Getting Fathers Back

I can’t think of any better time to get back to discussing Douglas Wilson’s treatment of masculinity and parenting in Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their Families.  Can you?  🙂  I’ve also noticed that my review copy is about 10pgs off the pagination of the regular copies.  Hopefully since we’re going chapter by chapter, you can figure out where I am.  We’ll currently be reviewing chapter 3 “A Culture of Absenteeism.”

Wilson begins this chapter by noting that we live in fatherless times.  He quotes David Blankenhorn who states that “Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood” (29).  The obvious expression of this is in single-mother homes, but it can also exist practically within households that still have both parents.  “If fathers are on the premises, but don’t know what is expected of them, we have another kind of fatherlesness,” writes Wilson (30).

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Fatherhood and Creation Ordinances

Another theological point that is of fundamental importance for Douglas Wilson’s Father Hunger is the creation ordinance of providing and protecting.  Wilson states:

The role of a father as a provider and protector is not an arbitrary assignment given to an arbitrarily selected group, regardless of any other consideration.  Here is the mandate given to Adam (Gen. 2:15)–God wants men both to work and protect.  Work has to do with nurture and cultivation, while protection refers to a man’s duty to be a fortress for his family.  We find a working definition of masculinity in the first few pages of the Bible. (18)

“Creation ordinances” are sort of the Christian version of “nature.”  But by nature, we don’t mean “just the way things are,” but rather, “the way God programmed things to be.”