Mexico Conference Helps Nations Share Strategy for Strengthening Families
by Allie Martin
March 29, 2004
(AgapePress) - Thousands of people have gathered in Mexico's capital for a three-day conference with the goal of orchestrating a common strategy to affirm and defend the natural family. The World Congress of Families is being attended by pro-family leaders, scholars, pastors, politicians, and families of all nationalities.Alan Carlson is president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, which organized the conference. He says the meeting, which is taking place March 29 through March 31 at Mexico City's Banamex Center, will help counteract efforts to redefine the family, such as the United Nations' attempts to supplant the traditional definition.
"Ever since 1994 there have been strong pressures at the U.N. to define the traditional family out of existence, and to replace it with a sort of a new, modern, streamlined system, which in fact is no longer a family at all, but is really the deconstructed family," Carlson says.
The purpose of the Congress is to thwart those and other attempts to destroy the natural family. Carlson says organizers of the Congress hope to send those attending back to their countries with a plan to help strengthen the family and promote its biblical definition. "One thing we're hoping for is a program of action," he says, "that is, common, agreed-upon strategies that can then be taken back to individual nations and applied as appropriate."
Carlson says the Congress will hopefully begin the process of building lasting international relationships and continuing dialogue on family issues. "We are looking, hopefully, to build an ongoing network -- an informal but vital network of organizations that will stay in regular communication and will work together to blunt international efforts to undermine the family," he says.
Among the many organizations that assisted in planning the World Congress of Families are the Southern Baptist Convention, Real Women of Canada, Focus on the Family, and the Population Research Institute.
