Don’t erase the ideal

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” —James 1:27

There’s a reason Scripture singles out orphans and widows. They are not just economically vulnerable—they’ve suffered relational loss. Their pain isn’t generic. It is the pain of familial absence, of fracture, of something that was but is no longer.

Unfortunately, in today’s culture, we are losing the ability to acknowledge that. Not because the affliction has vanished—but because our courage has.

There’s a growing movement—well-intentioned yet misguided—that says our highest virtue is inclusion. Especially when it comes to family.

If that’s true, then suggesting there is a household “ideal” becomes exclusionary. To imply certain family structures are better than others is branded as bigotry. But what if inclusion, at the expense of truth, makes genuine compassion impossible? What if denying the ideal doesn’t protect people—but harms those most affected by familial loss?

We’re told, almost reflexively, that “families come in all shapes and sizes.” That “love makes a family” and “women don’t need a man.” Of course, love matters and heroic single parents exist. Blended families can be redemptive. But behind the slogans is a quiet insinuation: Don’t say what’s missing. Don’t name what was lost. Don’t imply one path might be better than another. And above all, don’t hold up a standard.

But James does. He speaks of widows and orphans “in their distress.” And the distress is not just grief—it’s disconnection from the structure God designed to protect them. A child without parents, or a woman without her husband, is not merely in a “different” situation. She is in a tragic one.

If you erase the ideal, you erase the tragedy. And if you erase the tragedy, on what basis can you offer real compassion?

When a children of divorce mourn the loss of their intact family, culture reminds them how lucky they are to have two Christmases. When a boy conceived by a donor and raised by two “mothers” longs to know his dad, culture tells him how fortunate he is to be loved. When a mother is abandoned because her husband embraced a gay lifestyle, culture tells her to applaud his bravery.

If one arrangement is erased as the ideal, all tragedy is reframed as normalcy. And what’s normal is no longer noteworthy.

The Christian tradition has always held that marriage safeguards the right of children to live with their mother and father. It is not arbitrary, and it is not interchangeable. The family—father, mother, married, raising children together—is not just a preference. It is a moral and social anchor. Children have a right to that structure. And when that structure is missing, what remains is not just different—it is deficient.

That’s why it matters that we tell the truth. A mother raising her children alone is not less worthy of honor—but pretending she has lost nothing is not honoring her. It’s gaslighting her. Saying “you’re enough” may seem like encouragement, but it subtly implies her grief is misplaced—that the father’s absence is irrelevant. It is not. She may be strong. She may be resilient. But she was never meant to do this alone.

And the children? The children deserve more than adult justifications. When they experience father hunger, when they mourn the loss of their biological parent, they should be told the truth—that they are loved, that they matter, and that they have lost something they were made for. No amount of ideology, legal maneuvering, or sentimental language can make up for the absence of their father or mother. That doesn’t mean they are broken. It means they’re human.

Today, we’re shifting from compassion for brokenness to celebration of it—so long as it’s dressed in inclusive language. But that’s not kindness. That’s cowardice. The justice the widow deserves is not pity—it’s a partner. The compassion the orphan deserves is not euphemism—it’s honesty. And the truth that society deserves is that while you are free to make all kinds of choices, not all choices have the same consequences.

That’s not a political statement. That’s a moral and statistical truth.

The data doesn’t care about politics. It doesn’t bend to ideology. It simply confirms what history already knows: children flourish in stable, married, mother-father homes. And when we act like all family forms are equal in function, we are lying. And when we lie, we cannot grieve. And when we cannot grieve, we cannot love.

The Christian must refuse to participate in this cultural deception—not from arrogance, but from genuine care. If we want to serve widows and orphans, we cannot erase the very categories that give those roles meaning. If we want to be inclusive, it cannot include falsehood. Pretending all paths lead to equal flourishing isn’t compassionate—it’s cruel.

We cannot be a people of justice if we cannot name injustice. We cannot be a people of mercy if we cannot name tragedy.