Father Is Not a Four-Letter
Word
Our view of God will determine our view of man.
— J. Richard Ballew
The American family is vanishing before our very eyes. The young people of some segments of society are already self-destructing. Feature articles in magazines and newspapers throughout the land are shouting out the startling statistics of the family dilemma, caused primarily by the irresponsibility of men. Ivory-tower professors and political opportunists are seen meeting together on national television bemoaning the problem, frantically suggesting a return to a sense of moral reality — but no one has an idea how this can be accomplished.
Most everyone agrees we desperately need a return to morality. But the question is, "Who in pluralistic America is going to define moral values?" The social revolutions of the late sixties and early seventies
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challenged the meaning of and reasons for traditional absolutes. Nobody could recall where moral values came from. No longer could we say that being moral is right — just "because"! No longer could men be masculine just because they were born men. No longer could people get married and stay married just because that's the right thing to do. No longer was having children an unchallenged act.
Everything was challenged. No traditional stone was left unturned. And the question most frequently asked was, "Why?"
American leaders are still faced with those same haunting questions. Why should the men of America assume the moral responsibility for their homes and imprint the absolutes of right and wrong on their children once again? It takes a courageous and godly man to answer that question, because it just might cost him dearly. So far, no American leader who has the ear of this nation's citizens has rallied the war-torn remnants of the traditional family to the sound of a clear trumpet call. This country needs a mighty blast loud enough to drown out the distracting yelps of the special interest groups, such as the gays and the radical feminists, who cleverly rally into voting blocs and effectively prevent American leaders from reaching any consensus about the plight of the irresponsible American male.
A moral and spiritual war is raging in our land that can be won only by men who know who they are and who are willing to confront the enemies of authentic
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manhood. A new generation of righteous and manly men must, like the legendary phoenix, rise from the ashes.
A Man as Father
It has been my thesis that the present unraveling of American society is taking place in large part because of our cultural disdain for fatherhood. The responsibilities of fatherhood are being ducked. Fatherhood has been gutted of honor and respect until the most common portrayal of an American father is the spineless, bumbling idiot of television sitcoms. At a time when responsible fathers are America's greatest need, men are abandoning family leadership and giving in to an adolescent attraction to hedonistic pleasure.
But such a course is suicidal for America. Throughout the history of mankind, civilization has been held together by fatherhood. Fatherhood is so essential to the proper ordering and smooth functioning of life that no society can long endure without it.
Experts agree that the major problems troubling America, such as juvenile delinquency, violent crime, suicide, and illegitimate birth, stem from fathers who have turned their hearts from their children. What will it take for American manhood to rise from the rubble of a disintegrating society? American masculinity will awaken from its present pathetic state only when the men of this country are willing to be fathers.
That's right. I said fathers. Fatherhood and true manhood are inseparable.
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All men are called to be fathers, even single males and childless husbands. Men who are not biological fathers are still called upon to devote time, effort, and energy to the guidance and care of the young people around them, comforting, counseling, and instructing those who have no dads.
Celibacy
There are a few things that must be said at this point about single men. Singleness is not a disease. In fact, sometimes it is a calling — a calling the Church has historically referred to as celibacy. Probably nothing has been more misunderstood among Protestant Americans than the life of celibacy. I've worked over the years with some special people who were uniquely called to serve Christ as celibates, but were confused as to who they were. There was no clear teaching or encouragement for them to remain single, because there was not a holy tradition for them to enter into with a clear purpose. So what happens to these people?
I have one friend whom I believe to be called to this life. But his parents have always wanted grandchildren and felt embarrassed that their handsome, gifted, and educated Christian son never married. This seemed to them, as it does to many people, to be unnatural and a bit weird. Their son has always felt this parental and social pressure among his fellow Christians, so he has continued to date women. He is now fifty-six years old and still dating. It's unlikely it could take that long to find Miss Right — if there were a Miss Right for him.
