February 1, 2010 (Rockford, Illinois)
Dear Pro-Family Friends of The Howard Center and World Congress of Families,
Elections won’t help our children and families. Ok, I know I’m going to get lots of negative email response for that statement, but keep reading. While I encourage you to vote for pro-family candidates and policies as I will tomorrow here in Illinois, no election (on its own) will help our children and families unless we change our homes, our culture, our media, our churches and our institutions of business, education and government. We need “fresh” ideas and strategies for winning the culture war.
As we begin a new decade and the Year of Our Lord 2010, there are even more signs of turmoil in the family system of Western Christian Civilization. Marriage rates are in full-scale retreat; at the same time, the proportion of children born out of wedlock soars, climbing this year over 40 percent in The United States. The protagonists of the Sexual Revolution keep the Christian Home in their gun sights; the court-driven push for “Same Sex Marriage”—a direct repudiation of the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic—claims ever more states and nations. Plummeting birthrates portend the disappearance of a once vital Christendom. Recent, conventional pro-family strategies to encourage marriage and marital childbearing have faltered.
The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society holds that Ideas Have Consequences. We believe that the weakness of the Western family system derives largely from a failure of both imagination and will in communicating biblical principles about family and marriage. In recent decades, most defenders of the family have relied on terminology at once tired and distorting: they have defended “the traditional family” or “the nuclear family.” The former term is backward-looking and uninspiring; the latter sounds like a bomb! Instead, we published just a few years ago The Natural Family: A Manifesto (www.familymanifesto.net), a treatise that seeks to alter the very language of debate while remaining true to biblical principles. Already, the “natural family” vision as articulated in that document has begun to take hold among key advocates, portending a better future.
Indeed, The Howard Center strives to be the leading source of fresh ideas and new strategies for affirmation and defense of The Natural Family, both nationally and around the globe. Toward this, we now focus on three of our projects: The Family In America, Ground-breaking Books and Essays and World Congress of Families.
(1) The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy (www.familyinamerica.org) is a new quarterly publication that will shape fresh ideas and approaches to promote the Natural Family ideal in the years and decades ahead. Building on the twenty-two year legacy of a monograph series bearing the same first name, this new periodical is designed to appeal to academics, journalists, writers, and committed activists. It continues a “New Research” component that is already the nation’s finest and most complete collection of pro-family research Abstracts in the fields of sociology, psychology, medicine, and so on. Our goal is no less than winning a radical change in the terms of debate currently surrounding family issues. Already, the praise is coming in: “The most incisive guide to issues facing the American family today…. An invaluable resource for anyone wishing to stay on the cutting edge research on family trends” (Professor W. Bradford Wilcox, University of Virginia); and “Brings impressive intellectual firepower to an important area of study and debate while providing keen insights into the fate of the American family” (Professor Bruce Frohnen, Ohio Northern University School of Law).
(2) Ground-breaking Books and Essays (www.profam.org) are a regular product of the Howard Center. Recent books from Center scholars include:
Conjugal America: On the Public Purposes of Marriage; Taken Into Custody: The
War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family; Third Ways: How Bulgarian
Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer-Swilling Englishmen Created
Family-Centered Economies… And Why They Disappeared; and
Christianity: Lifeblood of America’s Free Society. Current research projects focus on how Federal government dollars corrupted private higher education in America and on how American Evangelicals have dealt with the issues of contraception and abortion. Howard Center scholars also regularly write for Intercollegiate Review, Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, Modern Age, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and other leading American idea and opinion journals. In addition, Center scholars carry their message to the rising generation, recently giving lectures to student audiences at The University of Michigan, Washington University of St. Louis, University of Notre Dame, Bethel University, and the Catholic University of America, among others.
(3) The World Congress of Families (WCF, www.worldcongress.org) serves as the rallying center for the world’s family systems grounded in religious faith. In response to a militant secular individualism that dominates the United Nations and other international bodies, the WCF fosters a unique international network of pro-family organizations and scholars that raise up The Natural Family as the fundamental social unit, the ‘seedbed’ of good citizenship. Major WCF events have been held in Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), and Warsaw (2007). Most recently, the WCF V convened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in August 2009. Delegates from 63 nations affirmed in the historic Declaration of Amsterdam that: “the natural family… rest[s] on the lifelong marriage of a man to a woman, for the purposes of welcoming and nurturing new human life”; “children predictably do best when raised by their natural parents in a married couple home”; and “the future of nations rests on families that are spiritually grounded.” Four new Dutch organizations have formed as a result of our Amsterdam Congress to continue proclaiming the pro-family message in the Netherlands and Europe. Earlier WCF events during 2009 convened in Riga, Latvia (“The Riga Family Forum”) and Abuja, Nigeria (“The World Congress of Families: A Dialogue of Civilizations”). An organization’s influence might best be measured by its foes. The radical Sex Information and Education Council of America (SIECUS) recently warned its members that “One should be concerned about WCF, not just because of what they say, but because of what they do: influence domestic and international policy.”
