The horrific murder of George Floyd and lawless property theft and destruction taking place across America have put our focus on American cities, the plight of the urban poor, and especially black urban poor. This focus has rightly challenged Christians to consider how better to confront racism in our own hearts and American institutions. As Fathers’ Day approaches, I want to also suggest that, as we consider the plight of the black urban poor in America, we recognize the epidemic of fatherlessness taking place in our cities and the black community. Its impact is enormous. But father absence is not just an urban or black problem. Fifty percent of children in America grow up with fathers who are physically absent (34%) or emotionally uninvolved or harmful through abuse (17%). Today’s episode looks at 1) the way God has designed children to need a father, 2) the damage caused by that absence, 3) what a child needs from his/her father, and 4) what we can do to help boys and girls in our midst who don’t have dads in their lives.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FATHERHOOD
A. God, himself is called, God The Father. Names matter in Scripture. God did not call himself God The Mother. Jesus, as the Second Person of the Trinity repeatedly referred to himself as the Son and in prayer called the First Person of the Trinity, Father, teaching his disciples to do the same (Matt 6:9) When Jesus gave his marching orders to his church, he commanded, Go and make disciples, baptizing in the name of the FATHER, and of the Son, and of The Holy Spirit. There is something about the very nature of God that is described by the word, father.
B. Adam and Eve were created as God’s image bearers for an intimate love relationship with him pictured by “walking (together) in the Garden in the cool of the day.” (Gen 3:8). This relationship was severed by sin. Jesus, the Second Adam comes to restore his people to the original relationship we were created to enjoy. Jesus is the picture of fully restored humanity and as a human, the Second Adam, he relates to God as his heavenly father. This father/child paradigm for our restored personal relationship with God is picked up by Paul in Romans 8, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” It is true that Paul uses sons here, instead of “children” probably because he has in mind our inheritance, which in Judaism came through the father. Nevertheless, all believers have the privilege of calling the God of the universe, Abba! Father! Abba, which could be translated, dad or daddy is a tender term that represents the intimacy, closeness, and dependence that a child feels towards his father. Paul does not say that we can now call God Mama.
C. The environment that God chose for growing a child to physical, emotional, and spiritual health is a family where the child is loved by both a father and a mother. Creation, itself, tells us that the nuclear family is not just a social construct. The biological fact that conception takes place in the context of husband and wife making love speaks volumes about the best environment for that child to be nurtured to healthy adulthood. In God’s obvious creation design, for a child to fully thrive, he needs a family built on mom and dad’s love for each other.
D. The family code sections of Ephesians and Colossians are significant. They address wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? Nope. Elsewhere, Paul does command older women to train the younger women to love their children (Titus 2:4). But it is striking that when Paul addresses household responsibilities, especially the training of the children, God doesn’t mention mothers but gives commands to fathers. This pattern of responsibility began with Abraham, the Father of the Christian Faith. God said of Abraham, I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19). This responsibility was not given to Sarah.
When it comes to household management and training the children, Paul writes, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4). We are not told why mothers are not specifically addressed, even though children are commanded to obey both parents. But, may I suggest that fathers being given this specific command does make sense given that one of the primary results of the fall is that men inherit Adam’s passivity. Adam failed to step up, defend Eve against Satan’s temptation, and lead the way to flourishing, by being obedient to God’s command not to eat the fruit. He failed in his masculine calling to protect those in the garden and to cause them to flourish (Gen 2:15). Masculine passivity in training the children makes their discipline of the children haphazard, random, and inconsistent. Inconsistent discipline is one of the fastest ways to provoke anger in a child. One moment, he gets away with murder, the next time he barely steps across the line and is slammed with punishment. That will provoke hot anger. However, consistent discipline trains a child to know what the boundaries are. It is not a harsh, seat of the pants, reactive discipline that only provokes anger.
In contrast to provoking anger, says Paul to fathers, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Three important words in this phrase describe the biblical approach to rearing children. First, dads are NOT to passively watch their children grow up but to actively bring them up. This Greek word means literally “out of nurture.” A father’s discipline begins with tender care, the way a nursery worker nurtures along a small, tender sapling. The second word (ESV discipline) is PAIDEA, from which we get pediatric. It means the training of children. A father’s authority is never to be used selfishly, or reflexively. Rather, it is to be part of a TRAINING plan. The third word, instruction, means literally “to put into the mind.” Deuteronomy 6 gives a picture of this process:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (vs 5-9).
Certainly, moms help teach and instruct the children. Eve is created to be a suitable ally and helper to Adam. But the responsibility for training the children rests on the shoulders of the father.
E. The significance of fatherhood is not only clear in Scripture (special revelation); it is also clear from observing the world around us (general revelation).
- Ernest Hemingway understood the significance of broken father/son relationships. He wrote a story about a father and his teenaged son. In the story, their relationship became strained and the son ran away from home. His father began a journey in search of his rebellious son. Finally, in Madrid, Spain, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the local newspaper. The ad read: “Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon…all is forgiven…I love you, Your Father." The next day at noon in front of the newspaper office, 800 “Pacos” showed up. They were all seeking forgiveness, love, and restoration from their fathers. (Ernest Hemingway short story, The Capital of the World.)
- Children who grow up without fathers are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. Barack Obama.
