The State Can’t Save the American Family

C onservative scholars are calling for a politics more attuned to the problem of low marriage and fertility rates, putting forth in a recent statement published in National Review “eleven principles to advance an authentically pro-family approach to public policy.” The principles read like a grab bag of wish-list items intended to “strengthen the bond of marriage,” “advance policies that would make having children more affordable and achievable,” and “develop labor policies that create flexibility for parents without jeopardizing their financial security.” These ideas are catching on among at least some House Republicans.

It all sounds very good. But the principles are based on a basic misdiagnosis of the condition of the American family, the sources of its potential renewal, and the type of politics needed to achieve this. As such, these principles sketch a false blueprint for reform.

Conservatives should begin, instead, with the parable of the unhappy farmer who, being comfortably sustained by a prized cow, foolishly invites other animals on to his verdant pasture to share in his joy. Soon the cow produces less milk than before. The farmer becomes desperate, and his family grows thin. He buys sheep and goats, hoping for milk at least from them. He employs a bard to sing to the cow, and he brushes its coat nightly. But all his efforts are fruitless. The cow’s milk dries up. The goats and sheep never produce enough to feed the farmer and his family. The happiness which once reigned in the valley is a bitter memory. The farmer shakes his fist at various scapegoats, failing to notice that his pasture is no longer verdant. The cow starves slowly. The unhappy farmer weeps bitterly.

In this parable, the prized cow is the American family, and the farmer, guardian of the pasture, is the state. The farmer foolishly believes that his efforts are the source of the cow’s vitality, when in fact it is the pasture — the church — that sustains the cow, which, in turn, sustains the farmer.

The other animals invited by the farmer overgraze the pasture. These are the alternative policy goals that distract the state from its primary responsibility in relation to the family: the protection of the church. Worse, these alternative policy goals invariably compete with the church, taking over areas of human life which are the proper domain of the people of God: care for families, education of youth, alms for the poor, and social insurance. Eventually the church is choked off and crowded out. The sheep and goats the farmer turns to — substitutes for the cow — are for our society immigrant families with higher birth rates and traditional values. But these fare no better, for they, too, need the rich pasture of the church.

The family’s source of vitality is now, and ever was, the church. All across America today, small religious enclaves — Christian, Catholic, Jewish, and Latter-Day Saint — still raise young men and women who form stable families, welcome children at above-replacement levels, keep their promises to each other, and serve God and country. Churches foster a life of grace and relationship with God, providing fellowship and accountability, and offering living witnesses of virtue and faith.

Whereas faith nourishes virtue and propels people to take on burdens for the sake of others, the state can provide none of the same, no matter how generous the incentives or nudges. What is wrong with marriage and family formation is that the American family is starving. The state has foolishly crowded out the role of the church in civil society, hoping to sustain families on its own hand-outs. The pro-family politics desired by conservatives must begin by getting the sources of renewal for the family right.

A truly effective family policy would remove every competitor to the church now supported or funded by the state, especially the schools and educational institutions, welfare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, state pension programs and social security. Each of these is a hijacking of the legitimate tax authority of the government to fund things that are not legitimate functions of government. Rather, they are the moral obligations of the people of God.

The state should give back to families through tax credits what has been taken from them for the support of non-church-related social and educational programs — letting families support schools and good works independently, for example, through local religious associations. Under these circumstances, discouraging trends in religious non-affiliation would likely reverse quickly.

Churches have withered because nobody needs them anymore. To restore the family, churches must be strong, and churches will be strong when they are once again places where our needs are met. Anything less than a frontal assault on what deprives the church of her vital functions betrays the path to the hoped-for renewal. The state can no sooner revive American family life than a farmer can milk a starving cow.

America does not need a pro-family agenda; she needs a pro-religion politics, reseeding the pasture of American churches by leaving to God what is God’s, and to Caesar what is Caesar’s.