The other day I went and thoughtlessly typed something vile on social media that amounted to, “Happy Father’s Day.” I know I am completely without excuse for the violence of my words, but honestly I was so busy ignoring Pride Month and Juneteenth that I just went and forgot to exercise any sensitivity towards the infertile, heroic single moms, disenfranchised sperm donors, and men who are not quite settled on which gender they wish to be.
How could I be so heartless as to promote a day that excludes so many people?? Let that one sink in for a moment. If there’s one bit of common ground we “should” be able to collectively claim, it’s the fact that we all had fathers.
All in good humor here, the backlash was real enough but quite tiny, and so incredibly boring and predictable, that I simply lost interest and wandered off the internets to go spend time with some genuinely good men.
God is so funny sometimes! While feminism says “men are pigs, cancel culture them all,” God is more like, yes, you’ve encountered some real swine, here, let me show you what I intended for good men to be. Then he just backs up with a truck full of them and dumps them out all over your lawn. It often involves several varieties of smoked meat and a good fire too, so truly blessed indeed.
I so appreciated Night Wind’s post, “Why Father’s Day,” a rather dark, rather gloomy, rather disparaging look at the state of post modern fatherhood. I’m grateful someone understands what I am often thinking and trying so hard to say. I am not saying “men are pigs,” I am saying, is it possible we should examine some of our cultural notions, perhaps make some adjustments, some changes?? Not sure if you can hear the twinge of panic, of quiet desperation, but like, hello people, I think our world is really broken and something needs to give!
Many who were raised in what might be called traditional Christian homes, have now fled as far away as humanly possible. Two famous ones are actually Francis Schaffer’s son, Frank, and John Piper’s son, Abraham. Now we can just dismiss this as “meh, it’s just the age of apostasy,” or we can wise up and observe that there seems to be these huge father fractures going on all over our culture, and an entire political movement that now wants to just drown fatherhood itself in the bathtub.
What could have led up to this sad state of affairs??
People are complicated, relationships are challenging, wounds are not always black and white, but to me it seems like there is enough evidence here to suggest that perhaps some of our cultural perceptions of masculinity have been perverted within the church and some of our Judeo-Christian values around fatherhood are deeply flawed???
Somebody smart, yet another spiritual father of mine, once taught me that theology is always circular. That means it affirms and reaffirms itself. The truth doesn’t have to be proven, it simply demonstrates itself. Does it work? If it works, it’s good theology! That might sound a bit simplistic, but God has always been really patient and answered all my “whys,” as to how His word works, and so this has proven to be a good rule for me.
If it doesn’t produce good fruit, it’s not working. Bad fruit means something has gone awry in your understanding.
If your child grows up, leaves the church, leaves the faith entirely, and proceeds to join up with the farthest far left organization he can find hoping to “smash the patriarchy,” well, something has gone all awry. Doubly true if they all wrote books explaining exactly what the problem was! Something about your theology was not circular. It did not pan out. Well, a whole lot of these people happen to mention harsh fathers with a perverse view of masculinity who did not always treat their mothers very well.
It’s such a critical piece of the puzzle that the Bible actually says, “honor your wife that your prayers will not be hindered.” If your father was unyielding, unkind, and unforgiving, a bully, chances are good you will just remake God in his image…..and then proceed to reject him outright. As you should! We all have a God given, innate sense of what is good, what is just.
The problem isn’t the nature of God, the problem is our often false perceptions of Him.
Actually teaching men that they should cultivate becoming an emotionally avoidant, unyielding, unkind, unforgiving, self absorbed tyrant, who has emotionally stunted relationships with women, is downright misguided and evil. And yes, that is exactly what is happening in many protestant churches today. Just stop it.
So you see, when I see men like Tomassi, Benjamin, Day, the old Dalrock, Pastor Wilson, Pastor Piper, out promoting red pill ideas about men and women, many based on long since debunked evolutionary psychology, it’s enough to make me wail in despair. Shoot people, these are not Christian values at all and this isn’t even good theology. I want to see people out leading the way, lighting the path before us, not sticking their fingers in their ears and doubling down on the stupid.
Our culture right now reminds me of this beautiful but tragic bird I once saw that had been so abused he just plucked all his feathers out. He was a completely neurotic and naked bird just hopping about on a post and clucking sporadically. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or someone skilled in empathy to observe, sheesh, I think something is all wrong with this bird!
