Rising Number of Broken Families in Britain Reveals Moral Crisis, says Bishop

In the wake of the increasing number of children running away from home, a bishop has warned Church of England Christians of the modern moral crisis within the secular culture.

Rt Rev Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, declared in the June issue of his diocesan news that Britain is in deep crisis with a widespread breakdown of family life. He stated the statistic of 100,000 children running away from home annually as a symptom of the basic underlying family problem.

Bishop Forster has seen the ultimate cause of the family crisis, which is the “sexual chaos” prevailing in the UK. Therefore, Bishop Forster warned, "Providing better facilities for runaway children has a place -- but to me it's just the tip of a very challenging iceberg." He added that everybody will have a part to play in order to improve the situation.

Bishop Forster went on to highlight the depth of the crisis, he said, "Sexual chaos is an important factor in this breakdown, with infidelity contributing to many divorces and weakening other marriages. Despite all the efforts put into sex education our figures for teenage pregnancy remain among the highest in Europe, with the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases rising to epidemic proportions.”

In some areas where there have been particular efforts to provide sex education, the teenage pregnancy and disease rates have actually risen.

Many bishops have agreed with this viewpoint; a bishop in the north blames the government for “barely supporting” marriage while the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev Graham Dow, calls on Anglicans to reflect on their attitudes towards sex.

The Bishop of Carlisle, also writing in his June diocesan news, sharply pointed out and emphasised the poor secular culture in today's society and church, which has allowed the moral crisis to continue and to intensify.

He said that he was disappointed with the British culture that "smiles at those who are unfaithful or have had many sexual partners". This definitely counters the Christian teaching on marriage and family life.

He says, “Marriage is the God-given basis for stable family life and sexual intercourse is its sign and seal. But the Government is barely supporting marriage. Everything has become choice and there is no respect for the will of our Heavenly Maker."

He commented that in this decaying secular society, morality does not provide people with an answer to their family crisis, and testified that only God has revealed to people their wrong-doings and challenged the worldly culture to its core.