But there’s a question hiding underneath both of those frameworks, and I don’t think we’ve asked it carefully enough: is there something unique about this specific decision- how many children to have- where a wife’s voice carries more weight than her husband’s, even inside a marriage that holds to male headship?

I’ve been wrestling with this for a while now, and I’m having a hard time avoiding the conclusion that the answer is yes. Let me walk you through the three passages that have shaped my thinking.

Exodus 21: The Wife’s Marital Rights

The starting point is a case law tucked into Exodus 21, dealing with a man who takes a second wife:

“If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.” (Exodus 21:10)

Nobody disputes the first two obligations. Of course, a husband can’t cut off his wife’s food or clothing; what’s striking is the third item on the list: her marital rights.

Here’s where a modern reader trips up. When we hear “marital rights” or “conjugal rights,” our minds go straight to sex based on physical desire. What doesn’t occur to us nearly as quickly is that this could also mean a wife’s right to more children.

But in the ancient world, those two things weren’t separable. Marital relations and childbearing were the same event. There was no reliable way to have one without risking the other. So when Scripture protects a wife’s “marital rights,” it isn’t just protecting her access to intimacy; it’s protecting something that, at the time, necessarily included her access to motherhood.

That distinction didn’t need to be made back then, because biology made it for them. It needs to be made now, because we have reliable contraception. Modern couples can separate the decision to have sex from the decision to have children in a way that simply wasn’t possible for most of human history, which raises a question the biblical authors never had to answer explicitly: when those two things come apart, which one does the “marital right” actually protect?

Onan: A Rare Biblical Case of Contraception

That question sent me looking for anywhere in Scripture where this separation actually shows up. There’s one place I keep coming back to: the story of Onan in Genesis 38.

Judah’s son Er has died, leaving his wife Tamar childless. Under the custom we now call levirate marriage, Judah instructs his next son, Onan, to marry Tamar and raise up an heir on his dead brother’s behalf; the child would carry Er’s name and inheritance forward. Onan takes up the marital relationship with Tamar, but instead of allowing her to conceive, he “wasted the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother” (Genesis 38:9). God strikes him dead for it.

This is, as far as I can tell, the only clear picture in the Bible of someone practicing a form of contraception against his wife’s interest in conceiving. Tamar wants a child; that’s the entire point of the arrangement she’s been placed into. Onan wants the physical relationship without the consequence. And Scripture is not neutral about how that plays out.

It’s an unusual passage to build an argument on, and I want to be careful not to overreach; the text is primarily concerned with Onan’s refusal to fulfill his levirate duty, not with contraception as a modern ethical category. But it remains a rare case where the desire for a child and the desire for sex are pulled apart from each other, and where Scripture sides with the party who wanted the child.

The Rabbis and the New Testament: Whose Body Is It?

Jewish tradition took the Exodus 21 obligation seriously enough to spell it out in detail. The Mishnah (Ketubot 5:6) lays out the required frequency of marital relations by occupation, laborers, camel drivers, sailors, down to how long a husband could be away before he was considered in violation of his wife’s rights. Sailors, for instance, were obligated to return home at least every six months.

Within observant Jewish communities, this obligation intersects with the laws of niddah, which prohibit relations during roughly two weeks of a woman’s cycle. The result is that a husband’s obligation to return to his wife lands, almost every month, right at her point of peak fertility. It’s a structural feature of the law, not an accident, and it may help explain the extraordinary fertility historically seen in some ultra-Orthodox communities, where family lines have multiplied into the thousands of descendants within a few generations.

Then the New Testament picks the theme back up, and if anything, sharpens it:

“The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” (1 Corinthians 7:3–4)

Read that again. Whatever you believe about male headship elsewhere in marriage, Paul places one striking limit on it here: a husband does not have authority over his own body when his wife desires him. The same rule that governed Exodus 21 shows up again, now stated symmetrically and unmistakably.

And just as in the Old Testament, this isn’t only about physical desire in isolation. In a world without reliable contraception, a wife’s authority over her husband’s body was, practically speaking, a wife’s authority to have more children. If she desired the relationship, she had a real, unilateral path to conceiving, and Scripture says he doesn’t get to withhold that from her.

Where This Leaves Us

So here’s where I’ve landed, and I say this as someone who holds to male headship in marriage, not despite it.

A husband and wife should absolutely talk through how many children to have, and should try in good faith to reach agreement. But if, after that conversation, a wife continues to desire more children, I don’t see a solid biblical case for a husband insisting on an intimate relationship that has been deliberately made unproductive against her wishes. Based on Exodus 21, the Onan narrative, and 1 Corinthians 7, I think that scenario is a genuine violation of her marital rights, not a neutral exercise of his authority as head of the home.

Headship, on this reading, has a real limit, and it’s been sitting in plain sight in three very familiar passages. I don’t think most husbands who find themselves in this situation are doing so maliciously; I think we’ve simply inherited a modern framework where “marital rights” got quietly redefined to mean only physical desire, and lost its older, fuller meaning of the right to bear children.

I’d like to know what I’m missing here. Are there other passages that bear on this that I haven’t accounted for? Am I overreading Onan? Let me know in the comments.

These are questions worth asking. If you were to study Scripture to discover what a mother or father’s actual responsibility is, you wouldn’t find it tied to arbitrary ages or governmental milestones. You’d find something far more beautiful and far more demanding.

The Myth of Eighteen

The obsession with eighteen is remarkably recent, and it didn’t come from the Bible. For most of English common law and American history, twenty-one was considered the age of adulthood. Even in simpler times with simpler economies, that was the consensus. But even then, we’re simply talking about what some legislator decided—not what Scripture prescribes.

So how did it shift from twenty-one to eighteen? Thank the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, there was a campaign to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. The rationale was straightforward: if you’re old enough to die for your country, you should be old enough to vote. It’s a reasonable argument for voting rights. But what’s strange is how this political decision somehow rewrote the way millions of parents think about their responsibility to their own children.

