Today we begin our June series, “How God Uses Imperfect Dads to Impact Their Kid’s Lives,” with a look at the responsibility of Christian men to protect fatherhood itself in our culture by speaking out against the erosion of the biblical worldview of gender. What do you think of this statement? All that is necessary for woke forces to “cancel” fatherhood today is for Christian men to say nothing to stop them. The widespread attack in our culture upon gender roles is, at its core, an assault upon God’s creation design of the institution of the family--one man and one woman bound in the covenant of marriage to be the family where human children flourish.
The National Fatherhood Initiative, along with men’s ministries like Iron Sharpens Iron, have named June, National Fatherhood Month. A Google search also reveals other jurisdictions such as Fairfax County, VA, which have named June, Fatherhood Awareness Month. During a month when every Christian cringes at the promotion of the destructive LGBTQ+ life by naming June “Gay Pride Month,” Christians now have a gracious way to say, “I believe the gay life is destructive; I am celebrating National Fatherhood Month instead.” Will Christians be as passionate about promoting fatherhood this month as LGBTQ+ advocates are about promoting gay pride? This episode examines why our words promoting fatherhood need to be heard by our children, grandchildren, neighbors, and work associates. It further suggests winsome ways to present the biblical worldview that fatherhood is vital for human flourishing.
God has entrusted his revelation to his people so that we can enrich the rest of culture with its wisdom. Abraham, the father of both the Old Covenant and New Covenant people of God was chosen, with his posterity, to be a blessing to the nations (Gen 12:2-3). Jesus taught that his followers must shine our lights into the darkest corners of human existence, spreading truth about flourishing throughout the earth (Mt 5:14). The most important part of that light is revealing the truth that life is in Jesus—but that is not our only message. In God’s good plan for earth, the salt of the biblical worldview of sexuality, his design of gender and the family, injustice, and oppression, must be expressed by God’s people to preserve the earth, holding back the decay of sin (Matt 5:13): Our biblical worldview must spread like leaven throughout culture if we are to be faithful kingdom members (Mt 13:33).
Considering this clear calling, the blinding speed of gender theory’s spread throughout our culture in the last decade raises the question, “are Christians speaking up about gender issues? Or are we too afraid of being labeled patriarchal oppressors, gay bashers or transphobes?” Some Christian writers have flat out said that Christians who say nothing to stand against the gender blending forces in our culture are cowards. It is not my place to judge other Christian leaders, but the words of Martin Luther seem to have great significance today. He wrote,
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are attacking at that moment, I am not being faithful to Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all battlefields, is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point. (Who Speaks for God, Chuck Colson).
THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF FATHERHOOD
A. God himself is called God the Father. Names matter in Scripture. God did not call himself God the Mother. Jesus repeatedly called the first person of the Trinity, Father, teaching his disciples to do the same (Mt 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. Male/female distinctions matter to God. In God’s revelation to us about our own creation, God devotes five verses in Genesis 1 to emphasizing that Adam and Eve equally share the dignity of being God’s image bearers. In Genesis 2, God devotes twenty-one verses to showing how differently he created Adam and Eve. In a perfectly parallel structure, God emphasizes how differently he created male and female to be.
Adam is: 1) made FOR the ground--the garden is described as needing a gardener, 2:5, 2) made FROM the ground--2:7, 3) given a name that means ground--2:20, 4) called to work the ground--2:15. 5) When he sins, what is cursed is the ground (3:17). Eve is: 1) made FOR the man--to provide companionship--2:18), 2) made FROM the man--2:21, 3) given the name woman ISHA because she came out of the man ISH--2:23, 4) called to be a partner with the man--2:20. 5) When she sins, what is cursed is her relationship with the man and their kids--3:16.
Why, in the creation story, would God devote just five verses to Adam and Eve’s identical roles but four times that number, (twenty-one) to their differences? The only answer I can come up with is because the differences are important. For four -thousand years of history, these differences have been recognized, and they have been fully substantiated by science. It is only OUR CULTURE, because of the influence of the LGBTQ+ movement, that attempts to deny the obvious male/female differences in design. Our children, grandchildren, neighbors and work associates need to hear how important male/female differences are in the mind of God.
C. After our race’s fall, the paradigm for our restored personal relationship with God is calling him Abba. Paul observes, 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!” All believers have the privilege of calling the God of the universe, Abba! Father! Paul does not say that we can now call God Mama.
D. In God’s book, the Bible, history does not begin with government, or even the church; it begins with a wedding—that of Adam and Eve. And it ends with a wedding—the marriage super of the Lamb. The institution that God chose for perpetuating the human race is the 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 a 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, not a village. Radical extremists on both the right (Hitler) and the left (Mao Tse Tung) claimed that children belonged to the state, not to parents.
