Lack of Fathers

This, from Randy Booth, on the need for fathers.


"Feminism has been the hostile reaction to this pervasive father-hunger; the false answer to some very real problems. Feminism is not the problem, it's the symptom. Father-love is the solution to the problem. And so, a pervasive fatherless culture has led us to our aimless, postmodern, emasculated culture: "Who's to say? Who's to lead? Who's to protect?" We are left without authority, guidance, or protection—all of these are fatherly provisions, and we are left empty and hungry.


As Christian men desperately look for an image of a godly father and household, it is natural to look to the past. We find old images in books, and soon a movement is born that tries to recreate those nostalgic old images. As charming and quaint as they might seem, they are as out of place as three-cornered hats and buckled shoes. We end up looking silly, and worse, we become culturally irrelevant. We need to know what a father looks like today, painting a new image using the old colors of Scripture―learning how to worship and how to live in a community—how to pull together. We must learn how to live around the Table, and around our tables. We have to start thinking again. This will take a self-conscious re-design.


We are called to be fathers that truly represent The Father. This will feel awkward at first, because in many respects it is new. Yet, for our sons and daughters, it will feel normal. We buy what is familiar. This is why advertisers spend millions on branding. Our children are no different. Sons imitate their fathers (or anti-fathers). Daughters marry their fathers (or anti-fathers). What is feeding our imagination? It cannot feed on what it has not seen or heard. Pop-culture gives us father-images: buffoons and lovable idiots, the old fogey, the abusive father, etc. We begin with abstract knowledge: theology (what God thinks), followed by instruction and verbal images (preaching and teaching). Little-by-little the new pictures get drawn. Soon they become plausible, next, they become habit (culture), finally, they become generational."