That’s not a small thing. A constitutional amendment tied to military conscription became the invisible boundary that convinced an entire generation of parents they could stop parenting.

The Real Problem Underneath

But I think the obsession with eighteen reveals something deeper. Many parents are seeking permission to abdicate their responsibilities. And if we’re honest, this desire didn’t start at eighteen; it started much earlier.

In our culture, parents began handing their children to professionals not at eighteen, but at five, three, sometimes even six months. We’ve outsourced education, development, and formation to institutions and experts, all while telling ourselves we’re still the primary shapers of our children’s lives.

So when eighteen arrives, parents seize on it as the moment they can finally be free. And by “free,” I mean free from obligation. Free from responsibility. We’ve bought into a vision of freedom that’s mostly about freedom from—from duty, from constraints, from anyone else’s needs. This is one of the greatest destroyers of the modern family.

But what if we stopped obsessing over eighteen? What if we looked at Scripture and asked: What are the actual milestones that matter?

Three Milestones That Actually Matter

The Bible doesn’t mark adulthood by a number. It marks it by transitions. There are three milestones that every parent should be aiming toward—and none of them is eighteen.

The First Milestone: Marriage

The first moment Scripture shows a separation between parent and child is not at some arbitrary age, but at marriage. This is when authority transfers. This is when a child leaves father and mother and cleaves to a spouse, forming a new covenant union. (Genesis 2:24)

Until that happens, you have responsibility. This doesn’t mean you’re meant to control your children indefinitely. The goal of healthy parenting is to help them become increasingly independent from your direct control. But independence from control is not the same as freedom from your responsibility. You can gradually expand their freedom while keeping in mind that their well-being is still your concern.

There is one exception to the marriage milestone. Jesus describes it in Matthew 19:12: “Some have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God.” Throughout church history, this has been recognized as another moment of transition—when a young person enters a community of others (monastic communities, religious orders) who have also devoted themselves wholly to Christ. In that case, responsibility shifts from the family to that intentional community. But those are your two options. Until your child marries or makes that countercultural choice to remain single for Christ, your responsibility continues.

The Second Milestone: Financial Independence

The second milestone is when a young couple has the ability to provide for themselves and their growing family. This might happen quickly or slowly, depending on the strength of the family system. But the goal should always be clear: the older generation exists to set the younger generation on a pathway toward financial independence.

Paul captures this in 1 Thessalonians 4, telling the Gentile believers to make it their aim to live quietly, work with their hands, and reach a level of financial independence so they won’t have to depend on anyone.

Here’s what’s striking: for most of human history, cutting your children off at eighteen would have been a death sentence. In a subsistence economy, everyone needed access to family resources to survive. Parents understood they would spend years, sometimes a decade or more, under the care of their adult children in old age. Loving your children well meant helping them achieve financial independence in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation, not domination.

We don’t wait to give our children their financial inheritance when they’re grandparents and no longer need it; we give it to them when they most need it, when their kids are young, in line with their growing wisdom and responsibility.

We live in an unusually stable economic system. When you cut your kids off at eighteen, they probably won’t starve. That stability has given parents a false sense of justification for abandoning their responsibility. But biblical responsibility doesn’t disappear just because economic necessity has.

The Third Milestone: Passing on Generational Leadership

The third milestone comes when the leadership of the larger multigenerational family passes to the next generation, when the patriarch or matriarch passes on, and the next generation inherits and stewards what’s left of the family’s resources.

This is where the real vision emerges: not isolated nuclear families, but multigenerational teams working together, each generation passing wisdom, resources, and vision to the next. This contract has been terribly violated in our time. Many forces have eroded the connection between generations and redefined responsibility. But we’ve hit a new low with the idea that an arbitrary age erases a mother and father’s calling to mother and father.

A Better Way Forward

If we could erase the idea of eighteen as a magical milestone, it would transform families. It’s not real. It’s a political and governmental designation that should never have final say over your family or your church.

What we need instead is a complete rethinking of responsibility between generations. We need to return to Scripture as our guide, not to culture, not to political movements from decades past, but to what God actually calls us to as parents.

The question isn’t: when can I stop being responsible? The question is: how do I help my children flourish across their entire lives, and how do I build a multigenerational family that reflects God’s design and passes his vision forward?

That’s a calling worth living for. And it has nothing to do with eighteen.

Introduction

For two thousand years, Christians have wrestled with a deceptively simple question: can a follower of Jesus kill? The debate has produced two dominant answers. The first, just war theory, says yes—under limited, carefully defined circumstances. The second, pacifism, says no—under any circumstances whatsoever. Both have deep roots in church history. Both have serious problems. And in our current moment, both have failed us.

Today we find ourselves in the strange and troubling position where Christians are often among the loudest voices for violence, while secular atheists argue for peace. Something has gone profoundly wrong. This essay argues that the confusion is rooted in a case of mistaken identity. Christians have forgotten who they are and what they are for. The solution is not a more refined just war theory, nor a more committed pacifism. It is something older and more radical, something I’m going to refer to in this essay as missionalism.

The Two Positions and Their Failures

Just War Theory

Just war theory was given its most influential formulation by Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine argued that under certain limited circumstances, when the cause is just, when the authority is legitimate, when the intention is right, Christians may participate in state violence. War, on this account, is a tragic necessity, a lesser evil in service of a greater good.

But Augustine’s framework was not developed in a theological vacuum. It was developed in a political one. By Augustine’s era, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. Church and state had fused. The question “can Christians kill?” was no longer abstract—it was the question of whether the Christian empire could defend itself. In this context, some theological accommodation to state violence was almost inevitable. The just war tradition, whatever its internal merits, was born in a moment of political pressure, not prophetic clarity.