E. Through Paul, God spells out the way he wants the human family structured. Paul defines the different responsibilities of 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? No. It is striking that when Paul addresses household responsibilities, especially the training of the children, he 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. Of course the Bible does not devalue the mom's role. Paul commands the older women to teach the younger women to be husband-lovers and children-lovers (Titus 2:4). Neverthless, it is fathers whom he commands to raise up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. By the way, if you are a grandfather, notice that Abraham was not only to lead his own children but his entire household after him meaning his sons and daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to walk with the Lord. Scripture reveals that fatherhood is irreplaceable.
F. The significance of fatherhood is also clear by observing the world around us (general revelation). Modern psychology has discovered that many adults carry an emotional deficit if they did not have a loving, personal relationship with their fathers. Expereincing what has been labeled the father wound, countless adults are being shaped by this lack of fatherhood connection. How does it affect a child when his or her father is absent, abusive, uninvolved, or just plain uncaring? Here are some of their words:
“I’ve had to grieve a distant, abusive, and uninvolved father. I felt like I was a nameless street-boy abandoned by his preoccupied, demanding, and unhappy father.” “I felt like I was an interruption or an inconvenience to my unhappy father, who always seemed angry with me. Why? What did I do?”
Even more conclusive than data about the impact of the father wound is the research revealing the effect of father absence on children in American society:
- Children who grow up without fathers are 5X more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, 9X more likely to drop out of school, and 20X more likely to end up in prison. Barack Obama.
- The Administrators of one secular historically black college (HBCU), Morehouse College, wrote that they “believe that among the most urgent problems facing the African American community, and the entire nation is the reality that 70% of African American children are born to unmarried mothers, and that at least 80% of all African American children can now expect to spend at least a significant part of their childhood, living apart from their families,” (Voddie Baucham, Fault Lines).
- The correlation of crime with father absence is indisputable: According to the US Dept of Justice report, "What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime & Revitalize Communities?" children from fatherless homes account for:
- 63 percent of youth suicides.
- 90 percent of all homeless and runaway youths.
- 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders.
- 71 percent of all high school dropouts
- 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions.
- 75 percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers.
- 75 percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger.
In the last 15 years, woke politicians and advocates of critical race theory have co-opted the legitimate concern of naïve Christians abut racism and the poverty of our cities. Arguments about white oppression have caused many of our children and grandchildren to abandon true Christianity for the imposter, Progressive Christianity. We must help the rising generation ask, “Are these groups sincere in their care for our cities or just using naive Christians to accomplish their own political agenda?” In my opinion the answer is found by examining their commitment to overcoming the proven impact of fatherlessness on our city’s children. Are they committed to restoring the nuclear family in our cities? When we hear politicians blaming racism for the problems of our city, we need to speak up and ask, “What is your plan for addressing the fatherlessness of our cities?”
WINSOMELY RESPONDING TO THE ARGUMENT THAT THE BIBLE TEACHES OPPRESSIVE PATRIARCHY
The rising generation is being taught that when the Bible makes distinctions between gender roles, it reflects the sinful patriarchy of an unenlightened, old-fashioned cultural system that represses women and children. We need to speak up about this commonly held myth that is shaping so many of the rising generation. We must wisely guide others to see that this view is nonsense. The five most common arguments you hear are all based upon false logic.
A. The accusation that the Bible embraces unjust patriarchy often begins with a strawman. This faulty logic misrepresents the view of Bible-believing Christians that men and women are created differently to complete (complement) the other, which is called complementarianism. The strawman they use to misrepresent complementarianism is an extremist viewpoint held by groups like the Vision Forum who argue that “God reveals himself as masculine, not feminine,” “women should not vote” and “unmarried adult women are subject to their fathers’ authority.” In clear contrast, the document that actually DOES represent the Bible-believing consensus of complementarianism (The Danvers Statement) explicitly says, "Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood." It also refuses to make any statements about gender roles outside of the home and church. When we hear someone say “Christians follow an outdated book that reflects oppressive patriarchy,” we must love those around us enough not to let that statement go unchallenged. Instead, we can ask, What makes you say that? Regardless of their answer, you can say, “I am a Bible-believing Christian, and I don’t know any Christian who holds those extremist views. The Christian husbands I know are mostly trying to love their wives sacrificially to meet their wife’s needs.”
