Whoever loves mother or father or son or daughter more than Jesus is not worthy of him. Treasuring the world will get you the world, but not heaven. https://t.co/CklWJBftcP
— Desiring God (@desiringGod) October 8, 2019
This, right here, is exactly what is taught in Southern Baptist and other evangelical churches across the country, and the reason white evangelicals have the highest divorce rate in the country. You can spin, and construct elaborately convoluted apologetics, and insist that this remark’s real meaning is accessible to only True Believers, but it means — and is understood in the pews to mean — what it obviously means: Jesus first, and your spouse and your children and everybody else in your life can have the leftovers. This is exactly what every cult that has ever soiled the earth has taught, and for the same reason: Healthy marriages and families undermine the cult’s total ownership and control of its members.
If you must do something on Sunday morning besides read the New York Times while sipping a good cup of French Roast or Sumatra, take the spouse and kids to a park. Presumably, Our Invisible Friend can find you there, too.