The magisterial Reformation of the sixteenth century repeated this pattern. Calvin, Luther, and the mainstream reformers retained the vision of a Christian society in which church and state worked together. The sword remained in Christian hands. The question was not whether Christians should wield it, but when and how.

Pacifism

The radical reformers, the Anabaptists, took a different path. They rejected the magisterial vision. They believed the church was called to be a distinct society, a separate people, not a religious arm of the state. On the question of violence, many of them drew a clear line: followers of Jesus do not kill.

This was a braver and, I will argue, a more scripturally faithful position than just war theory. But it carried its own deformity. Over time, many Anabaptist communities traded not only the sword but the mission. The Mennonites, the Amish, and many of their theological descendants became defined not by their aggressive pursuit of peace through the gospel, but by their withdrawal from the world. They stopped going to war. They also, in many cases, stopped evangelizing. Passivity toward violence became passivity toward everything. A tradition that should have been marked by courageous missionary advance became associated with quiet, bounded, inward communities that do not even believe in sharing their faith with their neighbors.

This is not a solution. This is a different kind of failure.

The Ecclesia: A Parallel Government

To find our way through, we need to recover something the early church understood with great clarity: what Jesus was actually building.

When Jesus said, “I will build my ecclesia,” his first-century audience heard a political word. Ecclesia was not primarily a religious term—it was a governmental one. It referred to the assembly of citizens responsible for governing a city. Jesus was announcing the formation of a parallel government, a new society organized around his lordship that would exist alongside, and ultimately outlast, every earthly empire.

The early church took this seriously. They had their own elders, distinct from the city elders. They had their own judiciary. Paul explicitly instructs believers not to take disputes to secular courts but to resolve them within the community. They had their own economy, their own care for the poor, their own patterns of family and household. They were, in every meaningful sense, a government within a government.

But did this parallel government include its own army? Its own police force? Here the early church was unanimous: no. And the reason is found in a subtle but important shift in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Throughout Romans 12, Paul addresses his readers directly: you overcome evil with good, you feed your enemies, you live peaceably with all. Then, in Romans 13, the pronouns shift. Suddenly, Paul is speaking in the third person about governing authorities: they bear the sword, they are God’s servants for justice. Paul is not saying Christians should wield the sword, he is saying Christians should honor those who do. The state has a legitimate and God-ordained role in restraining violence. Christians should respect that role. But it is not their role.

The early church required those entering the community of disciples to leave positions that required them to commit violence on behalf of the state. They were not passive about this. They understood themselves to be a different kind of actor in history, not soldiers, but ambassadors. And the passage they returned to again and again, the vision that animated their imagination, was Isaiah 2: the day when the nations would stream to the mountain of the Lord, when swords would be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, when nations would no longer train for war. They believed they were the movement through which that world was being born.

Missionalism: An Alternative

What we need is not just war theory revised. What we need is not to deepen pacifism. What we need is a recovery of missionary identity.

Missionalism begins with a simple but revolutionary premise: every follower of Jesus is a citizen of heaven first and a citizen of their earthly nation second. This is not a metaphor. It is a description of a real political reality. We belong to a kingdom that transcends every national boundary, every ethnic identity, every political alignment. We are, as Peter says, aliens and strangers. We are missionaries in every country we inhabit, including our own.

This changes everything about how we think about violence.

When a war breaks out, missionalism does not ask first, “which side is just?” It asks first, “where did we fail?” Because every war is, at some level, evidence of the failure of the church. Violence erupts where the gospel has not gone, where the church has been passive in the face of gathering darkness, where we were so busy arguing about when Christians can kill that we forgot to bring the peace that makes killing unnecessary.

Consider World War Two, the example most often cited as the clearest case for just war. Surely, the argument goes, if any war was just, it was the war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Perhaps. But consider what missionalism would have seen decades earlier. Japan was among the least Christianized industrialized nations on earth. Germany’s church had been largely hollowed out by the liberal theology of the nineteenth century. These were not surprises. These were visible, predictable crises. A missional church would have seen the danger and flooded those nations with the gospel. We did not. And so the bombs fell.

This is not to say that those who fought on the right side of that conflict deserve no honor. They do. Missionalism does not despise the police officer or the soldier who restrains violence and protects the innocent. Romans 13 is clear: that work is God-ordained. But it is not our work. Honoring those who wield the sword is not the same as picking it up ourselves.

The Missionary Posture in Practice

What does missionalism actually look like in the face of violence?

It looks like presence, not withdrawal. When violence is gathering, when a region is being radicalized, when a nation is moving toward conflict, the missionary response is to go toward that place with the gospel, not to wait until the situation resolves itself. Gaza did not become a center of violence overnight. Decades before the bombs fell, it was possible to see the trajectory. The question for the church was never primarily “whose side are we on?” but “how do we get the gospel into that place while there is still time?”

It looks like discipling nations, not just individuals. The goal of missionalism is not simply to save individual souls out of violent societies but to transform the cultures themselves. A discipled nation does not need to be conquered. It does not need to be bombed into peace. It is being reshaped from within by a different set of loyalties, a different imagination, a different vision of what human beings are for.

It also acknowledges a collective action problem. If the church successfully disciples one nation into laying down its arms, but leaves that nation’s enemies untouched, it has created a dangerous vulnerability. The answer is not to pick the sword back up, it is to redouble the mission to the hostile nation. Nuclear treaties work because both parties disarm together. The missionary vision works the same way: we are called to disciple the nations, plural, and we cannot abandon half the task.

The Strange Moment We Are In

We live in a moment when the primary cultural divide in many Western nations is between conservatives and progressives. Christians have largely aligned themselves with the conservative side of that divide. Conservatives, by definition, want to conserve something, values, ways of life, national identity. And when conservation becomes the primary Christian instinct, it becomes very easy to find Christians promoting violence and atheists promoting peace.

