—MOOctober 28‚ 1972GP No.249

[HomeARC note: The current Charter articulates the Family's principles, policies and attitudes regarding marriage‚ parents and their children.]

P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, ENGLAND or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936

1. GOD WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM, NOT EVEN THE SANCTITY OF THE MARRIAGE GOD! The System proclaims and brags about the sanctity of the home and marriage‚ and marriage being the building block of the home and family, and yet the way they live belies the whole hypocrisy of their lying self-righteousness. They only promote marriage on the surface: "Oh, you're not married?—You don't have a marriage license?—You're just living together?"—But it's perfectly all right for them to have licenses and then still be running around with other people! God is the God of marriage, too, and the main thing is to be married to Him and His Work, and when a marriage is not according to His Will, He doesn't hesitate to break it up and form other unions to further His work!

2. THE FAMILY MARRIAGE, THE SPIRITUAL REALITY BEHIND SO CALLED GROUP MARRIAGE, IS THAT OF PUTTING THE LARGER FAMILY, THE WHOLE FAMILY‚ FIRST, even above the last remaining vestige of private property, your husband or your wife! That's why Paul says, "nevertheless," to avoid fornication (or going wild with too much liberty), let every one have his own husband or wife. You can see a lot of situations Paul was running into which the weaker brethren just couldn't handle.

3. WHAT THE WORLD THINKS ARE OUR WEAKNESSES ARE ACTUALLY OUR STRENGTHS. We do not minimise the marriage ties, as such. We just consider our ties to the Lord and the larger Family greater and more important.—And when the private marriage ties interfere with our Family and God ties, they can be readily abandoned for the glory of God and the good of The Family! We are not forsaking the marital unit.—We are adopting a greater and more important and far larger concept of marriage: The totality of the Bride and her marriage to the Bridegroom is The Family! We are adopting the larger Family as The Family unit: The Family of God and His Bride and Children!

4. WHAT DOES "UNIT" MEAN?—SOMETHING THAT IS UNITED!—Something that is one! So that, even if God has to break up these little private twosomes in order to make us conscious of the greater unit of The Family, He will do it! If He can trust you with the private unit for the Glory of God‚ He will do it. But if you put that privacy first before the Whole Family Unit‚ God will blow on it and destroy it if He has to!—And it's happened before in the Revolution!

5. IF WE BROKE UP EVERY SO-CALLED MARRIAGE IN THE REVOLUTION, AND IT DID THE WORK GOOD, TO MAKE THEM PUT GOD FIRST, IT WOULD BE WORTH IT!—If that's what it took, if they weren't able to put God first any other way. We could just keep right on rolling stronger than ever! When anything begins to hinder more than it helps‚ it is time to abolish it!

6. GOD HAS MADE ME CARRY OVER FROM MY SMALL LITTLE PRIVATE FAMILY INTO THE LARGER FAMILY‚ and to do so God has had to break up many little families of the world to make our kids all members of His Family. God is in the business of breaking up many families to make them all One Family! And He has been in that business for a long time!

7. "A MAN'S FOES SHALL BE THEY OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD!"—He's breaking up private families! We haven't hesitated to break up worldly families by [making disciples of] their [legal-aged] kids for God's Family! What is the difference in that and breaking up husband and wife? Jesus said you're going to have to forsake all—mother, father, sister, bother, husband or wife! This is nothing new with the Lord! Jesus not merely condoned it, but advocated it! He came not to bring peace, but a sword and the dividing asunder of families to make of them His Chosen‚ One larger happy Family!—You can support that with scores of Scriptures! We say we are not to hesitate to forsake "all," whether it be husband‚ wife, etc., while we make a big fetish of: "Oh, yes, everything—but not your husband or wife!

8. THE CHURCHES HAVE EVEN BACKED DOWN SO FAR THEY'RE NOT BREAKING UP PRIVATE FAMILIES AT ALL! They're not even forsaking some, much less all! What are the Christians of today forsaking?—Not even most of the missionaries are forsaking much! They take their wife and children with them and have their house and car and live pretty much the same as ever!—About the only thing you can say for most of them is that they have exchanged countries‚ and they got a new house and a new land!

9. BUT GOD'S IN THE BUSINESS OF BREAKING UP LITTLE SELFISH PRIVATE WORLDLY FAMILIES TO MAKE OF THEIR YIELDED BROKEN PIECES A LARGER UNIT—ONE FAMILY! He's in the business of destroying the relationships of many wives in order to make them One Wife—God's Wife—The Bride of Christ! God is not averse to breaking up selfish little families for His glory, to make of the pieces a much larger unselfish unit—the Whole Family—the entire Bride—the One Wife instead of many wives!

