public-relations message that Mormons are not strange, we share much in common with mainstream family culture, etc.) Mormons seem to have internalized and institutionalized the traditional family values message to a greater extent than other groups, however: compared to national averages, Mormons have less pre-marital sex, marry more and younger, divorce less (among temple-married Mormons, at least), have more children, and subscribe to more traditional gender roles. (One sociologist called these the \u201cFour Cs\u201d of Mormon family life: chastity, conjugality, child-rearing, and chauvinism.)<\/p>\n

As you\u2019re aware, of course, there\u2019s a much deeper theological basis to the \u201cfamilies are forever\u201d theme. In Mormon teaching, marriage (and parenthood, which is entailed in marriage) is the primordial social institution, and the only social institution that will persist in the hereafter. Because of its inherent capacity for procreative \u201cenlargement,\u201d marriage is central to the Mormon vision of eternal life and exaltation. It\u2019s not that exaltation is necessary to qualify for eternal marriage, however, rather that eternal marriage is necessary for exaltation (although that marriage does not always occur during mortality). In that sense, Mormons understand the teaching that families are forever to reinforce\u2014not compete with\u2014the glory of God\u2019s majesty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at my other blog, a reader posted the following question: On a related LDS family matter, many of us have been confronted by Mormon missionaries with a message, or even a free DVD, of \u201cFamilies are Forever.\u201d A sincere, respectful question: isn\u2019t this motto a solution in search of a problem? That is, what Christian believes there is separation or division among the blessed in heaven? Of course, Jesus himself teaches in extremely plain and simple terms, and Christian history has always held, that there is no marriage in heaven as we know marriage. But, shared Christian belief realizes that the communion among believers in heaven results in a bond significantly greater in love than what we perceive in our knowledge of marriage. That bond is a consequence of the everlasting worship and praising of God. Why wouldn\u2019t God be the focus of any discussion involving the word \u201cforever\u201d? Here’s what I answered:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10256,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10253\/revisions\/10256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}