Dear Friends,

This New Moon of the Sixth Month it is appropriate that we look at what is happening to Western society and the institution of marriage again. In the US the Pew Research Centre published the results of a survey of US people and their views on the nine most important things in marriage.

These nine points are:
1. Fidelity 93%
2. Good Sex 70%
3. Sharing Household Chores 62%
4. Adequate Income 53%
5. Good Housing 51%
6. Shared Religious Beliefs 49%
7. Shared Tastes and Interests 46%
8. Children 41%
9. Agreement on Politics 12%

From recent statistics, we saw how the institution of marriage was falling apart in European countries.

These statistics give us cause for more worry and depict a frightening future for the institution of marriage and the foundation of the nation.

There is no doubt that the first item is an important basis for marriage. In the marriage contract we undertake to forsake all others, and one would have thought that all marriage partners and people would have considered that this was important. Sex within marriage is important also but the end result of that activity is the procreation of children, which underpins the entire family and the nation. Instead of these three being at the top of the list with children and fidelity being first and second, children are down at number eight in second last place before agreement on politics and below shared tastes and interests.

It is a fact that not all marriages are blessed with children. However, most families are able to be so blessed. The sad fact of the matter is that children are being aborted at an ever-increasing rate in Western society. The nexus between having sex and having children is broken in the minds of these people.

When US couples rate sharing the chores equally at some 21% above the function and importance of children in the marriage, the US society is in deep trouble. It has become a sick “me first” society of people sharing houses. Almost two thirds of Americans do not see children as important to a marriage. The problem is that this sick mindset is spreading around the world like wildfire. Our society is becoming materialist and women are losing sight of what it is to be a mother. Men are no longer seen by women and themselves as the providers and protectors of the society. Women want to see men doing the chores and taking out the garbage as expressions of a stable and giving relationship. What was once the division of labour and responsibilities is now on the way to a selfish and silly feminist mindset. Women are seeing the “get” way of life as their rights and are prepared to sacrifice children to get what they want.

The older people of the society have virtually made it impossible for the young to raise their children in the home with the women providing a stable role as mother and housekeeper in the true sense of the word.

Sodom went this way and their social system became self-oriented and immoral, and God destroyed them for it.

Marriage is about giving and standing by one’s partner in good or bad times, richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health.

The wealthy are destroying our society by deliberately enslaving the young in high housing costs. Women are aborting children under the guise of the right to choose. The society is aging because of it.

War will flow on from the strange or aberrant thought processes of the politically aggressive social systems both in Islam and in the West.

When children cease to be the basis, objective and importance of marriage and families, and women start worrying about how much garbage they get to take out to the curb more than the love and support of the family unit, then we are in real trouble – and not just in the US.

Marriage is now all about get, and not about giving and serving the family and society. The mindset at the beginning of the 21st century is far different to that at the beginning of the 20th century. We are a society that has lost its way. Truth has fallen to the ground and society is disintegrating through drugs and self-interest.

We should look at the paper The Basis of Christian Living (No. 85) again. A new audio has been issued for that paper also.

Look the paper Marriage (No. 289). Give thanks for your partners and give thanks for good health and your capacity to survive. Think of the widows and the elderly. Ask for the power to help the orphans that seek help from us, as that is religion pure and undefiled.

We have one month to go to the Seventh Month and the Day of Trumpets and the beginning of the Feast season. Please pray for the coming of the Messiah and that the time is cut short.

We have much to do and little time to do it.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General