Home Free
on Families as the Province of Liberty
The "heteronormative" family, currently an object of frequent ridicule, is in fact a necessary foundation for progress, democracy, and ordered liberty. This is particularly so for Americans.
Visiting the still-young United States in the 1830s, the German traveler Francis J. Grund found a land characterized by "early marriage," "the sanctity of the marriage vow," many children, and "domestic happiness." Indeed, he argued that these family virtues were the "principal source" of successful democratic governance here. "The American Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity," Grund noted, requiring "a people habitually correct" in their home lives. Take that away, and the American experiment in free society would fail.
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Allan C. Carlson is the John Howard Distinguished Senior Fellow at the International Organization for the Family. His most recent book is Family Cycles: Strength, Decline & Renewal in American Domestic Life, 1630-2000 (Transaction, 2016). He and his wife have four grown children and nine grandchildren. A "cradle Lutheran," he worships in a congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He is a senior editor for Touchstone.
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more on family from the online archives
31.5—September/October 2018
Errands into the Moral Wilderness
Forms of Christian Family Witness & Renewal by Allan C. Carlson
33.2—March/April 2020
Encounters with Faith & Forgiveness in Communities of Faith by Nicole M. King
33.2—March/April 2020
Christian Pro-Family Governments?
Old & New Lessons from Europe by Allan C. Carlson
more from the online archives
23.1—January/February 2010
It’s Bent on Bringing Down the House on the Family & the Church by Douglas Farrow
31.1—January/February 2018
on Taking the Measure of the Deserving & the Undeserving Poor by Martin Bordelon
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