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There has always been a clear understanding of celibacy in the historic Christian Faith. The New Testament emphasizes the value of virginity as a means of worshiping God. The Church especially pointed to the example of Christ, Mary, and John the Baptist. Jesus Himself taught,
The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But, those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:34-36).
Virginity is presented in these words of Christ as a state of eschatological blessing. In heaven men will not marry, so in this respect the life of those who remain celibate is compared to the life of the angels. Prior to the heavenly state in its fullness, celibacy is one way a person can consecrate himself to God, if he freely chooses celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. "There are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb," Jesus said, "and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it" (Matthew 19:12).
In other words, spiritual eunuchs are those who have sacrificed legitimate natural desires for the sake of the Kingdom of God. However, Jesus is saying that not
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all are able to accept this condition. It is a gift and a calling.
The Apostle Paul elevated Christian marriage to its sacred and holy estate by comparing it to the mystery of Christ and His Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33). But we must clearly understand that, although St. Paul viewed marriage as blessed by God and the norm for most of mankind, he saw celibacy as the higher way in that it offers the opportunity to remain unattached to "this world." Marriage may even involve the greater struggle, in terms of denying oneself and losing one's life for the other, but celibacy is a state in which one can commit oneself to God alone. St. Paul wrote,
He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord — how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world — how he may please his wife. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world — how she may please her husband . . . So then he who gives her [his daughter] in marriage does well, but he does not give her in marriage does better (1 Corinthians 7:32-38).
With this, the Apostle praises celibacy and virginity as a more perfect state, since it allows in its economy of time, and with less distraction, a more focused consecration to God. If the perfection of marriage can be
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compared to 20-20 vision, the celibate has the potential to go beyond that 20-20 vision in his life in God.
St. Paul himself felt celibacy was a special charism, calling from God, a special vocation in the life of the Church. The fact is, hundreds of thousands throughout the history of the Church have chosen this way of life. Among them have risen many of the Fathers of the Faith who brought light to this dark, fallen world and left us a treasury of spiritual writings. Celibacy is a way to spiritual fatherhood within the walls of the historic Faith that must be recovered in the midst of the darkened and hedonistic culture of America.
The Fatherhood of Christ
At this point, a Christian might well ask, "Aren't you linking celibacy and fatherhood much too closely? Jesus was celibate. Yet He Himself is not a father."
Jesus Christ is a father. As Adam was the father of a fallen race, so Jesus Christ is the father of the new race. In fact, Isaiah's accurate prophecy concerning the Incarnation explains why one of the titles to be given to the Son of God would be "Everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6), literally, "Father of eternity."
What's going on here? As to the Trinity, don't we keep the Father and the Son as distinct, divine Persons? Absolutely! Jesus is not a father in relation to the Trinity, but He is in relation to His Church. When Isaiah called Jesus Christ the Everlasting Father, he was speaking of the age to come when He would be a father of the new covenant. The first Adam was the father of
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the human race, while Christ, the Second Adam, is the father of the redeemed, new race that is born in Him. Thus, the Son of God the Father has Himself the attributes of fatherhood.
Jesus says, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). In revealing the Father, He as father of the faithful is the perfect expression of fatherhood. He is the progenitor of the new humanity! And Jesus Christ's role as both father and husband, by the way, constitutes the basis for the male priesthood in the historic Church. A subcommittee of the Ecumenical Task Force of the Orthodox Church in America writes in its book, Women and Men in the Church:
Bishops and priests in the Church are sacramentally ordained to actualize the presence and power of Jesus Himself in the Church, Christ's own personal and individual presence and activity — as the good pastor, the great high priest, the head of the body, the husband of the churchly spouse, the bridegroom of his pure bride. In order for the bishop and priest to complete his sacramental task for the sake of the whole Church, therefore, he must be one who can image, symbolize, and mystically actualize the Lord's presence as husband and father of the flock. It is impossible for a woman to exercise this ministry and to fulfill this task.1
And not only that, Christ in His Incarnation did in fact exalt His earthly mother Mary, the new Eve, to be
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the first of the redeemed in the Church and also the human Mother of the Church. All men — married or single — can follow Christ in fatherhood, being spiritual fathers of those they bid to follow Him.