The impact from our most recent World Congress of Families event is still making ripples throughout the world. The Congress inspired four new organizations in the Netherlands that continue the pro-family fight in Europe. Our network of pro-family scholars and activists now extends to more than 85 countries. As further testimony to the success of the WCF following Amsterdam, six organizations are planning World Congress of Families Regional events in 2010. Four new proposals for the World Congress of Families VI in 2011 are already in preparation (Spain, Italy, Singapore and Australia). Others are expected from Russia, Malta, Bolivia, Latvia, Nigeria, Canada and the U.S. In 2010, Focus on the Family has agreed to host a 2010 World Congress of Families strategy, planning and bid selection meeting in Colorado Springs.
After 12 years, five successful Congresses, - from Prague to Amsterdam - and a growing international coalition from 85 countries in the pro-family movement, we believe the World Congress of Families has proved its worth. Here in the United States, our network has helped unite and strengthen all of the major pro-family groups from
Focus on the Family to The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention to
National Right To Life to Priests for Life, to the American Family Association to
Concerned Women for America to the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute to name just a few. Even in the heart of secular, leftist Europe, the World Congress of Families has now inspired four new Dutch pro-family conservative groups to defend the natural family in the Netherlands and Europe (www.worldcongress.nl). We hope that you agree that WCF is a wise investment for defending families and traditional values.
Many other pro-family organizations around the world have recognized The Howard Center’s value to the pro-family movement and have joined our network as partners in 2009/2010 including:
Alliance Defense Fund : www.alliancedefensefund.org
Alliance for the Family : www.allianceforfamily.org
American Family Association: www.afa.net
Americans United for Life: www.aul.org
Association For Family Values
Asssociazione per la Difesa Dei Valori Cristiani--Luci sull'Est, Italy:
www.lucisullest.it
Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute:
www.c-fam.org
Concerned Women For America: www.cwfa.org
Ethics and Public Policy Center: www.epc.org
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: www.epcc.ca
Family First Foundation: www.familyfirstfoundation.com
Family Research Council: www.frc.org
Family Watch International: www.familywatchinternational.org
Father Peter Skarga Institute (Poland): www.piotrskarga.pl
Fellowship of St. James (Touchstone Magazine): www.fsj.org
Focus On The Family: www.family.org
Grasstops USA: www.grasstopsusa.com
HazteOir.org (Spain): www.hazteoir.org
His Servants: www.hisservants.net
Home School Legal Defense Association: www.hslda.org
Human Life International: www.hli.org
Media Research Center: www.mediaresearch.org
National Right to Life Committee: www.nrlc.org
Parents Forum Switzerland: www.pafor.ch
Population Research Institute: www.pop.org
Priests For Life: www.priestsforlife.org
REAL Women of Canada: www.realwomenca.com
Red Familia (Family Network of Mexico): www.redfamilia.net
Tradition, Family and Property: www.tfp.org
United Families International: www.unitedfamilies.org
To continue and expand on this work, we need your help. I invite you to make a 2010 gift to The Howard Center. You can give online at: http://www.profam.org/THC/thc_donation.htm or by phone at 1-800-461-3113. Please help us to expand the reach and influence of The Family in America, to increase the domestic and international effects of the World Congress of Families, and to carry The Natural Family message to new American collegiate and university audiences. A special gift at this time would have great significance and impact! Let’s go beyond the voting booth to help our society and families experience God’s plan and design for our families and our nation.
Blessings to you and your family!
Sincerely Yours,
Lawrence D. Jacobs
Vice President, The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society
Managing Director, World Congress of Families
P.S. Don’t forget to vote, but don’t stop there! We need your help now to make a difference in our culture, in our country and in our world! Give now at http://www.profam.org/THC/thc_donation.htm, or call us at 1-800-461-3113 to make your gift. For every gift over $75 we will be pleased to send you a copy of “The Natural Family: A Manifesto” by Allan Carlson and Paul Mero, a booklet that is essential reading for anyone concerned about the natural family.