The Importance of Fathers

 Fathers' Day is on June 20th. Now is a good time to begin thinking of how significant the role of fathers is to the well-being of children.

The Importance of Fathers

Fathers are extremely important for their children. But tragically, as we move away from the faith of our Founding Fathers, we also see a breakdown of the role of earthly fathers, even to the unfortunate reality that many of them are not even present with their families.

Indeed, much of the mayhem we see in society today -- from vandalism to teen suicide -- is linked to fatherlessness.

Fathers in our culture have not recently appeared very important—at least according to Hollywood and other culture-shapers. We used to have TV programs like “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It to Beaver” with a respectable father figure. Then we devolved to Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.” He was the stereotypical bigoted, benighted patriarch who was not worthy of emulation.

Then we devolved to Homer Simpson, the buffoonish dolt, who was anything but a role model of what fatherhood should be.

In many households today, there is no dad. And that’s a serious problem. So many of the children in fatherless homes begin life at a serious disadvantage. The breakdown of the family at large has caused a huge crisis in our society. For instance, statistics show that the majority of prison inmates come from broken families.

Fatherlessness is a serious blight on American life. As the family goes, so goes society. And, contrary to what the left says (who spend much of their energy diminishing traditional gender roles and arguing that whatever “family you choose” is just as good as the real thing), fathers are integral to the lives of children.

What is devastating the black community today? Most of our great black leaders attribute the irresponsibility of men who father children then walk away from their mothers as being primarily responsible for the problems of the children they leave behind. This is true in every strata of society and among all races but it is very concerning in the black community where 75 % of births are illegitimate.

Prior to the Great Society, the rate of illegitimacy in the black community was low and families were intact. And as noted black economist Thomas Sowell points out, the poverty rate for African-Americans fell by 40 percent from 1940 to 1960—just before the “Great Society” welfare programs.

Many in our current climate would say the main issue is racism. But sociologically, cultural pathologies are linked closely to poverty. And poverty is linked closely to the structure of the family. Well meaning government programs have created a permanent underclass of people by subsidizing fatherlessness and unemployment.

I remember many years ago when I attended an evangelical church in Chicago that was on the liberal side, one of the lay leaders got up and prayed, “Our Father, Our Mother….”

I was thinking, “What?!?” So I asked him after the service about the unorthodox prayer.

His response was that that church was in the shadow of the most notorious housing project in the city, Cabrini-Green. Fatherlessness was a huge problem there. Most people growing up there had a negative feeling about their earthly father because he was absent or drunk or abusive. This prayer recognized that mothers were the essence of the physical, mental, academic financial and spiritual well-being of their children.

In his book, HEARTS OF THE FATHERS, Charles Crismier notes that many American children today lack the “God-ordered earthly anchor for soul security” because dad is not in the home. He notes, “It is well known but seldom discussed, whether in the church or in the White House, that fatherlessness lies at the root of nearly all of the most glaring problems that plague our modern, post-Christian life.”

For example, take the issue of poverty. Says Crismier, “Children living in female-headed homes have a poverty rate of 48 percent, more than four times the rate for children living in homes with their fathers and mothers.”

He points out that fathers are so important in the Bible, beginning with God the Father, that the words “father,” “fathers,” and “forefathers” appear 1,573 times in the Holy Book.

Obviously, it is possible that children in fatherless homes can survive and even thrive despite that handicap, but what a better thing it is to follow God’s design for the family and give children the advantage His plan affords.

There’s also a link between fatherlessness and unbelief. About 20 years ago, when he was a professor at New York University, Dr. Paul Vitz wrote a book, THE FAITH OF THE FATHERLESS. In that book he showed how famous skeptics in history had virtually no father figure in their lives or a very negative father. As examples, he cited Voltaire, Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean Paul Sartre, Thomas Hobbs, and Sigmund Freud, among others.

Conversely, Vitz found that strong believers often had positive fathers or father figures. In an interview for Christian television, he told me, “I would say the biggest problem in the country is the breakdown of the family, and the biggest problem in the breakdown in the family is the absence of the father. Our answer is to recover our Christian faith, particularly for men, and we’ll recover fatherhood. And if we recover fatherhood, we’ll recover the family. If we recover the family, we’ll recover our society.”

If you’re a father and you stay with your children and you love your wife, you’re a real hero and role model. Keep it up—our nation is counting on you.