A Lie About Family

In a marriage that did not begin due to coercion or purely by the arrangements of some third party, the partners had a choice about the very existence of the relationship--the relationship literally wouldn't exist without the consent of each party.  Contrary to this, a baby cannot choose what parents it is born to or what siblings it might have.  I had no choice in being a member of my family, and I certainly dislike a great many of my family members.  Now, some people would perhaps say that this dislike is somehow a major offense, which they might claim is the case because one owes a certain degree of special love to family members simply because they are family (I mean parents and siblings; I already addressed how choice changes the dynamics of spousal relationships).

Yes, the Bible does teach that a parent has an obligation to provide for his or her family as needed (1 Timothy 5:8), and certain offenses committed against parents by their own children are prescribed harsher penalties in Mosaic Law (compare Exodus 21:18-19 to 21:15).  But it does not follow at all that a child has a moral obligation to love his or her parents more than close friends, or that a person has a moral obligation to love his or her siblings any more than he or she is obligated to love all people, even if the love of that broad obligation is only generic and impersonal.  This is true even if the parents or siblings are not morally and spiritually abominable, but is especially true in cases where they are.

Even the command to honor one's parents does not require having a heightened level of personal affection for them; it only requires that one honors them, which in no way means to submit to any fallacies or sinful commands of theirs.  A person's parents can be neglectful, abusive, and irrational, and they never deserve more love than a non-family member just because it came about that he or she was born to that set of parents without a choice in the matter.  Children cannot come into existence without their parents, so parents do owe their children efforts to ensure their material wellbeing, as 1 Timothy 5:8 clearly describes.  But no verse in the Bible comes anywhere near teaching that all immediate family members--whether they are one's siblings or parents--deserve some kind of special degree of love by nature of me happening to be born in a certain family.  They don't.

Family members (again, in the non-spousal sense) are just humans one happens to share a biological connection with, and thus have no additional value whatsoever because of this connection.  Morally inferior people deserve to be treated as the morally inferior beings that they are [1] whether or not they are family members, even parents.  Unsound minds deserve to be treated as unsound minds whether or not those minds are those of family members.  Family, unfortunately, can be one of the most draining sources of gratuitous stupidity and ideological garbage.  Most of my family members, at the very least, certainly have been.  I don't want other people to needlessly feel obligated to love those who do not deserve love of a deeper kind.  Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a sophist, and Christians who say otherwise after having this error exposed are inept moral theologians in addition to the other things.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/people-are-not-morally-equal.html