I see a whole world full of naked birds with their feathers half plucked out and a church at large that just seems so woefully unprepared to become part of the solution.
I’m blessed to live in an area of Texas where there are many good men and Fathers whose own parents were good Christians and raised them right. And I found a church where these godly men serve the community in God’s name. It’s a beautiful thing! I was shocked how many men and teenage boys were serving in VBS last week! I blame the culture and weak churches and the government and lawyers for making it hard to be a man. Let them work and support their families and see how they rise to the occasion.
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It is a beautiful thing! And yes, “let them work and support their families and see how they rise to the occasion.” 🙂
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I thought of how Father’s day was slighted this year due to Juneteenth. First of all, I do understand the social/historical significance of Juneteenth, but I disagree with the term. Can’t we even agree to use proper English? If we can’t even unite on that one small, but important element in our culture, than how can we ever really be one nation? Was that rhetorical? 😉 And secondly, as far as cancelling fathers, I’m sure the left is all for that, except when a Normandy happens. I wonder how many fathers and future fathers lost their lives on that day.
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Ha! It’s so ironic, I think fatherhood really started coming under attack the day the government decided to officially institute Father’s day in 1972. I know my state had some grand father’s day celebrations back in the 1900’s, but it wasn’t a holiday the government was officially involved in, in anyway. Everyday was father’s day back in the day!
If I went back to 1972 and told people, look, if we let the Gov get involved, they’re going to try to completely dismantle fatherhood, make it into something shameful, and have everyone questioning their gender, they would have laughed at me. However, that is pretty much what has now happened.
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It does seem that not only is fatherhood under attack, but the traditional nuclear family is a well.
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There has been a lack of respect for Father’s Day for decades now it is all about Mother’s Day and women as if it didn’t take a man to help make her a mother. A friend of mine posted a meme on FaceBook of a woman getting a big fancy meal for Mother’s Day and the man getting a meal from McDonald’s and that is not far from the truth really.
As far as pride month and Juneteenth meh is how I feel and my man echos that sentiment he says they have black history month which he isn’t big on either. His mom always made him watch the series Roots every year during black history month which only served to make him resent the whole idea and that hasn’t changed. I am not saying these things are bad per say but you cannot shove it down people’s throats and expect them to be happy about it. Heck Walmart tried to give them a celebration ice cream for Juneteenth and they got mad about that and I mean really who gets mad about ice cream? I know I sure don’t the more flavors the better. Do you think Moose are out there protesting about Moose tracks ice cream?
Things like this gets more stupid all the time and the worst part is they can’t even see it. I am done with all holidays except a few like the 4th of July, Memorial Day, and Veterans those are good ones to celebrate to me.
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Ha! Moose tracks ice cream is my favorite. I’m always up for a celebration, a party, a time to honor others, but as you’ve pointed out we are just having all this stuff forced on us. Even a party is no fun when it’s mandatory! People, I’m telling you. 😊
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I am a butter pecan kind of girl, but Moose tracks is a great second. I agree with you that a even a party is no fun if it is mandatory.
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Thanks for the link, and a good article. The ‘War on Fathers’ has been going on for a long time and it just seems ridiculous (and hypocritical) to have a day honoring fatherhood when our Culture in general no longer respects it or practices it to any great extent. The only ‘fathers’ the Media actually celebrates are two men raising a family.
According to the 2020 Census, only 62% of American Children live with a married couple who are their biological parents. Around 10% of that number have step-siblings from a previous marriage—meaning that only about half of American families have a traditional family structure. When consider that polls show that about 1/5 people under 30 are Gender Dysphoric and 1/8 are clinically infertile, those numbers aren’t about to get any better.
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I’m so thankful my husband isn’t a red-pill type and that he’s a great father. One of the biggest problems with the Christianized version of this philosophy is believing that men need respect and women don’t. Love without respect I suppose happens, maybe out of bonds that we have and can do nothing about, such as truly cruel in-law, but it isn’t a pleasant sort of love. I wish it on no married couple.
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That urban legend or bit of churchian folklore about women needing love and men needing respect has really done a whole lot of harm. It’s a lovely sentiment right up until people start thinking okay, so that must mean women don’t need any respect and men don’t need any love? Sheesh.
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