If single men and childless husbands of this country will see that God's call to fatherhood extends to them as well as to biological fathers, perhaps some of the millions of children who have no father present will have a chance of making it. Real men do not just make babies. Real men take responsibility for the physical and spiritual care of children they beget and for those begotten and deserted by others. Responsibility lies at the heart of fatherhood as it was intended to be.
What's in a Word?
Where did the role of fatherhood come from? The essence of fatherhood is best understood in one word — a word that Americans, even Christian Americans, have completely lost the meaning of, a word against which all the enemies of God have warred in an attempt to secure its annihilation. It is a word which has been abused, trampled on, ignored, vehemently spit upon and mocked by raging hyper-feminists, and discarded by irresponsible, self-centered, hedonistic males.
This word is so powerfully significant and now emotionally charged that the feminized, peace-at-any-price boys are embarrassed by it and religiously relegate it to the bewhiskered days of antiquity. This word has become so unmentionable that it is exiled to the
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company of obscene four-letter words in the minds of most male and female Americans.
This word can never be neutral. It was worn by the men of old, from Abraham to David, and it needs to belong to American men today. Without its recovery, without its meaning being made known and its power working in society, there is absolutely no clear, positive way to redeem the human family.
What is this awesome word? Patriarchy. It is in the meaning of this word that true fatherhood exists and the foundation of the male identity is supplied.
The biblical term patriarchy is derived from two words in the Greek language — patria (from the word pater, "father"), which means "family" or "lineage"; and arches, which means "ruler" or "leader." A patriarch is a family ruler. He is the man in charge. But to understand his role and function — and to help defuse the emotions of those who have been hurt or embittered by bad fathers — let us go all the way back to the foundation of all patriarchy: God the Father.
The Forgotten Father
I don't know about you, but I grew up with little understanding of God the Father. In fact, the church my parents attended had evolved out of the revival fires of the Second Great Awakening. In the church's desire for total independence and for the vision of restoration of the "New Testament church," it rejected all the ancient creeds held by serious Christians throughout the centuries.
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Many new creeds took their place, however, such as "We speak when the Bible speaks and we are silent where the Bible is silent," or "We have no creed but Christ." We dutifully learned these creeds as small children.
But none of them mentioned God the Father. I heard the Father referred to in the Scriptures, but He had no real place in my mind and heart. Jesus Christ was, in all practicality, the only Person of the Trinity who counted. Later, in my involvement with mainline evangelical groups, I found that the Holy Spirit was emphasized along with Christ as a divine Person I needed to know. All this was good and true as far as it went, but it was not enough to give me a proper view of the Holy Trinity — or of myself. God the Father to me was still a vague, dim figure who had somehow been relegated to Old Testament history. He seemingly had no involvement in what happens today, and was never mentioned as the One who is the ultimate model for human fathers.
Our favorite evangelistic Scripture was, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." But for some reason, we left off the other half of that passage: "No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). The emphasis was on Christ as "the way" to salvation, not on the supreme purpose of Christ's mission — to bring us to the Father.
Men must turn back to knowing God as Father, and the Father they must return to is the Patriarch of patriarchs. He is the ultimate reason that men behave
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responsibly. There is no hope for the feminized fathers of America unless they return from the exile of passivity — self-serving and unaccountable behavior — and actively offer their souls to the Father who in mercy created them in His image.
This is what happened to the Apostle Paul at his Christian transformation; this is how he became the spiritual father we acknowledge him to be. He tells how he bowed his knees "to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family [literally, "all fatherhood"] in heaven and earth is named" (Ephesians 3:14,15). And in so doing, he related all fatherhood to God's fatherhood.
