To the Editor:

The Christian Coalition’s “Contract with the American Family” is a big-lie misrepresentation of Jesus Christ’s spiritual teachings which are actually quite anti-family.

In Matthew 10:34-38 Jesus said he had come to bring intra-family discord and urged people to leave their families and follow him.

In Luke 14:26 he demanded that his disciples “hate” their families. In Matthew 19:29 he urged his followers to “forsake” their families.

In Matthew 8:21-22 and Luke 9:59-60 he denied a disciple’s request for family leave to bury his father. Jesus curtly replied, “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”

In Mark 3:31-35 and in Luke 8:20-21 Jesus snubbed his biological family who had come to see him. He claimed that the assembled crowd, rather than his mothers and brothers, was his family.

Yes, Jesus had brothers— and sisters— as further evidenced in Matthew 13:55-56, Mark 6:3, John 7:3, 7:5, Galatians 1:19, and Acts 1:14.

Many Christians are so blinded by the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary and the ideal of sexless “abstinent” Josephite marriage that they are too embarrassed to bring themselves to admit this.

Partly based on the false prophecy that the Second Coming was imminent (Matthew 16:28, Mark 9:1 and Luke 9:27, 21-32), early Christians such as St. Paul (1 Corinthians 7:6-9, 29, 32-34) frowned upon marriage but patronizingly granted “permission” for those lacking self-control since it was “better to marry than to burn.” This anti-sex, anti-marriage ascetic bias lives on today in strict celibacy requirements for the ruling hierarchy of the largest Christian sect, the Roman Catholic Church. Clearly, they believe that having a family is detrimental to religious life.

Jim Senyszyn

Highland Park, New Jersey