HANNIBAL – The U.S. Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage last year is only the latest symptom of the crisis of the American family—a crisis that experts from across the nation will address during the Missouri Baptist Convention’s Worldview Conference, April 14, 2016.
Alongside the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to redefine marriage to include the union of same-sex couples, Missouri Baptists must address other family crises as they carry the gospel to their communities. Divorce rates are rampant, with 24,000 divorces reported in Missouri alone in 2009, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. Additionally, 24 million children across the nation live without a biological father in the home, and many orphaned children await adoption. Also, many families have been broken by drug addiction and crime, and, as a result, Missouri holds nearly 40,000 prison and jail inmates, and 60,000 Missouri children have had at least one incarcerated parent. Nationally, 2.7 million children have incarcerated parents, and 70 percent of these children are expected to follow their parents into prison.
According to Joe Ulveling, family ministry specialist at the Missouri Baptist Convention, strengthening families across Missouri and across the nation could help revive the church and transform lives and communities.
“The family is the bedrock of our society,” Ulveling said. “As our families go, so goes our society. As our society goes, so goes our country. And look at the results. We’ve got to turn back the tide.”
Ulveling added that family problems within churches, including divorce, family disputes and immoral living among members, deacons or ministers, have weakened the church and its witness.
“The church,” he said,” is only as strong as the families that are in it.”
For this reason, speakers at the MBC’s Worldview Conference will equip Missouri Baptists to assess and respond to the family crises they face in their churches and communities.
Keynote speakers include:
• W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the national marriage project, associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, and author of Soft Patriarchs, New men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands;
• C. Ben Mitchell, Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University, a well-known Southern Baptist ethicist who is co-author most recently of Christian Bioethics: A Guide for Pastors, Health Care Professionals, and Families;
• Janice Crouse, executive director for the World Congress of Families IX and former executive director and senior fellow at The Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank for Concerned Women for America, as well as author of Children at Risk and Marriage Matters;
• John Mark Yeats, dean of Midwestern Baptist College on the campus of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.