This is not a coincidence. It is the predictable result of Christians who have forgotten that they are missionaries first. When national identity becomes primary, protecting the nation becomes the highest good, and violence in service of that protection becomes not just permissible but virtuous. The tragedy is that the very people called to be the most radical peacemakers on earth, the ones animated by the Isaiah 2 vision, the ones who believe the Messiah has come to end all wars, are instead found championing military action.

The solution is not to switch political sides. It is to step out of the political binary altogether and recover the alien identity that the New Testament insists upon.

Conclusion

Missionalism is not pacifism. It does not say that violence is never necessary in a fallen world. It honors the police officer and the soldier who bear the sword on behalf of justice. But it insists that this is not the Christian’s calling. The Christian’s calling is to make those swords unnecessary, to go to the nations, to disciple them, to bring the gospel of peace to the places where violence is gathering before the bombs start to fall.

Every war is a measure of our failure. Every act of violence between nations is a reminder that we were not where we should have been, doing what we were called to do. The answer to that failure is not to join the violence. It is to repent of our passivity and go.

We are citizens of heaven. We are missionaries to every nation. We carry a gospel that, if believed, makes war unthinkable. That is our calling. That is our weapon. And it is more powerful than anything the nations of this world have ever raised against each other.

John defines an antichrist not merely as someone who denies Christ, but as anyone or anything that seeks to occupy the place that belongs to Christ alone.

By analogy, we might ask: Has something emerged in history that now seeks to occupy the place that belongs to the family alone?

I wonder whether the modern corporation is playing that role.

A Recent Invention

The corporation, as we know it, separate legal personality, limited liability for owners, and potentially perpetual existence, is relatively new. The Dutch East India Company (1602) is usually cited as the first true corporation. For 99% of human history, economic life was organized around households, clans, tribes, guilds, or kingdoms. The artificial person called a “corporation” did not exist.

There is no corporation in the Bible, in Aristotle, in Roman law, or in the medieval world (except for a few ecclesiastical and municipal exceptions). It is a 17th-century innovation that exploded in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Thought Experiment

Imagine a world in which every worthwhile human project had to be accomplished at the scale of an extended family. No project could outgrow the number of cousins, sons-in-law, and grandchildren who could be trusted and coordinated without written contracts, liability shields, or a board of directors.

I suspect many of us secretly long for such a world.

It certainly looks like the world God designed in the beginning. When the Lord had an infinitely ambitious project: “fill the earth and subdue it”, He did not charter a limited-liability entity. He created a married couple, told them to be fruitful and multiply, and handed the project to their children and children’s children. The multi-generational family was the original “start-up.”

What the Corporation Replaced

Today the pattern is almost perfectly inverted.

• Most adults spend the majority of their waking hours working with genetic strangers inside corporate teams.

• The family estate, once the center of production, education, welfare, elder care, and culture-making, has been reduced to a consumption and storage unit.

• The most ambitious projects are now almost exclusively corporate projects.

• The family rarely stewards anything that outlasts a single generation. A funeral is often the first and only remaining multi-generational family project most of us ever undertake. And shortly before that funeral we tend to suddenly realize and regret the decision we made to exchange corporate time for family time.

The modern corporation has not merely supplemented the family; in many domains, it has supplanted it.

The Amoral (or Immoral) Corporation

Even when a corporation is led by faithful Christians, structural pressures push it away from transcendent ends.

A publicly traded company has a legal fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. Any decision that places family, faith, sabbath, local community, or the natural world above profit can be (and sometimes has been) successfully sued as a breach of duty. The logic is implacable: if you want to pursue values other than return-on-equity, do it on your own time with your own dime.

Private companies have more freedom, but even there, the incentives are toward perpetual growth, which requires constant reinvestment. The family that owns the firm is tempted to treat the firm as an idol that must never die, rather than a stewardship that should eventually pass to sons and daughters.

In a recent discussion, I wondered whether the basis of greed is the desire to own something beyond your family’s ability to properly steward.

But by this definition, corporations can never be greedy. You can just swap out a lower-performing management team for a better one.

In this sense, the corporation achieves a kind of immortality that no family can match. Families die out; corporations can be sold, merged, or recapitalized forever. “Too big to fail” is to declare that a corporate entity has achieved a kind of eternal life.

Is “Anti-Family” Too Strong?

One could object: corporations create wealth that families then enjoy. They are tools, not rivals.

Yet tools reshape the hands that use them. The corporation did not arrive as a neutral servant; it arrived with a new definition of success (perpetual growth and shareholder return) that is structurally at odds with the family’s native vocation (fidelity across generations, fruitfulness, sabbath, and limits).

When the best and brightest young men and women are told that meaningful work happens almost exclusively inside corporations, while family is what you do “on the side,” we should not be surprised that marriage and birth rates collapse.

Conclusion

I am not calling for the abolition of corporations (though I am increasingly sympathetic to distributist and family-business models). I am simply asking us to name what has happened:

An institution barely 400 years old has taken over most of the economic, cultural, and formative roles that God originally gave to the multi-generational family.

If something actively displaces the family from its God-appointed place, and if its inner logic makes family flourishing subordinate to its own perpetuity and growth, then “anti-family” may not be too strong a word after all.

Perhaps the modern corporation is not the Antichrist.

But it may well be an anti-family.

What do you think?

Our culture does the opposite. We have set up a world where going with the flow leads to destruction, and the problem is getting worse.

• A child who goes with the flow will have his attention destroyed by screens.

• An adolescent who goes with the flow will have her identity manufactured by social media.

• A teenager who goes with the flow will have his sex drive warped by pornography.

• A student who goes with the flow will have her future stolen by college debt.

• A young adult who goes with the flow will have his motivation eroded by video games.

• A professional woman who goes with the flow may miss her window for motherhood before she has a baby.

• A young married couple who go with the flow find themselves drifting further and further apart.

