As Romanians, we have passed through many great battles against our own government, battles over state laws that were against the law of God. During our history, the Ottoman Empire wanted our children, just as other empires did.
About 10,000 participate in protest supporting the Bodnariu family in the city of Oradea (Romania), 23rd January 2016.
This article summarises the ideas Emanuel Tundrea shared in several media interviews, supporting the Bondariu family.
Give me a child until he is seven
and I will give you the man
Tradition ascribes this motto to the Jesuit founder, Francis Xavier. The idea is that the best opportunity to indoctrinate someone into a series of convictions that will dominate his entire life is while he is still a child.
What is happening within the secular European governments and especially in the Norwegian case is “nothing new under the sun”. Secular governments already have on their public agenda the destruction of the family and the fragmentation of all parent-child connections, sodomizing society in the process, and indoctrinating children into this worldview beginning in kindergarten/primary school.
The Bible records numerous attacks from the government upon children. Think about the plan of Pharaoh trying to control the Israelites by killing of all their male infants, or of Nebuchadnezzar’s strategy to kill the parents of the Hebrews, take their children and change even their names, and finally educate them in the new culture. In the New Testament we find out that Herod was afraid of a baby and decides to kill all the children in the area of Bethlehem. What Rachel lived then are the feelings that the Bodnariu family is living now:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18 ESV)
Still, the children from the Bodnariu family and of hundreds of other families who are living out the same nightmare are still alive. This is why we have hope and it worth’s trying to affect change immediately.
Another view of the protest in Oradea. I appreciate very much what pastor Viorel Iuga said in his speech: maybe Norway is waiting to see if and when we will give up, but we are also here because of our own convictions. Convictions that run counter to socially-destructive motives of many “advanced” nation-state governments:
1. We believe that the place of children is with their biological parents and within the safety and security of a healthy family home
Today we see within the EU many terrible inversions of values and normative acts that will transform our culture and civilization into an atrocious form of secularism: the disintegration of the traditional bonds of marriage and the family.
In this context a question arises which for the Christians is untenable, irrational and extremely unhealthy: to whom belong the children?
In the West, legislation affirming more and more that “children do not belong necessarily to biological parents, but to those who can assure a better living, a higher material environment.” In sociology and jurisprudence, the reversal of the traditional model of the family founded on biological relationships between parents and children is called “social parenting” or “psychological parenting”. The result of this doctrine is that children do not belong to biological parents, but to those who educate them or have the financial ability to raise them.
We know that there are different types of parents. There are richer and poorer parents. There are parents more educated and those less educated. There are parents with different religious convictions, but God, who is well aware of this diversity of parental backgrounds, has decided to bless parents with children and asks parents not to abandon them but protect and nurture them. He applied this very same principle to all of His children, by sending the Lord Jesus Christ down to the earth to save us.
The message from God for Joseph was always: take the baby and his mother! In other words: be together here in the manger, as refugees in Egypt flee together, come back into your country and live in Nazareth together, go to Jerusalem and into the Temple together.
God who gave us children and wants us together.
2. No human law can abolish The Law of God
Maybe we look at this case and say: we cannot do anything! This is the law in Norway!
The answer is simple: if the law is wrong, then it must be changed. No law giver on the earth has the right to have more authority that the Law of God.
It is not the subject of this speech, but I want to affirm that the role of the government is to support parents, to counsel them and when necessary to “use the sword” to balance, very carefully, situations where parents may not be fit to be together with their children.
But what happened to Bodnariu family amounts to “state-sponsored child kidnapping”[1].
3. We believe in God’s power to change parents’ hearts
Yes, we educate our children and want to do it well. But at the same time we realize that we are not perfect. We accept help, but under no circumstances should we be deprived of our rights and responsibilities should we need such help. Let the children be with us and help us/teach us to raise them well if and when needed to.
Here we have a case of our principle which is in conflict with a principle found in many secular European governments: raising children in the fear of the Lord and yet within a loving, caring and nurturing Christian home amounts to child abuse!
