Father’s Are Needed

I awoke Sunday morning to an awful set of articles that were published on Father’s Day and which bashed and smashed fatherhood in general. First came a story in the Washington Post about a father, suffering with cancer, trying to ensure his daughters are well cared for by a team of Dads who will carry on after his death. It’s a touching story of a Dad who loves his daughters and is doing all he can to provide for their future. But oddly he began his story, and overshadowed it, by telling us that Dads are, according to the science-gods, not that important.

He bases his conclusions on a report this month from the magazine Atlantic. Author Pamela Paul ⁽¹⁾Paul authored Pornified, a book I have praised and used in our series here on pornography. wrote Are Fathers Necessary? for the July/August 2010 edition of the popular magazine. Paul based her article on a study, 6 months old and previously released, published in the scholarly Journal of Marriage and Family.

Now here’s the gist of the study: There is no scientific proof that children need both a father and a mother. Two homosexual women are just as good, better if  you read closely, than a heterosexual couple. By extension, it seems the same could be said about two homosexual men verses a heterosexual couple. The study, which supposedly bashes men, actually does not. It attacks traditional, heterosexual parenting!

Now I have requested an actual copy of the scholarly article and will review it when it arrives, but for now we can observe two salient facts.

First, a thousand scholarly studies cannot make a sin into righteousness. Biblically, the practice of homosexuality is sin and is roundly condemned by Scripture. Relevant passages include Leviticus 18:22 and  20:13, Romans 1:26-28,  1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10 and others. Those who practice homosexuality desperately want to be accepted into the mainstream and they push hard for tolerance and acceptance of their  lifestyle. But the Bible is as unchanging as it is clear, the practice of homosexuality is wrong. We will add that “gay-bashing” and assaults against homosexuals are all wrong and sinful too. While they do not recognize it, practicing homosexuals are trapped in a lifestyle leading to condemnation. We can, should and must extend a Christlike hand of love to them and seek to bring them into Christ apart from their sin. Like any other sin,homosexuality must be repented of when one turns to Christ.

But there is a second fact that is probably more troubling. Fathers makes themselves irrelevant through our own actions. We have removed ourselves from our children’s lives because of our dedication to work and our desire for recreation.

It is certainly hard to make a living. Rising taxes, a declining economy, crashing prospects due to oil spills and a rising appetite for the latest and greatest gadgets have forced men to work longer and harder hours. We are out of the house more and have far less energy when we come home. We reason that we are providing a better standard of living for our children.

But when the day comes that the child is grown and leaves the house, will that material standard be enough? Now is the time to put everything on hold while we – men – raise our children.

When we come home after a long we week we also reason that we deserve some recreation time. Maybe its a few drinks with guys at a local bar, a round of golf on Saturday morning or the isolation of a computer game, it doesn’t really matter because we again remove our selves from the lives of the children.

There is no more precious investment you can make now than to spend quantity, quality time with your children. Now is the time to step up!