“A father to the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5).
Of all the factors contributing to our crisis of civilization today, perhaps the most destructive is the phenomenon of “fatherlessness.” Fatherlessness means simply the lack of a father, which tells you nothing unless you know what a father is, from the perspective of Him who created them. A mother is equal in value to God but the father is first in the order of family and society by His own design: “The head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man…For just as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God” (1 Corinthians 11:3,12).
A father is more than just a seed-bearer who cleaves unto a wife and produces children – he is God’s agent of His system called “patriarchy.” Patriarchy is the ordering of human civilization by male authority, in which the fathers serve the role of provider for and protector of their own nuclear family AND of whatever extended family proceeds from it: grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins – the entire patch of the fabric of human society originating from his DNA. Every father who fulfills God’s mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” becomes in time the de-facto patriarch of his own clan.
The “human race” is one single tapestry made up of all these patches of fabric interwoven together. The idea of separate and distinct “races” is an illusion caused by standing too close. In reality, all the things we think of has hard and fast distinctions are simply transitional shades of color, form, texture, luminescence, location. By standing back to see us as God does, every thread holds a place on a spectrum – innumerable spectra actually — and all are connected together in one whole. Even groups that attempt to limit their gene pool to select clans or tribes or nations are in the big picture inseparably connected to everyone else.
Patriarchy is what holds this fabric together. It is the source of strength and survivability for each individual family and all the clans it connects to directly and indirectly. This is why the Bible portrays fatherlessness as the most hopeless state that a human being can find themselves in. And why James (the ultimate law-and-order Apostle of the early church) writes “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27).
It is no accident that the first target of Cultural Marxism (endorsed by Lenin himself) was the patriarchy, by the creation of what we know today as radical feminism. And it is no accident that the first and most zealous recruits to the radical feminist movement were secularized Jewish women in Europe, chafing under a pro-forma patriarchal system, detached from its religious and spiritual roots and justifications. Today in Judaism, it seems that only Torah-faithful Orthodox Jews understand and preserve the patriarchy, while ultra-leftist ultra-angry Jewish women dominate every other form of the religion, championing every type of sexual and societal rebellion against God’s law – even by their own children who survive their zeal for abortion. Secularized Jewish men and boys are relegated to role of helpers in the feminist cause.
But, of course, that ideological virus has spread to most of Gentile society in the western world too, so we’re now all one big dysfunctional human family in which any hint of patriarchal sentiment is bludgeoned down mercilessly as “toxic masculinity.”
Mine was the first generation of American boys trained in feminist ideology in the public schools. I graduated high school in 1976 thoroughly indoctrinated in the feminist world-view without even realizing it. We were the first generation of boys not to be properly prepared for heading our own natural family as a protector and provider, but instead were unleashed to “question authority” and “do what feels good” which, of course, meant indulgence in sexual promiscuity to the extent that the girls would go along with that. I still held enough residual presuppositions about family life and structure – and the critical importance of the female duty to model sexual restraint for the sake of preserving the primacy of family – to be shocked when Cindy Lauper’s song “Girls just want to have fun” became a top-of-the-charts hit. Even in my very left-wing, hedonistic, marijuana-addled state I knew that was a sign of coming social collapse.
Marxism created feminism, feminism created the crisis of fatherlessness, and the crisis of fatherlessness created the social, cultural, political and religious chaos we are suffering today.
Fortunately, the cure to fatherlessness is within the grasp of every man alive today. It is simply to BE fatherly – to everyone. Each man is created by God in HIS image to exercise HIS authority in every role created for men to fill. Every form, function and facility of masculinity is stored in every man’s heart, mind, body and soul, waiting to be tapped and utilized for any task he sets his focus on. And one task every man is assigned in this life is to BE a provider for and protector of women and children. If speaking that civilization-saving truth makes me a “sexist,” so be it.
Being fatherly to someone means caring for them as a patron, meaning as a source of encouragement, strength, wisdom, guidance, challenge and even warning. The love of a father is confident, assertive and nurturing in the sense of coaching but not taking over. Every man can do it, and should do it, especially with his own family, but even with strangers or any age or stage of life. For Christians especially, fatherliness can and should be a lifestyle.
Mine was the first of the “broken home” generation, and I personally had a terrible father in many of the most important roles he was supposed to model for me. Despite that, I became a very good father to my own children and as a pastor and family law attorney have helped many men to be more fatherly. So I know first-hand that it is possible, and it works!
What’s most needed now is for all men everywhere to step up and embrace the mission of restoring fatherliness in whatever spheres YOU can influence. The cure for the disease of fatherlessness, is fatherliness, and that cure is in YOUR hands, Man. What greater gift could you give to the people of this broken world than the Blessing of Fatherfliness?
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