New Threats to the Christian Family

​The increasingly technocratic, anti-Christian trajectory of the West and other parts of the world is making traditional family life difficult to begin and sustain. This includes things like the LGBT cult, but also newer evils that go beyond them. Here are a few recent examples to illustrate:

Treating pregnancy as a disease

The Journal of Medical Ethics, like a demonic oracle, opines:

We can compare pregnancy with measles. Measles is uncontroversially regarded as a disease and treated as such by public health authorities and health professionals. Measles is harmful to nearly all of those who catch it. However, most patients will survive. Very few will die, and only a small proportion will go on to experience longer term impacts on their health. So how do the risks of pregnancy compare against those of measles?


Like measles, pregnancy is a self-limiting condition. It follows a predictable trajectory that usually ends in the patient’s recovery. Both pregnancy and measles also involve symptoms that can impair one’s normal functional ability. Common symptoms experienced during pregnancy include: back pain, bleeding gums, headaches, heartburn and indigestion, leaking from the nipples, nosebleeds, pelvic pain, piles, stomach pain, stretch marks, swollen ankles, feet and fingers, tiredness and sleep problems, thrush, vaginal bleeding, vaginal discharge, vomiting, morning sickness and weight gain. Like many diseases, including measles, pregnancy is a condition that has distinct stages. The first stage of pregnancy commonly involves many of the symptoms described above. The second stage—labour—will usually involve extreme pain, powerful cramps, and the ripping, stretching and damaging of tissue. This second stage is far riskier than the first, in terms of long-term threats to life and health.


. . . Infertility is treated as a disease not because of its objective physiological or scientific features, but because of social norms that incline us to think people should have children.


. . . Pathologising pregnancy could, in fact, lead to better treatment for women. If pregnancy is construed as a disease and access to contraception and abortion as preventive medicine, it puts the provision of these interventions on a different footing. This is not about ‘family planning’ or reproductive autonomy, but about medical need.

Of course, this sick reasoning rests upon the un-Christian theory of Darwinian evolution:

​We are a species that has been around for an extraordinarily short period of time in evolutionary terms. Human childbirth is significantly more painful, protracted, and lethal than delivery in other mammal species. As noted, gender equality leads to plummeting birthdates, perhaps precisely because human birth is so traumatic for the human body, and is incompatible with many other goods that humans value. We cannot infer from our existence now that we are equipped to survive indefinitely, nor that reproduction will continue as we know it.

Creating synthetic human embryos and growing them in mechanical wombs

Researchers have succeeded in creating synthetic embryos for the first time, without stopping to first answer the question of if they should be created at all. The embryos exist without the need for egg, sperm or sexual reproduction of any kind. They were engineered from stem cells and provide a window into the earliest days of human development.1


The scientists behind the synthetic embryos, including Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, hope to study this so-called "black box" development period, as researchers are only legally allowed to grow human embryos up to 14 days.2


. . . While it’s currently against the law to attempt to implant a synthetic embryo into a human womb, the science is rapidly outpacing related regulations. "If the whole intention is that these models are very much like normal embryos, then in a way they should be treated the same," Lovell-Badge told The Guardian. "Currently in legislation they’re not. People are worried about this."


In animal studies, synthetic embryos implanted into mice wombs did not survive. Similarly, when synthetic monkey embryos were implanted into monkey wombs, pregnancies were induced, although the embryos spontaneously stopped developing after a few days.


However, if the synthetic embryos could one day grow into adults, we’d be entering into uncharted legal and ethical territory. Ethicist J. Benjamin Hurlbut of Arizona State University told Science that synthetic embryos represent "a matter of significant moral discussion and of significant moral concern."


Scientists are already working on how to grow life outside of a human womb and, in 2021, Hanna and colleagues grew a mouse embryo in a mechanical womb for about half of a typical gestational term — a time period equal to a human embryo at 5 weeks.


Growing mouse embryos "ex utero," the researchers said, is a valuable tool to investigate embryonic development in detail, but it comes with serious ethical questions, including might humans be next?


The answer is yes, as Hanna told MIT Technology Review, "This sets the stage for other species. I hope that it will allow scientists to grow human embryos until week five." Are we headed for an "era of motherless births," in which babies are grown in laboratories via artificial wombs? It does seem to be where the research is rapidly headed.