This universal drift toward disintegration is not accidental. It is caused by technology specifically designed to exploit our basest instincts while enriching a small cabal of tech founders and investors. Technology has been weaponized, turning the pursuit of convenience into a path toward dependence and cultural decay.

The problem is clear. What remains is to explore the solution.

We need three things to survive this age:

1. A Detailed Vision

2. A Strong Will

3. A Thick Community

If you lack any of these, you will be consumed by the vortex of this techno-dystopia.

It all starts with a clear, detailed vision of the good life. Without it, you are captured by technologies designed to create addiction. You must become ruthlessly discerning about technology, deciding in advance whether an innovation serves or detracts from your vision of human flourishing. No one will help you do this. Its benefits will be loudly and beautifully presented; its downsides will be hidden.

You’ll also need an extremely strong will. Every day, you will receive compelling invitations to go with the flow alongside your fellow humans, to choose comfort over commitment.

Finally, you cannot do this alone. You need a community where your counter-cultural decisions are normal, staving off the constant fatigue of isolation.

But here is the critical detail: since these technologies prey on children, the structure that stands against them must somehow have authority to intercede between the culture and the child. By the time a person is an adult and can intellectually choose against these forces, it is too late; they will be fully assimilated.

Therefore, the only sustainable defense is a community with a detailed vision, led by a will strong enough to withstand the cultural assault, and whose members join in infancy.

Does any such social role exist?

Yes, it does. It is the role of the Patriarch—the visionary leader of a multigenerational family, a role that existed in nearly every wise and stable culture of antiquity.

This brings us to a strange and thorny problem. If you asked the cultural dispensers of wisdom—the humanities professors who train the next generation—to name one word for what is wrong with modern culture, the word you are most likely to hear is “Patriarchy.”

Even though we live in perhaps the least patriarchal time in Western history, we have predetermined that the patriarch is the cause of the problem. This ensures our culture will never find the solution. The only solution to the problem we face has been preemptively labeled as its cause.

As a result, there is nothing strong enough to stand between future generations and the technologies designed to enslave them. Those who could have pointed to the solution have instead spent their precious influence on condemning it.

This failure will give rise to a sharp divide in the future: between those few families led by a loving, visionary, and protective patriarch, and the vast majority of individuals trained from childhood to serve the machine.

You have only this choice: to live on accident as a slave or to be led with intention by a patriarch.

As for me and my household, we will choose the patriarchy.

The Left’s Pursuit of Moral Virtue
For many on the far left, antisemitism emerges from a desire to claim moral superiority in their quest for a better world. Progressives often frame their ideology as a fight against oppression, seeking to align themselves with what they perceive as the “right side of history.” Jewish people, historically positioned as a distinct group with a divinely ordained moral code (e.g., the Torah’s ethical teachings), can become a target for those seeking to assert their own virtue. For example, some leftist rhetoric portrays Jews or Israel as oppressors, simplifying complex geopolitical issues into a narrative of good versus evil. This framing allows activists to “harvest” moral virtue by condemning Jews as morally inferior, reinforcing their own sense of righteousness. This dynamic is not new. Historically, Marxist critiques of capitalism sometimes scapegoated Jewish financiers, as seen in 19th-century socialist literature. Today, X posts from progressive activists often amplify critiques of “Zionism” that veer into antisemitic tropes, such as conspiracies about Jewish global influence. By positioning Jews as a foil, the far left constructs a subjective moral framework where their goodness is affirmed through collective condemnation.

The Right’s Quest for Identity
On the far right, antisemitism is less about moral virtue and more about securing a stable, exclusive identity. Jewish chosenness, rooted in biblical narratives of God’s covenant with Abraham’s descendants, provides a clear and enduring identity that some on the right envy or resent. Far-right groups, such as white supremacists or ethno-nationalists, often assert their own “chosen” status, whether through racial purity or cultural superiority, by denying or demonizing Jewish identity. For instance, neo-Nazi propaganda frequently portrays Jews as threats to a homogenous national identity, a trope evident in historical movements like the Third Reich and in contemporary X posts promoting “Great Replacement” theories. By rejecting Jewish chosenness, the far right seeks to elevate their own group’s status as uniquely significant. This pursuit of identity is particularly appealing in times of cultural or economic uncertainty, when clear group boundaries provide a sense of belonging and purpose.

The Role of Current Events
Events like the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict do not cause antisemitism but serve as opportunities for both sides to “harvest” their desired rewards. On the left, protests against Israeli policies often spill into generalizations about Jewish people, as seen in slogans that equate Zionism with global oppression. On the right, the same conflict fuels narratives of Jewish conspiracies undermining national sovereignty. These occasions amplify existing prejudices, providing fresh contexts for the left to claim moral virtue and the right to assert identity.

A Path Forward
The human need for purpose, moral clarity, and identity is universal, as Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl articulated in Man’s Search for Meaning. Antisemitism persists because it offers a distorted shortcut to these needs. To combat it, we must address these underlying desires constructively. Education and dialogue can foster mutual understanding, emphasizing shared humanity over division. For those who share a Christian perspective, the teachings of Jesus, emphasizing universal righteousness and inclusion, offer one framework for transcending prejudice. Jesus is the only Jew who we can harvest these things from without destroying ourselves or the Jewish people.

Conclusion
Jesus came to help solve both of these problems by giving us his righteousness and declaring anyone who has received that righteousness by faith as one of the chosen.. Antisemitism’s persistence across the political spectrum reveals a deeper truth about human nature: the quest for moral virtue and identity can lead to destructive outcomes when misdirected. By understanding these roots, we can better predict and counter antisemitism’s resurgence. That’s why the Gospel is the only hope for stemming the tide of antisemitism.

