Why is Biblical Manhod so hard to define?

This fall we launched a Small Group to go through The Family Project, a DVD curriculum produced by Focus on the Family. We have had a wonderful time walking though the design for the family and how we relate to God through our families. We have discussed topics including God’s creation of man, man being in God’s image, marriage, and even sexuality. We had covered mothers as being “image-bearers” and so this week we talked about fathers doing the same. In the video, the sobering statistics about children raised without a father were discussed and it was shocking. For example, in the 1970’s, the African-American community had a 70%+ birthrate of kids within an intact two parent home. Now, that percentage is down to 28%. While this stat tells the extant of the issue, others show that growing up without a father increases the likelihood of incarceration, drug use, pregnancy, among other dangerous behavior. It should be common sense but these stats show that fathers make a significant contribution to family life.

So then this leads to the next question: Why? What does a father bring into a family that flips these statistics around? Unfortunately, I am still trying to answer that question in my head. Hopefully, I will be able to post my thoughts on that matter when they solidify more in my own head. There are many books and blogs talking about this but many show characteristics of being a Godly parent and not specifically a Godly father. Yes, a Godly father needs to be a Godly parent so these all do apply. However, trying to draw a line (however fuzzy it may be) between the roles of a Godly mother and a Godly father is difficult at best and insulting at worst. As I pondered this question, a few thoughts came to mind and I turn to those now.

The first things that comes to mind when discussing roles is that from the very beginning, the first attack on humanity was to the structure of the family. We all know that Genesis 3 says that Satan was talking to Eve and that she was the first one to eat of the tree. If we look back to Genesis 2, who did God give the instructions to? He gave them to Adam and he passed them down to Eve. Notice that Satan did not do a frontal assault on the commands of God to Adam. He ambushed the family from the side by going after Eve. Why do I belabor this point? Because in the curses that are handed out, one of them to Eve speaks directly to the relationship between a wife and a husband. There will be tension in a marriage until the Fall is fixed in heaven.

The second thought is that our culture has given fathers a pass on responsibility. If a pregnancy occurs, it is primarily the mother who is draped in the responsibility of raising that child. There are men who do step up and take to supporting their child but the fact that they are celebrated for their self-sacrifice is the exception that proves the rule. That should be expected instead of the exception. That being said, when we think of father, we have to overcome the culture of absentee fathers before we even begin to talk about how to be a Godly father. We have to teach men what it means to be a parent before we raise the bar to being a father, then a Godly father. With this huge cultural hole, before we start talking about these other things, we need to level-set our audience. Thus, backfilling this hole becomes the vast majority of the discussion.

Finally, putting these two things together, we get the “Murphy Brown” syndrome. Back in 1988 – 1998, Murphy Brown was a sit-com whose main character was a single woman. While being a successful journalist, she decided to have and raise a child on her own. Vice President Dan Quayle took issue with this on the campaign trail and criticized this as “mocks the importance of fathers” by bearing a child alone(Carter, Bill. “Back Talk from ‘Murphy Brown’ to Dan Quayle” New York Times. July 20, 1992). (As an aside, while Quayle was raked over the coals for this comment, the stats prove that he was correct: fathers matter) This idea that fathers are not necessary to raising a child has grown in American culture. Fathers are portrayed as buffoons and only incidental in the shaping of their children in the media. Thus, when we discuss roles for men, there are many examples in society where women have needed to raise and take on that role for their families. Thus, it is hard to differentiate between the roles for the father and for the mother.

To start talking about Biblical Manhood, we have many cultural issues to overcome. We need to teach men to be responsible. We need to teach them how to be a parent. We need to teach them that they matter to the family. When we try to look at setting expectations on the fathers in our ministries to be Godly fathers, we need to make sure that we are aware of these issues. While we want to set the bar a teh example of Jesus, we also want to set realistic milestones for our fathers to use in order to see their progress and so they do not get discouraged. Bottom line with any discipleship ministry, we need to know our audience and be willing to walk them from where they are at to the place God is calling them to be.