10. IN MATTHEW 25 THE BRIDEGROOM CAME: FIVE WISE VIRGINS GOT IN, AND FIVE FOOLISH ONES DIDN'T! How come it was a marriage if five virgins got in instead of just one?—Were they all going to marry Christ?—Were the Five the Bride, or weren't they?—If not, who were they? And how come they all five got in if there's only one Church?—One Bride!

11. GOD HAS BROKEN UP THE MARRIAGES OF ALMOST OUR ENTIRE TOP LEADERSHIP AT SOME TIME OR OTHER, with one or two exceptions who are apart from their partners most of the time anyway. I've certainly seen a lot of good fruit in these since this has happened, and also it has borne good fruit amongst the kids. Is breaking up families anything new with God?—God is in the business of breaking up families little private families! If you have not forsaken your husband or wife for the Lord at some time or other‚ you have not forsaken all!

12. THE PRIVATE FAMILY IS THE BASIS OF THE SELFISH CAPITALISTIC PRIVATE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM and all its selfish evils! The history of communes shows that the most successful communes either abolished all private relationships entirely and required total celibacy, or abandoned the private marriage unit for group marriage!—Because they found that the private family group was always a threat to the Larger Family unit as a whole! Most churches forsook the Church Family communes altogether for private marriages in private homes and only a once-a-week marriage with God at His House!—Ha!—This is marriage to His Bride?

13. IN OUR SITUATION, GOD IS TRYING TO TEACH US THE LESSON OF PUTTING HIM AND HIS FAMILY FIRST. If you cannot be trusted with a private relationship and to keep it in its proper perspective—last—then God will break it up in order to ensure He and His Work get first place! There can be no superior or selfish private ties which supersede our ties to God above all! And if you don't give God all, He will just take them away and make you forsake all! This is one of the most outstanding lessons God has taught us from the top right on down God is trying to show us something: These personal private husband-wife relationships are unedifying and unfruitful unless they are kept totally subordinate!

14. MARRIAGE IS GREAT!—REAL UNSELFISH LOVE! Only the utter unselfishness of genuine sacrificial love can ever make such things possible. So it's the very last vestige of forsaking all to forsake all to share with others. Marriage is not the supreme thing. The churches have made marriage a god above God, because they are putting their private families before God and His Work! This overemphasis of the marital relationship is making a god and a fetish of marriage, where they're not willing to forsake private families to serve God and The Family! God's had to break up some marriages in order to put God and His Work first!

15. THROUGH THE EXPERIENCES WE ARE GOING THROUGH, GOD IS TRYING TO SHOW US HE WILL NOT FIT IN SECOND PLACE! He will not have any other gods before Him! If He allows you any nice cosy little private relationship, you can be very thankful for it! It is, in a sense‚ a privilege‚ a special little dispensation of grace to feel that only two of you belong to each other in particular. But He will only allow that provided you make it very clear to each other and the Lord and the others in the Revolution that you belong to God most of all, and your private relationship doesn't interfere with your work and your relationship with the Lord!

16. IF YOU ARE ALLOWED ANY PERSONAL PRIVATE RELATIONSHIP WITH ANY PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL CALLED "MARRIAGE," it can only be tolerated provided it does not interfere with your marriage to God and your relationship with the rest of God's Wife—the Body, His total Bride! They say that the Bible doesn't teach plural marriage, but one of the greatest examples of all is the marriage of God Himself to His plural Bride composed of many members, all of whom are nevertheless One Bride!

17. THE TRUE BRIDE WENT IN FIVE FOLD TO MARRY THE BRIDEGROOM! Yet speaks of all of these as One Bride—"You are My Bride!" In the revolution we destroy the overemphasis on the private family and the putting of that family unit first above all other relationships. The average Christian puts his marriage to his wife and private family above his marriage to God! They work five or six days a week for their own marriage, and then go to church one day a week to supposedly represent their marriage to God! They have fellowship with Him and His Family only one day a week, but fellowship with their own wife all week! This is why we don't put so much emphasis on the private little individual marriage relationship, because we take our relationship with God and the Whole Family much more seriously!

18. ON THE OTHER HAND, WE COULD HAVE MORE LOVE BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS. Besides, too many people have been doing too much matchmaking, which results in some pretty poor unions! If there are to be any little private unions or marriages, you'd better let God make them!