No sooner does Abram receive the promise that his descendants will get all of this land than a famine strikes the land so severely that Abram feels compelled to take his entire household down to Egypt. And there we encounter the cowardice of Abram. He has made an agreement with his wife, Sarai, that everywhere they go, she’ll claim to be his sister. Now this wasn’t entirely untrue; she is Abram’s half sister, but the core of their deception is to hide the fact that she is also his wife. And so, when the day arrives when Pharaoh’s servants come to take her to marry their king, Abram steps aside and lets them take his wife into the royal harem. This is not a pretty story, but it’s so encouraging to me as the leader of a household.

The blessing of my family is not going to ultimately rest on my perfect behavior but on the grace of God. What activates God’s blessing is my faith not my works. I’m going to have times of failure as a father. We all do. There are unfinished parts of my character that must be addressed. But see how God fathers the exalted father. He not only delivers Abram’s wife back into his arms, but he pours out even more material blessings on Abram in spite of his sin. This response is rather baffling, and it confused Bible teachers for centuries until we arrive at the New Testament, where the Apostles, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveal to us why God was so persistent in blessing Abram.

"What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.'" (Romans 4:1-3 ESV)

"And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness'—and he was called a friend of God." (James 2:23 ESV)

“Just as Abraham 'believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,' know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham…So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith." (Galatians 3:6-7, 9 ESV)

As potential patriarchs, we must never believe our families will be blessed based on our works. Abraham shows us that God’s friendship comes through radical trust in spite of our failures.

Tool: Patriarchal Repentance

“I Was Wrong”

Learning to say these three simple words—“I was wrong”—can transform a father from a prideful tyrant into a humble guide. As fathers, we are not God. Our role is to shepherd our children’s hearts toward their Heavenly Father, and admitting our mistakes is one of the most potent ways to model this shift. In those vulnerable moments, we teach our children that true strength lies in humility and submission to God’s truth.

The New Testament illustrates this through two contrasting stories: Jesus on trial before the high priest, embodying sinless perfection, and Paul on trial before the high priest, revealing human frailty. Consider the scene where Jesus is struck unjustly: “One of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered, ‘If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?’” (John 18:22-23, ESV). Jesus, blameless, responds with calm authority, exposing the injustice without malice.

Now contrast this with Paul’s trial before the high priest Ananias: “The high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike [Paul] on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, ‘God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law, you order me to be struck?’ Those who stood by said, ‘Would you revile God’s high priest?’ And Paul said, ‘I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, “You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people”’” (Acts 23:2-5, ESV).

Paul’s flash of righteous anger is understandable—his face stings from the blow, his heart burns at the hypocrisy. Yet, the moment he’s corrected, he doesn’t double down. Instead, he humbles himself, admits his error, and aligns his heart with Scripture. This is the model for us as fathers. Jesus, our sinless High Priest, shows us perfection; Paul, a flawed man, shows us how to live as fallen fathers in a broken world.

So the next time you have that sinking feeling that you realize you’ve done something wrong, humble yourself. Say you were wrong. Point out what the right thing to do would have been. And if you sense that your family is disappointed in you as a fallen leader, direct them to the leader who will never disappoint them. As John the Baptist says when his disciples began to leave him to follow Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30 ESV)

A new section from my unfinished book “The Ruling Household”

Let’s explore a thought experiment.

Imagine a world where every married man could only build and grow his career or business in partnership with his family. It starts with his wife, then expands to include their children, their children’s spouses, and eventually their grandchildren. These are the only teammates allowed. The success of any economic endeavor—whether a small business, a creative venture, or a family enterprise—depends entirely on the talents, health, and collaboration of this family team.

What might happen in such a world?

This model would undoubtedly present challenges, but the potential benefits are profound:

• Stronger Bonds: Husbands and wives would spend significant time together, especially in the early years before children, fostering deeper connection and shared purpose.

• Complementary Strengths: The work would naturally reflect the unique talents and skills of both spouses, creating a synergy that drives innovation and success.

• Raising Future Partners: Raising and educating children would be viewed as an investment in the family’s future, equipping them with skills to contribute to the team’s growth.

• Organic Growth: Business or career expansion would stem from nurturing the talents of children and their spouses, creating a dynamic and evolving family enterprise.

• Meaningful Time: Every workday would be spent with those you love most, blending personal fulfillment with professional achievement.

The point of this thought experiment is to jolt us out of conventional thinking. It challenges the ingrained separation of “work” and “family” that dominates modern life. I’ve experienced this struggle firsthand. Despite starting seven businesses, with my wife as a partner and all five of our adult children—along with their spouses—now free from traditional employment to pursue their own ventures, I still find it hard to view our family as a cohesive economic unit.

What about you? Do you see work and family as entirely separate spheres? This thought experiment invites you to reconsider. By envisioning your family as your sole team, you may discover new ways to balance your personal and professional lives, fostering both financial success and stronger relationships.

Reimagining your family as your sole professional team is more than a creative exercise—it’s a call to rethink how we structure our lives. In a world that often pulls families apart through work demands and societal norms, this vision offers a path to unity, purpose, and shared achievement. While not every family can or should become a literal business team, the principles of collaboration, mutual support, and leveraging each other’s strengths can transform how we approach both work and relationships. So, take a moment to reflect: How could you harness your family’s unique talents to build something extraordinary together?

“…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

And here we have the “why” for God choosing one family. God is initiating a rescue plan for “all the families of the earth.” Here’s the mystery we must unravel: how is God blessing all the families through Abraham? And for our purposes why is this blessing given to families and not individuals?

Paul talks about this blessing given to us in Christ in Galatians when he writes, “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Galatians 3:8-9 ESV)

The first time God shares this promise with Abraham here in Genesis 12 he says all the “families” but the second time he reiterates the command he says “nations” (Genesis 22:18). In ancient times the ultimate aim of a growing and multiplying multigenerational family was to eventually become a nation. We see that in all the nations surrounding Israel, whether they be Edomites (from Esau), Ammonites (from Amon), Moabites (from Moab), or Israelites (from Israel).

