Problems Faced by Christians in America Paper Example

Introduction

To many, religion and family are one thing. It means that if religion faces challenges, then the same translates to the family. Thus, anybody who belongs to a religion and realizes that it faces threats will react defensively to preserve their way of life from the hostile forces. Religious challenges thus entail assaults, battles, opportunity to deal with questions, solving problems and confronting complexities of living wisely and sensitively.

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Nevertheless, this paper focuses on the concepts, ideas, questions, and trends that pose as challenges to the Christian Religion, for both Catholics and Protestants in America. Christian problems are many and affect the majority of women in the faith and by extension the family as an institution. Thus, the ideas, concepts, and trends in focus are identity, gender roles, power, autonomy and attachment, and stability, order, and change.

Identity as a Challenge

The idea of character as a challenge comes with questions like: 'What is a religion?' 'What is a family? It is a term looked at from the dimension of believing, belonging, and beholding. In the present world today, believing and belonging, termed as mystical inner experience with God, is considered more significant than church affiliation and traditionally defined religious behavior (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). Those who are out of the organized and institutional religion are considered to be people secretly believing without belonging. Such constructs are seen in Christianity today. Many claim to belong to the Christian family yet they do not fit the membership of traditional definitions of the family as an institution (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). It means that the Christian families that Christians should identify themselves with have become 'unclear families'.

Religion is supposed to promote the welfare of the family, and so Christianity. However, the Christina religion is facing challenges giving a proper definition of the term 'family.' Conservatives within the religion promote the specific form of family as composed of father (breadwinner), mother (caretaker/homemaker), and children (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). However, some families consist of single-parenthood, persons remarried after divorce, blended families, and voluntarily child-free marriages (Stonestreet,2018). Also, there exist gay and lesbian couples living as a family; where do these belong? What about widows and widowers who have chosen to live together? Therefore, the Biblical view of the family no longer makes sense of the socio-economic history of the family. This remains a challenge to both Protestants and Catholics in the Christian faith.

Despite that, there is a need for reassurance that the Bible provides for a broader idea of the term family than assumed by all the conflicting groups. Instead of speaking about the family as a nuclear unit, the scriptures talk of households consisting of all persons living together under one roof. These include spouses, parents, children, grandparents, children's spouses, relatives, unrelated persons, and servants.

What about quasi-kin relationships such as that of David and Jonathan in the Bible, who loved each other from their souls and formed a bond that went even beyond death? David's grief over the loss of Jonathan shows the pain he had in losing someone he considered family. This is the same to Ruth and Naomi who were both widowed. Naomi's pledge of commitment to Ruth is now used in wedding ceremonies. It is upon these broad perspectives of the Bible that Christianity finds a challenge when behaviors like homosexuality and lesbianism thrive to the point of uniting the parties as a family. Indeed, this is a big problem that has left many Christians wondering which perspective of the family they should follow and believe.

The Challenge of Gender Roles

Gender role is another challenge that relates to Christianity and family life today. There is a lot that has changed especially in the concepts of masculinity and femininity. Indeed, no such issue as gender roles has created a significant challenge in the contemporary Christian faith and families (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). In the recent past, there were fixed roles assigned for women. Men were given the freedom of individual choice based on their interests and abilities. This has led to a great polarization amongst Christians today as there is a question of the particular purpose and place of women and men.

In the argument of some Christians, God created women and men for different roles from the beginning. They believe that to question this assertion is like rebelling against God. Also, others hold arguments with the view that women are expected to be subordinate to men at home, church, and society. They believe that husbands are supposed to exercise leadership over their wives especially at home and prescribe roles according to this pattern. At the church level, women are restricted from preaching ministry and teaching men. Any other leadership roles should be exercised under the authority and guidance of men.

Other Christians argue that males and females were created in God's image and identically allowed to be responsible for the family and the world at large. Therefore, roles are not God-designed or ordained - instead, societies across ages assigned specific attributes to persons with female bodies and others to those with male bodies. This means that femininity and masculinity are social constructs which many have found limiting (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013).

Many opposing groups especially the Evangelical Women's Caucus believe that the Bible supports the principles of equality of the sexes. The reason that the Bible asks both men and women to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. They argue that Christ enjoins all Christians, male and female, to enjoy their gifts in response to God's call in their lives.

