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1) 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🧵" title="Thread" aria-label="Emoji: Thread">Working on an article on Bavinck and the importance of the home. His ideas (in 1917) for & #39;social reformation& #39; to strengthen society by strengthening the home included some interesting practical steps:
2) Fighting poverty. Low wages force parents to work long hours to make ends meet, and make it harder for them to be present and engaged parents to their children. To be pro-family is to be anti-poverty.
3) Improving the quality of housing available, especially to poor families in cities. House ≠home, but the two are nonetheless related. He argued for better laws for housing and insurance.
4) Improved links between families and schools. His radical proposal (in 1917) was for schools to hold parents& #39; evenings where parents could interact directly with teachers, for mutual support and better understanding of values, beliefs & goals between families and school.
5) Reduce the quantity of homework. Schoolwork taking up increasing evening hours means fewer hours for a household to spend simply being family together. Excessive homework eats into time for bonding with parents and siblings, to the detriment of all.
6) Easing the tension of the family unit vs. the individual by making the home a place where each child is known best (as an individual) by his/her parents, whilst also reinforcing that the family unit is their place of belonging. But to do this, a home needs time and space.
7) These are all & #39;external circumstances that advance the destruction of family life& #39;. He also had a lot to say about the home as a place of spiritual and moral formation. But it& #39;s certainly not the case that Christians should care about the latter to the exclusion of the former.
8) Rather, orthodoxy and orthopraxy go hand in hand. Orthodox theology and social vision belong together.
