Focus On The Family Part 1: Hiding Behind The Wrong Focus

I thought it might be appropriate to start my first series of original articles by taking a look at the websites of the “Christian” organizations that insist on causing the rest of humanity so much grief. I wasn’t sure which one to pick from the handful that I know of, so I thought I’d start with Focus On The Family. I welcome any and all suggestions for the next organization I should look at.

Focus On The Family has been in the business of sowing ignorance and false teachings for quite some time. Sometime recently (I’m not sure exactly when), they decided to change their domain name to Family.org. The name itself is deceptively flowery and attractive to some, but let’s just take a quick look at what Jesus has to say about family:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:26

I wouldn’t exactly call that a ringing endorsement of the traditional nuclear family, would you? Of course Jesus didn’t mean that people should literally hate their families, but that if they are not willing to leave them behind if necessary in order to follow Jesus, then they are unable to follow him:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:27 – 14:33

Jesus also said:

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. – Matthew 10:34 – 10:37

It sounds to me like that means the focus should be on Jesus, not the family. The name these people are hiding behind is not supported by the book they use to justify their hate.