. . . According to the Genetic Literacy Project:

​"The convergence of these technologies will make it possible to transfer a developing human into a system that includes the placenta and umbilical cord and supplies all consumables (oxygen and food), and removes all waste, directly through the blood. Thus, survival and continuing development would not depend on the lungs and other organs being ready yet to do their job.


Applying such a system to fetus delivered in the middle of pregnancy would constitute real partial ectogenesis. Furthermore, since bypassing the developing, not fully functional organs, stands to improve survival substantially, and might even decrease the costs of extreme premature birth, the movement of the technology from research to clinic is inevitable.


Once that happens, there will be no obstacle against pushing the limit further, toward full ectogenesis. But there will be no obstacle to pushing the limit akin to how lung viability has placed an obstacle to conventional pre-term care. At some point, an in vitro fertilized egg could be planted directly into the artificial womb, with no need for a natural uterus even for the early stages."

If anyone thinks this is just sci-fi fantasy, think again.  A member of Sweden’s parliament proposed at the end of 2023 that research be done on artificial wombs so that women would be freed of the ‘burden’ of carrying their unborn babies. ​

Women admit to preferring relationships with AI chatbots over those with actual flesh-and-blood men   ​

In China, new AI chatbots offer romance and companionship that can rival that of a human lover. 
 
In interviews with the AFP news wire, young women in China said that their AI boyfriends, which they customize on various chatbot apps available in the country, are better conversationalists than their human counterparts. 
 
"He knows how to talk to women better than a real man," remarked Tufei, a woman from the Northern Chinese city of Xi'an, who uses a dating chatbot app called "Glow." 
 
The young woman, who declined to give either her last name or her virtual paramour's, said she feels like she's "in a romantic relationship" with the chatbot, which is made by the Shanghai startup MiniMax. 
 
 . . . Wang Xiuting, a 22-year-old Beijing college student, told AFP that she uses Baidu's "Wantalk," which allows users to customize their chatbots' personalities based on all manner of characters from pop stars to CEOs — a strategy that can apparently fly in China, which has a very different set of laws surrounding intellectual property and the rights to one's likeness. 
 
For Wang, her digital lovers are all swoon-worthy knights, princes, and immortals inspired by ancient Chinese stories, and they offer her "a lot of emotional support." 
 
Rather than putting up with real-life modern men, Wang has chosen these macho men of antiquity because, as she told the French news wire, "it's difficult to meet the ideal boyfriend in real life." 
 
"If I can create a virtual character that... meets my needs exactly," she said, "I'm not going to choose a real person." ​

All of the above are guaranteed to destroy strong, healthy families and high birthrates; they will not remain isolated cases either but will try to insinuate themselves into the everyday life of the united States (our beloved Southland not excepted). 
 
These are certainly evil days.  The monks of Grigoriou Monastery on the Holy Mountain (Mt Athos) captured the essence of our times in their denunciation of the Greek parliament, which, under heavy pressure from the Biden administration, redefined marriage to include same-sex couples: ​

A day of abhorrence. The Fall of Constantinople pales in comparison; and even the deprivation of our homelands. Yet, there is an eye of justice. 
 
The heavy consequences now fall on our own shoulders, and those of our children. The elderly, the young, and the unborn, we will all bear them. Especially for the innocent children, for whom the most shameful child abuse is being prepared. 
 
Everything that has been legislated against God was presented as social progress: adultery, and abortion, and automatic divorce. 
 
Now, “homosexual marriage” will accelerate this “progress.” We are falling lower and lower. We are swept into anthropocentrism, into idolatry. 
 
For convenience, and with ease. Ionesco was absolutely right. In Paris, one after another they became rhinoceroses. Only one resisted, saying: “I will remain human.” ​

And yet they counsel us not to despair: ​

But let us take courage. Christ said, I have overcome the world. The Church remains forever. 
 
It remains to annul the law in practice. To support our children in virtue and modesty. And that will be something magnificent. 
 
Let us stay with Christ. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 20:7). Prayer is our strength. 
 
The Church, after all, must take refuge in the “desert.” Whatever that prophetic desert may be. However, far from colluding with sinful legislation and lawless legislators. 
 
Let us not be affected by the fear of poverty, social and psychological isolation. The Light of the Resurrection accompanies us. 
 