Therefore before men can discuss and, in humility, practice true patriarchy, they must turn to the God who is the Patriarch of all, the Father from whom all fatherhood is derived. Along with the Apostle Paul, we fathers must bow our knees to that Father, confessing and embracing what is true about Him before we can discover what is true about ourselves. A right view of the fatherhood of God will produce a true vision of the fatherhood of man.
God the Father, as it were, established the criteria for fatherhood that men were created to fulfill. The eternal plan for man is not up for grabs or subject to change by twenty-first-century "New Age" gurus or by the "enlightened" anti-family spirit of self-indulgence that characterizes the spirit of this age. After all, the Father is God. He is in charge. He is Patriarch.
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Thomas Howard writes in his book, Splendor in the Ordinary, that God
did not sit down at a round table with the patriarchs and say, "Here, let me sketch out the rationale for my plan for you and get some feedback from you on it." The prophets did not say, "Let's have some input from everyone and see what the consensus is." The apostles did not say, "Give us your insights, and we'll try to paste together some sort of evangel." Sooner or later there is a dictum in this universe, and we men are indebted, nay we owe our life and salvation, to the fact that somebody said to us "Thus saith the Lord." That was not an invitation to a dialogue. It was the trumpet of authority, calling us to obedience and freedom and power and glory.2
Despite the frustrated allegations of some feminists, God has consistently revealed and portrayed Himself as Father. He identified Himself as the Father of the people of Israel, saying, "Israel is My son, My firstborn" (Exodus 4:22). And His people responded accordingly. Repeatedly, the prophets of Israel referred to the Lord as their Father (see Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Jeremiah 3:19; and elsewhere). God declared Himself to be the Father of individuals as well as nations (see 1 Chronicles 28:6). In His mind, no one is to be without a Father, for King David called Him "a father of the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5).
God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, took on
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human flesh so that He might reveal and bring us back to the Father. Jesus said that eternal life is wrapped up in knowing God the Father: "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).
When men in post-revolutionary America forsook theology and left the church, as we noted in Chapter 5, they deserted the Judeo-Christian tradition of fatherhood that had given definition to masculinity for all time and eternity. When I say that American men left God, I mean, first of all, that they left the Father. And without the Father in heaven as the anchor of their paternal earthly office, men no longer could determine, with absolute conviction, that the patriarchal role was valid for them in guiding their lives and families. Consequently, manhood in America has been tossed about on the seas of continual social aberration for well over a century and half.
Historically, God the Father has been called a patriarchal God by all Jews and Christians because He is the source of all things. In spite of post-Christian objections, we cannot escape the fact that, as Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, "There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things" (1 Corinthians 8:6).
This is not to say, of course, that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit possess any less of the Divine Nature than God the Father. You and I equally possess human nature and yet are distinct persons. In the blessed Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit possess Divine Nature equally with the Father, and yet are
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distinct divine Persons. As the fountainhead of the Holy Trinity, the Father alone is the source of all things.
Let's Get Theological
I know I'm getting theological. But men are going to have to get theological — something our passive minds do not want to do — to come back to the truth of manhood. Theology, remember, is a manly discipline. When men forsake the discipline of thinking theologically, they trade life in the church for an existence in the world of commerce, and surrender to a plastic piety of absentee ambivalence. (A double-minded man is, after all, unstable in all his ways — James 1:8). So, rather than just being comfortable and detached, men need to think again, even if it hurts.
The Father is the first, the fountainhead, the source of all things. Even the other two Persons of the Trinity find their eternal source in God the Father, for it is the Father who eternally begets the Son, and it is from the Father that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds. However, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, it does not follow that He is less in nature than the Father. It is in their "personness" that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit hold their separate uniqueness.
For instance, the Father is the one unbegotten God. He is unbegotten because no one fathered Him. He alone is the author and source of His own existence, and in this, He is entirely unique. Our earthly father,
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Adam, images the heavenly Father by being the source of both his wife Eve and his son Seth (that is, Eve proceeded from his side and he begot Seth).
