Whatever Happened to Families?
One of the men I owe a great deal to is Phil Lancaster. Although we have never met, and only corresponded a few times by email, his ministry through Patriarch Magazine has touched me in many ways. Although I was only able to subscribe to his magazine for about a year before Phil moved on to other things, he kept a wealth of articles on his website. I've spent hours on his website. There were articles calling men to lead their families in family worship, articles about homeschooling - even through college, and there were several agrarian articles by Howard King. A good friend of mine and I would meet for breakfast each week and discuss the different articles and talk about how we wanted to implement these things in our families. I have a filing cabinet that holds over six inches of these articles printed out. I only regret that I did not print out more before the website was taken down.
Out of all the different articles I've read there is one that stands out as having had the greatest affect on the direction my life has taken. It was one Phil wrote called, "Whatever Happened to Families?" He starts by stating that before you can decide how to get where you want to go, you must first determine where you are. He then takes us through a whirlwind tour of the past 300 years. In the 1700's men left their farms and families to work in the factories and the cities; in the 1800's the children left their homes because of state-mandated public education; and then finally in the 1900's the mothers left their homes as a result of the feminist movement. No wonder our families are in such a mess!
Reading this article kindled the fire within my heart to do whatever I could to reverse this trend. I praise God that He had already enabled us to keep our children and their mother at home. Now, by His grace, I want to come home too.
I thank Phil for graciously giving me permission to host his article, "Whatever Happened to Families?" on my website. This article became the second chapter of his book Family Man, Family Leader which I can also highly recommend.
posted by tc @ 5:02 PM
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5 Comments:
Hi, Terry....I just stopped over by way of Herrick's blog to say hellow and welcome you to the online fellowship of agrarians. We have a small place on a couple acres in NH. Just chickens and guineas for now. I'm blessed to be able to stay home as a homeschooling mom but we would love to have my husband home, too. I've just been reading through your other posts. I like what you have to say, and am looking forward to hearing more! God's blessings to you and your family!
Emily, thanks for stopping by and for the nice welcome! I enjoyed reading about your guinea hens, although I may think twice about adding them to our future farm. :-)
For a fuller treatise of the issues raised by Phil Lancaster, one can check out Allan Carlson's The Family in America: Searching for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age, which was earlier published under the title, From Cottage to Work Station: The Family's Search for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age.
Hi Terry,
I too read and enjoyed Phil Lancaster's web site, and copied off articles from it. That was the first place I read Howard King's writings.
I was so very disappointed that the site was removed. I think a lot of people were blessed by it. Probably far more people than Mr. Lancaster realized.
Great to have you stop by, Herrick!
I found out that Mr. Lancaster read this post, so if anyone else wants to thank him for his ministry, leave a comment, I'm sure he would appreciate the encouragement.
As far as the wealth of articles that his website had, stay tuned for a future announcement! :-)
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