- According to the US Census Bureau data for 2019 the Percent of Children Who Live With Their Mother Only is about 45% for Black children, 24% for Hispanic children, and 18% for White Children.
- The correlation of crime with father absence is enormous: According to the US Dept of Justice report, What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? Children from fatherless homes account for:
- Suicides: 63 percent of youth suicides
- Runaways: 90 percent of all homeless and runaway youths
- Behavioral Disorders: 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders
- High School Dropouts: 71 percent of all high school dropouts
- Juvenile Detention Rates: 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions
- Substance Abuse: 75 percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers
- Aggression: 75 percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger
3. In recent years, counselors have begun to see how much a person’s relationship with his father has shaped him or her. In the field of men’s ministry, Dr. Pete Alwinson writes:
Men hunger for a great relationship with their fathers. The lack of that relationship marks their lives and affects all their other relationships. And, sadly, many men today are trying to make their way through life without the help, guidance, and love of their father. Too many men are marked by what some have called, “the father wound,” and stronger still, “the absent father neurosis.” How does it affect a boy when his father is absent, abusive, uninvolved, or just plain uncaring? Here is a sample of what many men have shared with me about the impact a difficult relationship with their dad had on their life:
- When I become a teenager…it was as if he could no longer relate to me. It seemed that there was a sudden discomfort, like he could not understand me. By ninth grade, I was empty and distant. I couldn’t cry. It was that year that I started cutting myself and made plans for suicide.
- I remember running after my dad when he was pulling out of the driveway—trying to catch him so I could spend time with him. He just kept driving. I knew I was an inconvenience to him.
- From the beginning, my “dad” (an uncle who was taking care of my brothers and me) sexually abused all three of us. We would do devotions in the morning, and he would abuse us at night
SUMMARY OF WHAT A CHILD NEEDS FROM HIS FATHER OR FATHER FIGURE
Taken from Like Father Like Son, by Pete Alwinson
1. A welcoming father: I always have time for you.
2. An approval-giving father: I’m proud of you. And what you did honors Christ.
3. An identity-building father: My daughter, I can’t believe how greatly God has gifted you for the work you are doing.
4. A freedom-giving father: What do you think you should do? I’m confident God will lead you.
5. An adventuring father: To follow Jesus is to enlist in the greatest cause in history, the overthrow of Satan and sin to establish Christ's kingdom of righteousness.
6. A guiding father: I’ve been learning how my thoughtless words hurt your mom.
7. A wisdom-giving father: Yesterday, I saw something exciting I never saw in the Word before.
8. A grace-giving father: Son, I suspect my sins are far worse than yours are.
RESPONDING TO THE FATHER ABSENCE EPIDEMIC: SOME THOUGHTS
A. We must winsomely help those we love to understand how destructive a gender blending worldview is and challenge the assertion that speaking about gender differences (created by God) makes us sexist. We must exhibit compassion for those who are confused about their gender or have been hurt by unfair stereotypes. But the answer is not to deny the glory of God’s gender design of male and female differently to complete each other, a union that is profoundly related to our role as humans to image God. Gender blending is harmful to everyone in our culture. Fathers do not need to be bombarded by messages that make them hesitant to take responsibility to lead their homes. They need encouragement to step up to their special role of father.
B. We must renew our commitment to be godly men, who step up with masculine love, especially to cause widows and orphans to be protected and to flourish. This might mean looking for boys in our immediate circle who are being raised by single moms and who have no meaningful relationship with their father. We might prayerfully consider how we could step into such a boy’s life (as a coach, teacher, uncle, grandfather, youth leader, or neighbor) and meet some of the eight needs listed above. I saw that happen often at the church I pastored because we had a strong divorce-recovery ministry, which drew many single moms with boys. Several men, with the enthusiastic encouragement of the boy’s mothers, became surrogate dads and male role models for the boys.
C. We might consider how the wound of father absence can be used to point us and others to the ultimate Father who will never disappoint. Many men have shared how the pain and emptiness of having no real relationship with a father drove them into the arms of God. One such man shares his story:
Like many men, I’ve had to grieve a distant, abusive, and uninvolved father. As a young man, I was adrift—trying to figure out what it meant to be a man on my own…Even though I couldn’t fix my relationship with my dad, God, the Father stepped in. When I became a Christ follower, I found that I was no longer a nameless street-boy abandoned by his preoccupied, demanding, and unhappy father. I was an individually valued son—known and specially loved before the foundation of the world…. I am still shocked that I am not an interruption or an inconvenience to my heavenly Father. Growing up with a father who always seemed angry with me (Why? What did I do?), I was stunned to realize that my Father in heaven wasn’t angry at me. All his anger had already been poured out on Jesus. No longer was I alone in a hard world trying to figure everything out on my own. Now I had a completely available father who wanted to and was determined to develop this rough boy into a man. Grief over the abandonment of my earthly father gave way to joy because of the Father’s never-ending attention and love (Ibid p 9-10.)
For Further Prayerful Thought:
1. You might begin with yourself. How has your relationship with your father shaped your life? How does it shape your relationship with God, the Father?
2. If you are a father/grandfather, look back at the list of what a child needs from his dad. If you are not a father, consider whether there are boys in your circle who have no meaningful relationship with their dad, then look back to this list. Prayerfully consider how God might lead you to meet some fatherhood needs.