And just as the Holy Spirit is not inferior to the Father in nature, neither is Eve inferior to Adam in human nature. As God the Father is the eternal source of the Son and the Holy Spirit, even so was Adam the source of Eve and Seth.
But more than this, Adam is also the head of this human family in the same way that the Father is the head of the Trinity: the first among equals. In Adam, headship was established in the human race. In Christ, headship is established in the Church. And it was to men that God gave, and continues to give, headship in the home. Headship relates to fatherhood and to masculinity. Real men are to be heads of their families.
The Point of Great Debate
This, of course, is the biblical truth that drives feminists crazy. It is at this point that feminists — male and female, Christian and non-Christian alike — begin to seethe. It is at this specific point that cries of "chauvinism" are angrily hurled. Failure to bow to this foundational reality in the Scriptures is already producing a spirit of rebellion in an entire generation. It is for this reason that a feminist declaration, "The Document," charges: "Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women . . . the end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women."3
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Why are some people so offended at the idea of male headship that they would call for the abolition of marriage? I am convinced it is due to a gross misunderstanding of the concept of headship: a confusion between a person's value and a person's function.
Headship relates to function. If the male of the species had been given the leadership role because he was viewed as innately more valuable, that would indeed be terribly unjust. But giving men the position of family head does not mean that women are of lesser value than men. Let me try to illustrate this point.
The Super Bowl is a big deal in current American culture. Each season one team achieves national renown by winning the Super Bowl. Much of the credit for the achievement goes to the team's head coach. But let me ask you a question: Is the head coach a more valued human being than the newest reserve player on his team's roster?
Or is the President of the United States of greater worth than the Secret Service agent who guards him? Does the CEO of Chrysler have more innate dignity than the janitor who cleans his office at corporation headquarters? Is MS. magazine's editor a more worthy individual than the magazine's most junior staff proof-reader?
To all of the above, the answer is a resounding no! A human being's value is not found in function. Human worth is described by the phrase imago Dei, which means that each of us is made in the image of God. Each person — male or female, black or white, rich or poor,
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famous or obscure — has the same value before God as the next. No one has any more or any less.
The differences that exist between the coach and his reserve players, between the President and the Secret Service agent, between the CEO and the janitor, and between the editor and the proofreader have nothing to do with human worth. The differences are not in value, but in function.
In like manner, the biblically prescribed headship of the husband in human families has nothing to do with men being of greater worth than women, for they are not. The issue is the office or function that God has assigned to each. The failure to differentiate between value and function lies behind much of the power struggle that ravages families across America. Men who actually think they are more valuable because God asks them to be the head of the family unit are deceived. And women who feel reduced in personhood because they are not in charge are equally deceived.
To understand this clearly, we have to come back to a true view of God. The perfect model to give us a right understanding of function and value is the Trinity. In the Trinity we find that God the Father is the head, but this headship does not make the Son or the Holy Spirit of lesser value.
The Father and the Son are equals. The Son is not of lesser value than the Father because of His function in the Godhead. You see, if function (in Christ's case, that of sonship) made Him less in value than the Father, He could not be God! But on the contrary, He, according
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to both the Scriptures and the Nicene Creed, is God of God, Light of Light, the only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, eternally generated from the Father. He has no less value because He has a different function.
Life with Father
Herein lies the answer for those people who are confused by equating function and value. It will put an end to the frantic "climbing of ladders" to prove one's worth. We human beings are loved by God because we are made by Him. Having been created in His image is the real basis for our worth as persons. Headship, then, does not make one more valuable. Rather, it has been ordained from God the Father, the very source of the blessed Trinity, to assure us of peace, order, and equality.
Without headship, anarchy reigns. Primacy is absolutely necessary for peace in human relationships. Even feminists know this. That's why Ms. magazine has an executive editor and the National Organization for Women has a president.