B. To understand a second fallacy in the argument that the Bible teaches unjust patriarchy, we need to know that the complementarian view of male and female taught by Paul holds that Adam was designed to be the leader of his marriage before the fall, and that headship is not the result of sin, BUT OF CREATION. This is the reason Paul writes, Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything (Eph 5:22-23).
In contrast, Egalitarians argue that Paul got his words from the culture and not from God, and argue that submission is based on the fall, but Christ has set us from such archaic practices. Egalitarian, Jeremy Bouma writing in Christianity Today uses false, circular reasoning when he says, Proponents of gender-based hierarchy don’t believe ontological equality of men and women leads to functional equality; equality of being does not lead to an equality of roles. Bouma subtly infers that somehow a difference in roles violates the ontological equality of male and female (equality of worth and dignity). But he provides no support his position--he just assumes it. He makes the assertion that anyone who views men and women as having different roles in marriage by definition sees them as UNEQUAL. When we hear an argument like Bauma’s we must challenge this statement with a question. Why would you think that a wife yielding to the leadership of her husband means she is admitting she is inferior? After the response we can continue, Does an athlete’s submission to her coach mean she is an inferior human being who has less value than the coach? Does a public-school teacher yielding to her school principal’s authority mean admitting she is an inferior human being?
C. The third logical fallacy that is used to accuse the Bible of unjust patriarchy is implying that there is causation when there is just correlation. Those who fault God’s home and church structure of leadership for the horrible mistreatment of women are sadly mistaken, when they blame the structure. The real cause is human sin. The Danvers Statement makes this clear: “In the home, the husband’s loving, humble headship tends to be replaced by domination or passivity; the wife’s intelligent, willing submission tends to be replaced by usurpation or servility. In the church, sin inclines men toward a worldly love of power or an abdication of spiritual responsibility, and inclines women to resist limitations on their roles or to neglect the use of their gifts in appropriate ministries.”
When the biblical view of role differences is blamed for toxic masculinity, we need to love those around us enough to confront this falsehood. One approach is to ask, Do you think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended discrimination? The response will almost certainly be “no.” Then, we can ask, Why not? We may then have the opportunity to point out that the Bible says that mistreatment of others results from human sinful nature, not the structures that order human institutions.
D. The fourth way that the biblical view of male and female is attacked is through plain ignorance of the facts. Patriarchy—literally is “the rule of the father.” Historians tell us that Roman households were patriarchal; the father had absolute power to rule. Neither Israel in the OT, nor the church in the NT were patriarchies. No Israelite or Christian wife or child was under the naked, individual, capricious rule of an all-powerful father. Both Israelite citizens and church members were under the rule of law. Furthermore, in the OT, husbands and fathers were held accountable for their behavior by the town elders and in the NT by the elders of the church. When we hear that the Bible, OT, Apostle Paul or Christianity has caused unjust treatment of women we need to challenge that statement, beginning with the question, What makes you say that? After listening to their response we may ask, Have you read through the entire Bible, and perhaps have the opportunity to say, I have, and you are very misinformed about this.
E. The last false accusation directed against men’s leadership at home is made using a fallacious argument called ad populum. This argument provides zero logical suport for its position; it just ridicules the other side as being completely out of date with modern thinking. It says, in essence, “people who hold your view sound like the people who once thought the earth was flat.” John Stackhouse in his book, Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism, acknowledges that certain NT passages embrace a sweeping complementarian viewpoint. He maintains, however, that once a culture has left its patriarchal origins behind, these passages are no longer meant to be obeyed. This argument is based upon condescension towards anyone who holds the outdated idea that men should lead their homes. It reeks of arrogance, i.e. assuming that our current Western, egalitarian culture, which calls viewing differences in male and female roles sexist, is enlightened more than every other culture that has not “left patriarchy behind.” What is worse is that he argues that WE know better than WHAT GOD’S WORD SAYS what the gender roles in marriage should look like. There is a word for that: DISOBEDIENCE
Today’s Christians have been armed with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God to wield in the battle over the gender ideas that will shape the rising generation in our nation, churches, and homes. But many Christian men are leaving their swords in their sheaths. Please, don’t do that. A lot of children and grandchildren are depending upon us to fight this battle for them.
For Further Prayerful Thought.
- Why do you believe more Christian men do not take a stand for God’s design of Adam and Eve differently to complete each other?
- What did you find most motivational in persuading you that those around us NEED to hear us speak up about the way fatherhood is being canceled by gender theory today?
- Which faulty argument about the Bible’s oppressive patriarchy have you hear most often? What would it take for you to turn the tables on one who makes such a claim by asking a wise question, like, “What makes you say that?”
