Two Revolutions That Changed the Family
Squires argues that two profound cultural revolutions arrived at nearly the same historical moment.
- The first was the dramatic expansion of the welfare state.
- The second was the rise of second-wave feminism.
Together, he believes, they fundamentally altered how Americans understood men, women, marriage, and children.
That observation struck me because it echoes a theme I have explored repeatedly in these pages.
The modern confusion surrounding sex, gender, marriage, and family did not suddenly appear with transgender activism. Nor did it begin with the LGBTQ movement. Today’s debates are the latest chapter in a much longer intellectual revolution.
Second-wave feminism challenged many genuine injustices experienced by women. But alongside those legitimate concerns came a far more radical philosophical claim: that the differences between men and women were largely social constructions rather than meaningful features of our created humanity.
Few sentences have exercised greater influence over modern culture than Simone de Beauvoir’s famous declaration: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
That single sentence quietly shifted the ground beneath Western civilization.
If manhood and womanhood are no longer rooted in creation but are instead socially constructed, then marriage itself becomes infinitely malleable. Motherhood and fatherhood lose their objective meaning. Eventually, biological sex itself becomes negotiable.
The progression is remarkably consistent.
Second-wave feminism questioned traditional sex roles.
Queer Theory questioned sexual identity.
Gender ideology questions biological reality itself.
The New York legislature’s replacement of “mother” and “father” with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” is not an isolated event. It is simply the latest expression of a cultural revolution that has been unfolding for decades.
What begins by denying meaningful differences between men and women eventually ends by denying that men and women exist at all.
Squires approaches this history from the perspective of the Black family.
I approach it from the broader perspective of Christian anthropology.
Yet we arrive at remarkably similar conclusions.
When creation is rejected, confusion inevitably follows.
The Church Must Recover Its Voice
One of the most sobering portions of Squires’ interview concerns the contemporary Black Church.
Historically, Black churches were indispensable institutions of spiritual formation, moral instruction, and family stability. They nurtured resilient marriages, encouraged responsible fatherhood, and proclaimed a gospel centered on repentance, redemption, and holy living.
Squires argues that much of that emphasis has shifted.
Tracing the influence of James Cone and Black Liberation Theology, he observes that many progressive churches increasingly interpret Christianity through the categories of oppression and liberation rather than through humanity’s deeper problem of sin and reconciliation with God.
This is not merely a disagreement about political priorities.
It is a fundamentally different understanding of the Gospel itself.
If humanity’s greatest problem is oppression, then political liberation naturally becomes the Church’s highest calling.
If humanity’s greatest problem is sin, then reconciliation with God must remain its first mission.
The distinction matters enormously.
Squires warns that many pastors now regard historic Christian teaching on sex, marriage, and family as itself oppressive toward LGBTQIA+ persons. As a result, he offers one of the interview’s most arresting observations:
“Those black pastors and their churches are an obstacle to black family formation, not an asset, because these are people who would find it difficult to advocate for a biblical definition…of male and female…the definition of marriage…and…proper order in the home with respect to husband, wife, and children.”
That is a painful criticism.
But it is one Christians of every denomination should hear.
The temptation to surrender biblical anthropology for cultural approval is hardly unique to Black churches.
Mainline Protestant denominations have traveled this road for decades.
Increasing numbers of evangelical churches are beginning to do the same.
The pressure is immense.
Everywhere we are told that affirming God’s created order is intolerant.
That teaching Genesis is harmful.
That speaking of mothers and fathers is exclusionary.
That biological sex is fluid.
That marriage is infinitely expandable.
That children do not necessarily need both a mother and a father.
The pressure is relentless.
But the Church has never been called to echo the spirit of the age.
It has been called to proclaim the truth.
Beyond the Politics of Race
One of the most refreshing aspects of Squires’ analysis is his refusal to reduce every problem to race.
He distinguishes carefully between race and culture.
Those are not the same thing.
Likewise, he refuses to romanticize history.
Slavery distorted the Black family.
Racism inflicted terrible wounds.
Those realities should never be minimized.
Yet neither should they become excuses for ignoring present responsibilities.
Squires also introduces what he calls the “Afro-stocracy”—the influential class of progressive politicians, professors, preachers, performers, and pundits who, in his judgment, have largely abandoned family reconstruction as a central concern. Too often, he argues, they function less as cultural physicians diagnosing illness than as public relations specialists minimizing it.
His criticism reaches its climax in what he calls the “surrender era.”
He notes that despite the enormous influence of organizations such as Black Lives Matter, few contemporary Black leaders place marriage revival or family reconstruction at the center of their public agenda.
“None of those groups,” he observes, “certainly not BLM…list family formation and family reconstruction as one of their top priorities.”
No civilization survives the collapse of the family.
Schools cannot replace parents.
Courts cannot replace fathers.
Government programs cannot replace husbands.
Culture cannot flourish when its most fundamental institution is disintegrating.
God’s First Institution
The article began with New York’s decision to erase the words mother and father from portions of its legal code.
It ends where it began.
Some will undoubtedly dismiss these changes as symbolic.
But symbols matter.
Language matters.
Civilizations are sustained by the stories they tell themselves about reality.
For thousands of years, virtually every culture understood that every child enters the world through the union of one man and one woman.
Christianity did not invent that truth.
It received it as part of God’s created order and elevated it by revealing marriage as a covenant that reflects Christ’s faithful love for His Church.
That understanding now stands under sustained assault.
We should not be surprised.
Every revolutionary movement eventually turns its attention to the family because the family is the first school of virtue, the first economy, the first government, the first church, and the first place where children learn that love is expressed through faithful self-sacrifice rather than autonomous self-expression.
Destroy the family, and every other institution becomes easier to reshape.
Delano Squires has written an important book because he reminds us that the collapse of the Black family is not merely a Black tragedy.
It is an American warning.
More importantly, he reminds Christians that this crisis will never be solved by politics alone.
It is, first and foremost, a spiritual crisis.
And spiritual crises require spiritual renewal.
No legislature can create healthy marriages.
No government program can manufacture faithful fathers.
No court can produce loving mothers.
Those gifts are cultivated in homes shaped by covenant, sustained by sacrificial love, nourished by faithful churches, and ordered toward the God who created us male and female.
The state may replace mother with gestating parent.
It may replace father with non-gestating parent.
It may convince itself that changing words changes reality.
But reality is stubborn.
Every child is still the living embodiment of the union of one man and one woman—a truth Squires so beautifully reminds us of when reflecting on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s enduring insight.
Our task, then, is not to invent a new vision of the family.
It is to recover the One we have been given.
For the family was God’s first institution.
Families will not ultimately be restored by better policies, though good policies matter. They will not be restored merely by better sociology, though good sociology helps us understand the problem. Families are restored one marriage, one father, one mother, one child at a time through the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. The Church’s task is therefore not merely to defend the family but to proclaim the Gospel that makes faithful families possible.
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