Today we can get confused since nations are increasingly identified with a common creed and land instead of an ethnic people group originating from one family line. What matters here, however, is what God had in mind. He wants to rescue multigenerational families. These can be called families or nations, but the meaning is the same.

Now if multigenerational family rescue was God’s plan all along we would expect to find the early church involved in three practices: a way of rescuing the family in the present in the form of household salvation, a way of rescuing the family in the past and a way of securing the family rescue in the future by passing on the covenant to those being born into the family.

And what do we see when the church emerges in Acts, a description of household salvations. We also see the practice of baptism for the dead in order to rescue family members in the past and baptism of infants in the early church as the next generation is born after the close of the New Testament canon. All three practices are well documented and all three practices make many of us uncomfortable. Now I was raised with strong Anabaptist intuitions around individual salvation and baptism, as an adult with an assumption that all pre-Christian generations of our family are sadly lost forever.

It would take a separate book to do justice to this difficult theological question but here I think it’s important to point out that a culture of valuing the individual and reading the Bible through an individualistic lens has likely influenced many of us more than we realize and I’m still working through these implications. This is also why the Gospel has such a difficult time penetrating cultures that have a high degree of ongoing concern for their ancestors. The Japanese, for example, have found a hyper-individualistic version of the Gospel challenging to accept and to this day less than 1% of the Japanese have chosen to follow Jesus. How can we present a kind of Gospel that is consistent with a robust New Testament theology of salvation without devolving into Western individualism?

Tool: Honoring the Ancestors of your Family Line

In his book Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, neuroscientist David Eagleman describes three stages of death. The first occurs when bodily functions cease—when the heart stops beating and brain activity fades. The second is the physical disposal of the body, whether through burial, cremation, or other means, marking the end of our physical presence in the world. The third and final death, Eagleman suggests, is the fading of a person’s memory and legacy, when their name is no longer spoken, and the last person who knew them passes away. For many in the modern West, this third death is met with indifference. Living as isolated individuals, we often dismiss the importance of leaving a lasting legacy. But what if this indifference has gone too far? What if our choice to forget our ancestors—not just their names but their stories, struggles, and triumphs—has consequences not only for their memory but for our own identity and the inheritance we pass to future generations?

We are living in a time of widespread disdain for our ancestors in Western culture. Instead of honoring their contributions, we teach the next generation to view their forebears with contempt, framing them as morally inferior. I recently overheard a 9-year-old passionately denounce “imperialists” as wholly evil while portraying those they displaced as entirely innocent. Historical narratives are complex, yet we’ve traded one oversimplification—that our people were always the heroes—for another: that they were always the villains. Neither extreme captures the truth. We need traditions that allow us to remember our ancestors with gratitude for their virtues while honestly reckoning with their flaws, fostering a balanced understanding of our heritage.

This tension became vivid for me while watching Disney’s Coco, a film that celebrates the Mexican Day of the Dead. Part of me was drawn to its vibrant call to honor family and memory, yet I wrestled with its blend of Catholic All Saints’ Day traditions and pre-Christian Aztec beliefs about the dead returning annually. For some, this mix raises theological concerns, as it may seem to stray from biblical teachings. Still, the film’s core impulse—to remember and celebrate those who came before—touches a universal human longing. Without intentional practices to honor our ancestors, we risk raising generations disconnected from their roots, unaware of who they are or where they come from.

Here are three practical ways to keep ancestral memory alive, fostering a legacy that grounds us and inspires future generations:

• Maintain and Share a Family Genealogy: Documenting your family’s history is more accessible today than ever, thanks to digital tools. Encourage older family members, who often have the time and passion, to serve as genealogy keepers. Invite them to share updates at family gatherings, weaving stories of your lineage into the fabric of your family’s identity.

• Establish an Annual Tradition to Honor Ancestors: Annual rituals carry profound weight. For Christians who may avoid Halloween, consider reclaiming All Saints’ Day on November 1st as a time to gather and share stories of ancestors and faithful saints who shaped your family’s values. Create traditions—like storytelling, reading letters, or sharing heirlooms—that bring their legacy to life.

• Decorate Your Home with Ancestral Artifacts: Transform your home into a gallery of your family’s story. Display heirlooms, photos, or artistic depictions of ancestral achievements to create an immersive environment that reminds children and grandchildren of their heritage. These tangible reminders signal that their own lives, too, can leave a lasting mark.

When we honor our ancestors, we lift our children out of the isolating trap of Western individualism. By showing how past decisions ripple through generations, we teach them that their choices matter far beyond their own lives. This perspective fosters wisdom and character, anchoring them in a story larger than themselves—one that connects past, present, and future in a legacy of meaning and purpose.

The stronger the state, the weaker the family.

This power shift occurs when the state assumes responsibilities once held by families, often under the guise of compassion or necessity. What begins as a limited program for those in need in one generation becomes a universal entitlement in the next, permanently entrenching a stronger state and a diminished family. The rhetoric behind these policies may sound benevolent, but their outcomes reveal a consistent pattern of eroding the realm of family responsibility.

Here are eight policies that, while seeming well-intentioned, transfer power from families to the state, collectively reducing the family to a shadow of its former strength.

1. Social Security vs. Honoring Parents: Historically, raising children well was a practical necessity—children cared for their aging parents. Social Security shifted this responsibility to the state, reducing the incentive to have and nurture children. While intended to protect the elderly, it has inadvertently placed a burden on younger generations, weakening the intergenerational bond that once motivated family formation and care.

2. Subsidized College Loans vs. Early Marriage and Children: Before widespread government involvement in college loans, students could often cover tuition with part-time and summer jobs. As the state poured money into loan programs, colleges raised tuition at triple the rate of inflation, plunging young adults into debt. This financial burden delays marriage and parenthood by a decade or more, contributing to declining birth rates and rising rates of unplanned childlessness.