All these schools of thought are a sign that the Christian family is facing massive challenges when it comes to striking a consensus on the role of men and women in society. It is evident that some churches have encouraged men's prideful domination and women passivity. Other organizations like the Concerned Women for America have been advocating for the conservation of the traditional American family by preventing the Equal Rights Amendment.

The war on unclear gender roles has extended to the kind of religious teachings that Christians receive in the churches. Some final instructions say that women were created to show men how to submit to God, just the way women submit to men. Within the Protestant circles, some Christian scholars believe that men are more accomplishment-oriented while women are helping-oriented. They think that men are governor-provider role while women fall in the care-service part. The teachings are so extreme that the scholars warn that men should not spend time in the company of women and discourages best-friend relationships between a husband and wife.

Many evangelists and Protestant churches are pushing for gender-role segregation and rigid predetermined roles for men and women. In their perspective, innovation, negotiation, and freedom to choose what one wants, are recipes for moral decay. Such teachings have drawn controversies and set the Church to a variety of challenges that have not been easy to solve. It has led to great divisions even at the leadership level in the Christian organizations in America.

The Challenge of Power in Christianity

The challenge of power in the Christian religion results from the constructs people have in mind about power. Many people have grown with the notion that the universe is hierarchically arranged and therefore no one should act contrary to this arrangement. Doing so would amount to violating God's will and nature. These teachings are not initially from the Bible; they originated from Plato and Aristotle and spread as 'the scale of nature.' The idea was that of a chain stretching from heaven to earth with everything ever created. The society was then expected to reflect this order, of the cosmic order of things.

The great chain of being was included in the Christian thinking during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods to justify the hierarchical ordering of the church and society. The thought was that hierarchy was divine in the community based on race, social status, and sex. Women have since then been considered to be lower than men. Thus, women are believed to be naturally subordinate (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). This order has created a significant challenge in the American Christian family and the world at large.

Even in the current Christian church, many still hold to this order. Anyone who goes against this chain of being is considered a deviant and one in violation of the law of the universe. The belief is that every part of the world has something superior and another inferior. This is what created the order seen in families. It has extended to the leadership in the church. Many churches have split and are still breaking due to struggle for power and recognition of hierarchy. The same constructs have used as an excuse for slavery within the American church; a factor that has left many heart-broken.

The chain of command, bringing great controversy in many churches, has been branded names like 'the divine order' or the 'headship principle.' Most churches hold to the chain of command the goes from Christ to the husband to the wife and then to the children. The understanding is that the husband is the head and the main authority over wife and children. Many Christina scholars have supported this saying that a wife's authority over her children is derived from that of her husband (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013). This has gone to the extent where even the single woman is required to have a 'head' too. If such a woman doesn't have a father, brother or male relative to give her Christian guidance and protection, a church officer must be assigned. The practice happens irrespective of her life and career; she must consult with male head on every decision she makes.

The controversy has now come when most women champion for equal rights, both in the family and in church. Many women no longer want to adhere to this, leading to a significant problem in the Christian family. Such teachings have also yielded tragic outcomes to an extent where some cases of family violence have been excused. Some counselors tell off battered wives who continuously live in fear of their husband's bullying and beatings. The women fear to leave their husbands because the pastors have to them that the act leads to rebellion against God who has told wives to submit to their husbands. For wives who have been raped, some religious leaders have to them that a husband has a right to do as he pleases with his wife's body. Such practices have led to great wars within the Christian family. Some women have been disillusioned that they no longer go to church.

In the discussion about power as a challenge also comes a controversy in the child-rearing methods. Most parents always want to bring up their children using Christian principles. These principles, in one way or another, amounts to a strict interpretation of Christianity. This involved breaking a child's will! Some Christian scholars have gone as far as recommending controversial means of rearing a child such as 'physical terror and pain.' With the American constitution advocating for freedoms of speech, expression, and association, many families have found a challenge in training their children in the Christian ways (Page, Lindahl & Malik, 2013).

Many Protestant Christians have gone widely to accept power, force and domination/subordination ideology as suitable for Christian families ('Callaghan, 2017)...