"How to Build a Strong Christian Home" Part Three

[Burris]

(For those who want to keep up, read one and two.)

The title Fuentes chose for this chapter: The Exquisite Home Culture.

No, not the peaceful home culture, the safe home culture, the stable home culture, or even the happy home culture. Those words - peaceful, safe, stable, and happy - are simply too prosaic when set beside a term such as "exquisite."

Now it's time to find out what such a superb culture entails:

Home culture is the atmosphere that is purposefully and intentionally cultivated within the four walls of your home. It is the music when you walk in the door, it is the conversation at the dinner table....Culture--it exists just as richly and lively inside your home as it does outside your front door.

If a home culture is strong and family bonds are healthy, then why are fundamentalists worried about the alleged depravity of the wider world. They're supposed to be in the world and not of it, after all.

And yet fundamentalist politicians seem to believe it's their god-given duty - their right - to force other people into their own concept of an ideal society.

Dear mothers, we weave the tapestry of home life for our loved ones as we create the culture of our home.

In the patriarchal system, fathers - some of them abusive; others, disinterested - are the ones who set the home culture. Even so, however, Fuentes continues...

Mothers, even if all the earth around you is wicked, you alone create and make your home a small haven for your family behind those closed doors, a sacred dwelling where Christ is center.

The creation of this culture is considered part of the woman's domain even if she lacks the authority and the tools to set the mood. If the patriarch wants to make his family miserable, he'll do it regardless of how hard everyone else works to lighten the mood.

But even more importantly than these things are what is experienced in a home.

...such as being struck with instruments while still in diapers.

Interestingly enough, Fuentes makes a point I find surprising coming as it does from her:

Do not stifle children with a rigid and cold home environment and extinguish the joy from their hearts. Children are like flowers who bask in the sun of love.

What an oddity: Fundie advice worth following.

As usual, Fuentes follows her chapters with questions:

1. What kind of home atmosphere did you grow up in?

2. Can you describe what your home atmosphere is like presently?

3. What kind of home culture do you desire for your home in the future?

4. What needs to be done so it can be improved?

1) Awful

2) Happy but, by virtue of finances, not as stable as I'd like

3) Happy, and without the financial pain in the ass