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Biblical Faith and Fathering: Why We Call God "Father"
165 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1989
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May 29, 2017
Biblical Faith and Fathering: Why we call God "Father" by John W. Miller
Sunday, May 28, 2017
11:11 PM
This is an excellent, excellent little book about how fatherhood was shaped and greatly improved by the Biblical tradition. It has great relevancy today, countering complacent, un-nuanced, democratic criticisms of the Bible's patriarchy and the fatherhood of God.
I read this book in part because my attention was drawn to it when reading Biblical Theological Foundations of the Family: The Domestic Church by Joseph C. Atkinson. I have reason to feel the fragility of the natural family and the threat to it on a personal level.
"…the intellectual climate of our western democracies may be more hostile to family values that is sometimes realized. 'Freedom' and 'equality' (the watchwords of our democratic culture) are not adequate categories for grasping what is going on or needed in the realm. While fathers and mothers are both parents, their 'titles' …are not equal, and a too great stress on personal freedom alone is obviously destructive of the very foundations upon which the two parent family is built.
I refer again to the elementary fact that fathers, biologically speaking, are marginal to the reproductive process…Since natures invests mothers with such power and preeminence in the human life-cycle, culture must intervene on behalf of fathers if they are to be equally (and significantly) involved…any civilization that fails to do something in this regard will inevitably witness the demise of the father-involved family and a drift toward families headed by mothers alone…" pg. 144.
You will not hear the above in the vapid, ideological cant that now rules the roost. The only active cultural intervention regarded as a need seems to be intervention against males as predators and bigots. Our culture sets men adrift and steals fathers from children in the name of the good, but in service to harm. It seems to me time to speak of democratic-liberal extremism, in terms of the worldview, not the party. There are now many ideological purists who are willing to subordinate all phenomenological apprehension to those watchwords 'freedom' and 'equality.' These are now often used to erase the good in the name of the good. Often it seems to me when you confront some of these purists with a view point counter to democratic liberalism, they will react as if they are being attacked and quickly resort to hurling all sorts of calumnies, analogies with Nazism and racist slavery. They feel very judged when a belief system they have come to be entirely molded by is not taken as a common assumption in the attempted conversation. To posit democratic liberalism as one paradigm among rivals is anathema, like the eruption of an alien from the bowels.
Points I especially learned from in this book: That the household of the gods of the myths surrounding the inception of the Biblical father god notably are marked by archetypal father gods whose relation to their children and their mothers are very weak or abusive and sexually chaotic. Yahweh as God who is Father is a distinct departure from these and contributes greatly to a paradigm of father-involvement in the family, an involvement that is active, bold and engaged. The effect is salient, and a blessing, but modern feminism tends only to view Biblical patriarchy as negative, demonic, and lurid.
The concluding words of the book are a choice example: "The story recorded in Genesis 22 (the story of Abraham's binding of Isaac) marks a turning point in the history of the father-involved family. Here at last is a father fully conscious that 'heaven' does not want his children abused in manner to which the cultures of antiquity had become accustomed. Through this story, for the first time in history so far as we know, the absolute power of fathers over their offspring was challenged and they were admonished in no uncertain terms not to harm their children- not to sacrifice them on the altar of their moral masochism. As such Genesis 22 may be regarded as a charter of children's rights, a gift from antiquity for every family on earth." pg. 159.
I can just see the shock of those who see only lurid inhumanity in the Isaac story at it being called "a charter of children's rights". That only confirms to me the importance of this book's insights. The complacent caricatures bolstering a lot of contemporary thinking about rivals to orthodox feminism and democratic liberalism, especially with regard to Biblical counter positions, needs to be challenged because a very dangerous and unhealthy hardening towards ideological purity is occurring in Western democratic liberalism.
Sunday, May 28, 2017
11:11 PM
This is an excellent, excellent little book about how fatherhood was shaped and greatly improved by the Biblical tradition. It has great relevancy today, countering complacent, un-nuanced, democratic criticisms of the Bible's patriarchy and the fatherhood of God.
I read this book in part because my attention was drawn to it when reading Biblical Theological Foundations of the Family: The Domestic Church by Joseph C. Atkinson. I have reason to feel the fragility of the natural family and the threat to it on a personal level.
"…the intellectual climate of our western democracies may be more hostile to family values that is sometimes realized. 'Freedom' and 'equality' (the watchwords of our democratic culture) are not adequate categories for grasping what is going on or needed in the realm. While fathers and mothers are both parents, their 'titles' …are not equal, and a too great stress on personal freedom alone is obviously destructive of the very foundations upon which the two parent family is built.
I refer again to the elementary fact that fathers, biologically speaking, are marginal to the reproductive process…Since natures invests mothers with such power and preeminence in the human life-cycle, culture must intervene on behalf of fathers if they are to be equally (and significantly) involved…any civilization that fails to do something in this regard will inevitably witness the demise of the father-involved family and a drift toward families headed by mothers alone…" pg. 144.
You will not hear the above in the vapid, ideological cant that now rules the roost. The only active cultural intervention regarded as a need seems to be intervention against males as predators and bigots. Our culture sets men adrift and steals fathers from children in the name of the good, but in service to harm. It seems to me time to speak of democratic-liberal extremism, in terms of the worldview, not the party. There are now many ideological purists who are willing to subordinate all phenomenological apprehension to those watchwords 'freedom' and 'equality.' These are now often used to erase the good in the name of the good. Often it seems to me when you confront some of these purists with a view point counter to democratic liberalism, they will react as if they are being attacked and quickly resort to hurling all sorts of calumnies, analogies with Nazism and racist slavery. They feel very judged when a belief system they have come to be entirely molded by is not taken as a common assumption in the attempted conversation. To posit democratic liberalism as one paradigm among rivals is anathema, like the eruption of an alien from the bowels.
Points I especially learned from in this book: That the household of the gods of the myths surrounding the inception of the Biblical father god notably are marked by archetypal father gods whose relation to their children and their mothers are very weak or abusive and sexually chaotic. Yahweh as God who is Father is a distinct departure from these and contributes greatly to a paradigm of father-involvement in the family, an involvement that is active, bold and engaged. The effect is salient, and a blessing, but modern feminism tends only to view Biblical patriarchy as negative, demonic, and lurid.
The concluding words of the book are a choice example: "The story recorded in Genesis 22 (the story of Abraham's binding of Isaac) marks a turning point in the history of the father-involved family. Here at last is a father fully conscious that 'heaven' does not want his children abused in manner to which the cultures of antiquity had become accustomed. Through this story, for the first time in history so far as we know, the absolute power of fathers over their offspring was challenged and they were admonished in no uncertain terms not to harm their children- not to sacrifice them on the altar of their moral masochism. As such Genesis 22 may be regarded as a charter of children's rights, a gift from antiquity for every family on earth." pg. 159.
I can just see the shock of those who see only lurid inhumanity in the Isaac story at it being called "a charter of children's rights". That only confirms to me the importance of this book's insights. The complacent caricatures bolstering a lot of contemporary thinking about rivals to orthodox feminism and democratic liberalism, especially with regard to Biblical counter positions, needs to be challenged because a very dangerous and unhealthy hardening towards ideological purity is occurring in Western democratic liberalism.
Displaying 1 of 1 review