3. 401(k) Programs vs. Family-Owned Businesses: Government-designed tax incentives, like 401(k) plans, have funneled retirement savings into public markets, giving large corporations access to vastly more capital than family-owned businesses. This has fueled private equity firms that acquire small, family-run companies, consolidating them into large conglomerates traded on public markets. Even when value is lost in these transitions, the shift from family to corporate ownership enriches private equity at the expense of millions of families.

4. Government Welfare vs. Family and Community Support: Traditionally, care for the poor began with parents, extended family, churches, neighbors, and communities, with the state as a last resort. Government welfare programs invert this model, incentivizing reliance on state aid over family and community bonds. This shift undermines the family’s role as a primary support network, fostering dependency on the state.

5. Public Sex Education vs. Faith-Based Values: Public sex education often emphasizes the physical aspects of sex over its emotional or spiritual significance. This framing can normalize casual attitudes toward sex, reducing the incentive for young men to commit to marriage and family life. Historically, the prospect of building a family motivated men toward long-term commitment, but now they see the normalization of premarital sex causing an increasing number of men to give up on marriage altogether.

6. Abortion Rights vs. Honoring Motherhood: The abortion debate, often framed as a matter of women’s rights, has diminished the cultural reverence for motherhood. By prioritizing individual autonomy over the value of nurturing life, society has shifted feminine aspirations away from motherhood toward advocacy for freedom from it. This reframing pits personal liberation against family creation, eroding the family’s societal priority.

7. Fiat Currency vs. Sound Money: Government-controlled fiat currency and inflation punish savers and reward borrowers, discouraging long-term financial planning. Families once built wealth through disciplined saving, but inflation erodes purchasing power, forcing parents to become savvy investors or watch their savings diminish. This uncertainty undermines the hope that hard work and sacrifice will secure a better future for their children.

8. Two-Income Home Loans vs. Single-Income Affordability: Homes were once affordable on a single income, allowing one parent—often the mother—to prioritize family over career. When the government allowed banks to begin considering dual incomes for mortgages, housing prices surged, pricing many single-income families out of the market. This forced more mothers into the workforce, creating a cycle where dual incomes became a necessity, further straining family life.

The state’s encroachment on family responsibilities, though often cloaked in compassion, systematically weakens the family unit by transferring its traditional roles to government control. To restore the family’s vital role in society, we must critically examine these policies, prioritize family-centric solutions, and reclaim the responsibilities that foster strong, self-reliant households. Only then can we reverse the tide and rebuild a culture that values the family as the cornerstone of a thriving society.

What if fathers reclaimed their role, viewing their daughters as under their care until the day they walk them down the aisle? What if fathers and daughters worked as a team to find a worthy mate? Here are five things fathers should stop doing that compromise their daughters’ ability to find the right partner, paired with five proactive steps to ensure a better match.

1. STOP allowing exclusive dating relationships early and START encouraging your daughter to keep her options open, putting pressure on the man to demonstrate whether he’s the best option.

Exclusive relationships often mimic the commitment of marriage without its permanence, exploiting our God-given desire for covenant. These "pretend commitments" rarely endure, ending when one partner believes they’ve found a better match or decides marriage isn’t the goal. This cycle of fleeting commitments and painful breakups prepares daughters not for lasting marriage but for divorce. Instead, call out the temporary nature of dating relationships, emphasizing that any commitment is conditional until a covenant is made.

2. STOP acting like her romantic relationships are a private concern and START regularly debriefing her dates and discoveries about her romantic interests.

Dating is akin to a job interview, not a mini-marriage. As your daughter spends time with a suitor, discuss her experiences to discern whether he’s a viable candidate. These conversations help her evaluate his potential objectively. If he’s no longer a suitable match, end the relationship decisively to make room for someone with greater promise.

3. STOP assuming the only thing that matters is whether your daughter decides this is a good match and START insisting the young man spend time with you because you are vetting his fitness as a potential mate for your daughter and member of the larger family.

A young man pursuing your daughter must prove himself to you as much as to her. If you wouldn’t entrust a 20-year-old to single-handedly choose a company’s CEO, why leave your daughter to make a life-altering decision alone? Involve yourself as part of a "team" to ensure a diverse perspective and protect her future.

4. STOP categorizing the physical relationship your daughter may have with a potential mate as something between the two of them and START categorizing their physical relationship as something that concerns her future husband and that your role is to ensure a short-term interest does not steal from your daughters future husband reducing the likelihood she will attract the right man because she’s given herself to the wrong ones.

Scripture teaches that her body belongs to her future spouse, just as his belongs to her. The man she’s dating may not be that future husband, and any physical involvement risks diminishing her ability to attract the right partner. Prioritize her future marriage—a covenant far more valuable than a temporary romance—by setting clear boundaries and honoring the one she will ultimately marry.

5. STOP simply waiting for the right man to show interest in your daughter and START activating your network of friends in a search for potential high value men.

Finding a worthy mate is more challenging today than ever. Enlist trusted friends, family, and colleagues to recommend men of character and potential. Make it known that their help in securing a good match would earn your family’s lasting gratitude. By proactively seeking out candidates, you increase the likelihood of finding a man worthy of your daughter.

Fathers hold a sacred responsibility to guide their daughters toward a future marked by love, stability, and fulfillment. By abandoning outdated notions of detachment and embracing an active role in their daughters’ romantic journeys, fathers can protect them from heartbreak and equip them for lasting marriages. Through open communication, careful vetting, clear boundaries, and proactive engagement, fathers and daughters can work together to find a mate who honors God’s design for covenant. Let us reclaim this calling, walking alongside our daughters until the day we entrust them to a worthy husband, confident that we’ve done our part to secure their joy.