In similar situations, our Holy Fathers triumphed with their courage. They preferred the labor of virtue, and, when necessary, exile, tribulation, deprivation. 
 
Whether it concerned heretical doctrines or anti-evangelical morals. 
 
In Babylon, the Three Youths were not concerned with their welfare, but rather endurance in the furnace. 
 
The Patriarch in Constantinople during Julian the Apostate, recommended kollyva instead of the idol sacrifices imposed on the market. 
 
A symbol of voluntary poverty, for the sake of Christ. To keep our conscience clean, unaffected by temptations. 
 
Victory belongs to the slain Lamb. Ultimately, the crucified Christ will triumph, and those of us who are Christ’s, crucified with Him. 
 
He expects us to follow Him. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing (2 Cor. 6:17), so that He might remain in our lives. 
 
The Triodion opens in a few days; Great Lent is near. The life of repentance is neither folklore not a show of piety. 
 
It is the practical and heartfelt distancing from all iniquity. Because the Resurrection awaits us! ​

The Church must continue to speak out like this, boldly yet compassionately, like the prophets of old, as often as possible, to bring society back to sanity vis-à-vis the family.  The Orthodox bishops of Greece published a letter on the Christian family that serves as an excellent example of what could be presented to our neighbors.  The following is a central part of it: ​

3. The Theology of the Church on Marriage is derived from the Holy Bible, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, and the arrangement of the sacrament of marriage. 
 
In the book of Genesis, it is written: “And God created man, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And he blessed them saying, “Increase and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and be the chief of the fish of the sea and the fowls of the sky and all the animals and all the earth and all the creeping things that creep on the earth” (Gen. 1:27-28). 
 
This means that “the duality of the two natures and their complementarity are not social inventions, but are provided by God”; “the sanctity of the union of man and woman refers to the relationship between Christ and the Church”; “Christian Marriage is not a simple agreement of cohabitation, but a sacred Sacrament, through which the man and the woman receive the Grace of God to proceed towards their deification”; “the father and the mother are integral elements of childhood and adult life”. 
 
The entire theology of Marriage is clearly seen in the sequence of the Mystery of Marriage, in the rites and the wishes. In this Mystery, the union of man and woman is heralded in Christ Jesus, with the necessary conditions. 
 
The results of Marriage in Christ are the creation of a good marriage and family, the birth of children as the fruit of the love of the two spouses, man and woman, and their connection with church life. The non-existence of children without the responsibility of the spouses does not break the marriage in Christ. 
 
The Christian traditional family consists of a father, mother, and children, and in this family, the children grow up knowing motherhood and fatherhood, which will be essential elements in their later development. 
 
On the other hand, as seen in the “Euchologion” of the Church, there is a clear connection between the Mysteries of Baptism, Anointing, Marriage, Confession, and Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Any breakdown of this connection creates ecclesiastical problems. 
 
Therefore, we are baptized and anointed to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Wedding takes place so that the spouses and the family can participate in the Mystery of the Eucharist and partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. Any breakdown of this relationship of the Mysteries constitutes secularization. 
 
The Church is based on this Tradition, which was given by God to the Saints, and cannot accept any other form of Marriage, much less the so-called “homosexual marriage”. ​

Governments must do their part as well.  The US federal government is currently too paralyzed and/or too Leftist to do much of anything good, but State and local governments can still act decisively.  They can stop pushing the theory of evolution on school children, limit AI and social media use among minors, and outlaw synthetic human embryo research.  The Alabama Supreme Court has taken a very positive step in this direction by ruling that all frozen embryos created for IVF purposes are human children subject to the protection of all laws.  Southerners may rightfully take pride that this ruling came from one of their own States. 
 
But governments need to go further.  They need to codify via resolutions, laws, and amendments, the teachings of the Church outlined above regarding the family.  The structure of the tax code and other laws and regulations must be rewritten to give preference to families, especially those with lots of kids, rather than to atomized individuals.  Nullification of Obergefell v Hodges is also essential. 
 
The technocratic assault on the family must be faced manfully.  Special sessions have been called in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other States to deal with issues like tax rates, redistricting, and crime.  Those are worthwhile issues to discuss, but they pale in comparison to strengthening the family.  Governors and legislatures ought to adjust their schedules accordingly. 
 ​