19. BUT LOVE OF GOD AND HIS FAMILY IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO HIM than these little private interpersonal relationships, including marriage! Either He wants you to love Him so much you don't even want a mate‚ or that you love Him so much you don't care that much about your wife or husband, but that you would be willing to share them with Him! Nevertheless, in order to avoid a lot of problems‚ it is good for each to have his own—or better: God's Own! We don't believe in "to each his own," but, "to each according as he has need, of whatever God and his brethren are able to supply!"

20. GOD BREAKS UP MARRIAGES IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT JOIN EACH OF THE PARTIES TOGETHER TO HIMSELF. He rips off wives, husband or children to make up His Bride if the rest of their family refuses to follow! He is the worst "ripper-offer" of all! God is the greatest Destroyer of home and family of anybody! God does more to break up marriages than anybody! If they won't both put Him and His larger Family first, He will just take the one that is willing and let the other one go! Maybe we're learning something about marriage and its unimportance!

21. WE ARE REVOLUTIONARY! If the church has overemphasised marriage, we are going to go to the opposite extreme of underemphasising and almost belittling marriage‚ and not even hesitating to destroy marriages that don't glorify God and put Him and His Work first! What God has put together don't let man put asunder: But how many has God actually put together? If God didn't put them together‚ He won't hesitate to break them up for His Glory and the welfare of His Family!

22. DON'T FORGET THIS MEANS YOUR CHILDREN, ALSO! Special favouritism and partiality—that is selfish private property interest! If you love your flesh-and-blood children more than you love God's children of God's Family, then you really haven't come to the realisation of what God's Family is all about! If you're kinder to your own flesh-and-blood children and give them things you don't give the others, or see that they have more comfort than the other children, then you are being partial and selfish and private! With your selfishness and lack of sacrificiality you are striking at the very foundation of God's Family, and that kind of selfishness will destroy and undermine the unity of The Family as a whole.

23. IN OTHER WORDS, PARTIALITY TOWARD YOUR OWN WIFE OR HUSBAND OR CHILDREN STRIKES AT THE VERY FOUNDATION OF COMMUNAL LIVING—against the unity and supremacy of God's Family and its oneness and wholeness! What you're doing when you do that is whittling away and chopping off little chips and bits of The Family to separate them in spirit, and even sometimes in actually, from the rest of The Family, just because they're "yours"!

24. THERE MIGHT BE ONE LITTLE DIFFERENCE in the matter of God's class system as far as the Royal Family is concerned. Where God has anointed the King and his family, naturally there is a little special recognition to their little princes and princesses as being of royal blood, which makes them in some ways have a slight distinction from others just because of their calling, perhaps just a little more honour because they're the King's—but no better rooms‚ food, toys or care than any others! But this does not give you then any special recognition to the hurt of others and fostering division!

25. ARE YOU REALLY SURE THAT THE OTHER CHILDREN IN THE NURSERY HAVE JUST AS COMFORTABLE A BED AND JUST AS GOOD FOOD AND JUST AS GOOD TRAINING AS "YOUR OWN"?—I don't like that expression!—They're all "our" children! Now naturally you have a little more feeling of personal attachment to the children you have borne, and there is bound to be a peculiar relationship of special personal interest there. But if you were perfect in spirit before God, there would be no difference! If your spirit was perfect before God, everybody in the Revolution would be your brother and your sister just as much as your flesh-and-blood, and every child you would feel just as responsible for and love just as much as God loves!

26. NOW IF THERE IS ANY REASON FOR WHICH GOD MAY ALLOW YOU TO GIVE YOUR NATURAL CHILDREN A LITTLE MORE PERSONAL ATTENTION, it is because God knows that all children need individual attention and tender loving care. But anybody could give them that. Anybody could be a mother or father to them! As far as He and His Family are concerned, there is no difference!—God and His Family come first. Any private relationships are neither here nor there, if they in any way hinder or interfere with God and His Family.

27. WHATSOEVER YOU DO IN WORD OR IN DEED, DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD, and whatever glorifies God, that's what's right! Does your marriage glorify God? Hallelujah! Does your separation glorify God more?—Then hallelujah! Do your children glorify God? Does your relationship with your children glorify God? Does your separation from your children glorify God more? Hallelujah? Whatever's best for God and His Family is what's right!—Amen?

(We each, in turn, go around the circle and say: "By the grace of God, I'm going to put Him and His Family first!")