Our decision is simple: we listen to God through His revealed Word rather than the post-modern secular currents tossing parents and children to and fro on the waves of terror, despair and rage. We are not at all advocating for child abuse of any kind, but we don’t accept the allowance of people who despise Christian families to define what abuse is. We believe that people who despise God’s good and loving plan for the family and procreation have no right to define what abuse means and to teach us how to raise our children.
As Romanians, we have passed through many great battles against our own government, battles over state laws that were against the law of God. During our history, the Ottoman Empire wanted our children, just as other empires did.
Our parents and grandparents had to fight against the Communist system, a system which wanted to steal our children and raise them within another, competing ideology. We thank God that our grandparents won, then many from our parents’ generations paid the price for this battle but waged their own battles and also cried victory. We now understand that it is our time to take on this battle. I don’t have perfect children, but I love God and we enjoy the incredible blessing of serve His church together.
I am also deeply worried for those who fight against Christian teachings, for they are waging a war against God himself! No state or civilization who has fought against God has maintained a healthy and prosperous future. The family was, is and always will be created by God, families that are blessed and protected by Him. Whosoever attempts to distort or pervert the sacred nature of the family again declares war upon God himself. Look at history- it’s just a matter of time before we see the fall of any social system that has risen against God (e.g. from biblical history: Sodom and Gomorrah; or from modern history: Communism).
4. We believe in the final judgment
God will be the final Judge. I live in Europe (more exactly in Romania) and I completed my PhD in France (during that period I lived with my family/children in France). I want to respect the laws of the government in which I live, but I want more to fear the law of God. I will respect everything that I can respect, without compromising my faith in the absolute truths of the Holy Scriptures and Christian values. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and I believe what the Bible says about family. I believe the Bible should change us in all areas of life.
Our call is more for the Christians in Europe. It’s true that it is much easier to stay calm and avoid getting involved. Of course for many, they think these attacks only focus on immigrant families from Eastern Europe. It is easier to say: “Don’t worry, God has everything under control and if it’s in His will, this case will also be solved!” We pray these recent protests stoke a fire in the hearts of all who see how the Christian testimony is disappearing from almost all European institutions and to fervently seek a spiritual revival across the entirety of Europe.
We call you everyone to be more active in proclaiming the Gospel publicly until in Europe, parents are supported in their right to raise their children in the teaching and rebuke of the Lord as well as to serve God in the church and in the community.
Our thinking was too much influenced by secularism and we can see its fruits, “fruits” that produce more and more tragedies. It’s time to turn back toward the mindset of the One who created us with the capacity of thinking and to learn wisdom from above. It’s time to believe we worship a living and almighty God, so that fear and the obedience to Him are seen not as limiting us or stifling our freedom but just the opposite, but as God-ordained blessing for us and the generations that come after us.
CONCLUSION
So we are here because of our belief that there is only one God – Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, a sovereign God. We are here because of the belief that the heavens and the earth were created by God and belong to Him.
We are here because of our belief that the family was established by God and is protected by God. We are here to remind those who think they own the earth that they are not the owners. We ask them, in the Name of the Lord God, to respect the Christian family and God’s law. We ask those who break families apart while abusively doing so to stop fighting against God, to stop advocating that the family is better off if it is separated, that for the children it is better without biological parents and that the government can educate children better than parents do.
God entrusted children to parents and we ask Him to protect us.
We ask the Norwegian government to give back the children that were abusively taken away from their families. We ask the national authorities to be involved and to defend families wherever their citizens are.
As Christians, we ask our brothers and sisters in the faith from Norway not to close their mouths and eyes in front of this outrageous act. We ask Christians across Europe not to make themselves accomplices to those who ruin families. We ask them to raise their voices in prayer and to publicly have the courage to ask their governments to respect the family and of give the children back to their parents.
Above all else we ask our God who cares for us, who protects us and guards over everything that is happening in the world, to bring redemption to all families that live with this kidnapping drama as well as to all other kinds of parent(s) working together to raise the next generations of human beings.
To God be the glory forever! Amen!
Emanuel Tundrea is Professor at Emanuel University (Romania).
Pastor Emanuel Tundrea and his family, supporting the Bodnariu family.
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