Headship is essential to the health of the family. As I showed in Chapter 6, since the Victorian era, headship in the American family has been hotly contested. The primary source of tension between American men and women lies in the fact that men have left their heavenly model of headship and have ceased to exercise proper leadership in their homes. At best, headship in families is up for grabs. The homes of our land have become battlefields for domestic power struggles. Nevertheless,
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the ultimate responsibility for decision making within marriages is to be with men.
Why does this sound so unfair to contemporary ears? I believe it is because of the husbands who demand the submission of their wives, but in turn submit to no one themselves! Just as a real man is to be the head of his family, he is also supposed to be under authority himself.
I don't blame the frustrated women who feel the injustice of being under the headship of men who aren't accountable to anyone. It's not fair, and it's also not Christian. Yes, the husband is the head of the wife, but the husband is to be accountable to the leaders of the Church. The Scripture says, "Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account" (Hebrews 13:17). That is written to women and men!
And that's fair! It is in this relationship that a woman has a court of appeal if she is treated wrongly, which is, by the way, exactly how women were ensured of justice in pre-revolutionary America. Colonial women could find justice even in very personal matters; for example, as Mary Ryan reports, "when one resident of Middlesex County refused to engage in intercourse with his wife for a period of two years, he was excommunicated from the church."4 There was a time when men were accountable for how they treated women. And a patriarchal system provided that accountability.
I have noticed over the last thirty years, as I have worked with families, that independent men beget
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independent children who, in many cases, turn on their parents. Men who are able to function peacefully with a sense of accountability in their own lives, on the other hand, produce children who desire to please them.
Even the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are under the headship of the Father. Therefore, in God the Father we see that headship is a part of fatherhood, while in Christ we see that every other earthly founder and director is under headship himself. Christ is the head of every man because He created man. Yet Christ, while fully sharing the Divine Nature, is under the headship of His Father. In fact, it was this Son of God, Jesus Christ, who boldly proclaimed, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9). In other words, Jesus instructs us to look at Him to see what the Person of His Father, the Divine Patriarch, looks like.
Sometimes we get the idea that patriarchy is somehow "Old Testament." It is imperative that American men understand that Jesus' purpose was not to destroy or to replace the patriarchal function of men, but to reveal its full meaning. His teachings on virginity, equality of the sexes, loving one's enemies, the value of human life, humility, good works, the headship of Himself in the Church and the husband in the home, and the absolute sacredness of the marriage bond served to complete the proper patriarchal image of the Old Covenant. Jesus came not to abolish patriarchy, but to fulfill it.
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In all honesty, apart from Christ, men cannot be adequate fathers. It is only in Him that the fullness of the Father is disclosed. Being the kind of fathers men are supposed to be means they must return to the normalcy of patriarchy. Therefore, Christian men and women must reject the modern, inaccurate assertion, so naively believed by Americans, that patriarchal families were oppressive families in which women and children suffered at the cruel hands of despotic men. As we have seen, an objective look at the period in American history when patriarchal families were the norm tells just the opposite story. It plainly demonstrates that spouses and children of that era felt far more content than their modern counterparts.
Clearly, anti-patriarchal propaganda disgraces not only the pre-revolutionary colonial family, but the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, whose influence provided family order for the entire world. "Alternative" families are not adequate replacements. Their fruit is a fifty-percent divorce rate and alienated offspring. Patriarchy is the biblical and traditional blueprint for family life. The American home has no chance for survival without it.
Chapter 10 || Table of Contents
1. Subcommittee of the Ecumenical Task Force of the Orthodox Church in America, Women and Men in the Church (Syosset, NY: Department of Religious Education, Orthodox Church in America, 1980), p. 49.
2. Thomas Howard, Splendor in the Ordinary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1976), p. 53.
3. To Manipulate a Housewife (San Diego: Concerned Women for America, 1979), p. 221.
4. Ryan, Womanhood, p. 44.
