What Are Fathers For?

 

1. Introduction

   What are fathers for? What is fatherhood for? These are questions of serious concern in our society of which many people have said "There is a crisis in family life." What does a Church which worships God as Father have to contribute?

   The questions about fathers are part of a wider questioning about what families are for, and perhaps even more generally what men are for? What is the role of men in contemporary society? With the recent statistics suggesting that 42.3 per cent of children are born out of wedlock, the question presses again whether fathers are needed, and what they are for. The Child Support Agency is in trouble, with millions of pounds owing to parents, mainly mothers, reflecting an increasing number of children growing up with non-resident fathers. Yet many separated and divorced fathers feel excluded from their children. Some research suggests that in about 4% of families, a man bringing up children may not be aware that he is not the biological father - so that numbers of men wanting paternity tests begins to rise.

   In August 2005 Michael Buerk made the news with a Channel 5 TV programme in the series 'Don't get me started' exploring what he called the uncertain role of men in a post-feminist society. As Melanie Phillips put it when Michael Buerk interviewed her for his programme: "Men are now seen as useful for sperm donors, walking wallets and an occasional au pair." As he put it in an interview with Sarah Montague on the Today programme "Women increasingly set the agenda in business, in politics, in the media, in society at large... women's values are now considered superior to men's values." Men are being marginalised, he argued, and the really serious nub of the argument concerns the family. Buerk further commented "I think that in an ideal world, children need a male reference point in their lives as well as a female reference point." With more and more women - and mothers - moving into the more traditional male roles of leadership, what are fathers for? The Channel 5 programme featured a single mother who had three children by three different fathers, none of whom were still around, and who argued that this was, for her, an ideal arrangement. She could get pregnant when she wanted, but didn't have need for men thereafter. So, argued Michael Buerk, men are losing their sense of identity, and society - and especially families - are losers as well.

   All this is but one illustration of the massive cultural changes which have been taking place in the Western world over the past few decades. And things have changed a lot in the last 50 years.

   Fifty years ago, Margaret Mead in her classic study Male and Female wrote "When we survey all known human societies, we find everywhere some form of the family, some set of permanent arrangements by which males assist females in caring for children while they are young." She goes on to suggest that frequently, once males in other species have been involved in reproduction, there is not much more for them to do. However, there is what she calls a distinctively human aspect seen in the nurturing behaviour of the human male, who - we are talking of 50 years ago - "everywhere helps provide food for women and children." Margaret Mead then comments on "how much of an invention this behaviour of human males is." Human fatherhood, as she put it is 'a social invention'.[1] We will need to look at this a bit more later.

   Since then, what has been described as "the trend towards fatherlessness"[2] has significantly increased, followed on the other hand by a growing interest among social scientists on the importance of fathering, and the role of the father in child development.[3]

   It is interesting how the concept of 'fatherlessness' resonates. After World War II, one of the great preachers to emerge from the air-raid shelters in Hamburg was Helmut Thielicke. In his series of sermons on The Lord's Prayer[4] he includes this expressive paragraph:

   "Man is walking through the dark forest of life in the gloom of night. Spectres are lurking all around him and strange sounds disquiet him. The dark forest is full of dangers. Modern man calls this weird sense of threat and danger the anxiety of life, the fear of life itself. He would give a lot if there were someone to go along with him, someone who would put his hand on his shoulder and say to him, "Don't worry, I am with you. I know the pitfalls, I know the dangerous cliffs, I know where the robbers lie in ambush, I'll get you safely through. As long as I am with you nothing can hurt you." He would give a lot if this were so... What if he were religious? what if he really did feel an urgent need to lift up his voice in the dark forest and cry out for his Father? But what if he were honest and sober and realistic enough to say that even so there is no Father in the dark forest of life, and therefore he must simply be brave enough to suppress this deep yearning of his heart to have a Father and to know that he was safe in his hands?"

   Thielicke goes on to argue that we can only cry "Our Father" because Jesus Christ has shown us the Father, and so teaches us to pray... "Only in him can we ever know the secret that the Father's voice is really and truly calling our name in the dark forest, and that we can answer as beloved children: "Abba Father!"'

   In an article in The Church Times[5], Elaine Storkey commented on the growth of the number of men seeking paternity tests, and that these seem like an assault on the vital relationship between men and their children, and a further weakening of the confidence of fathers. Knowing who are our parents gives us a sense of security. It provides us with a basis for understanding ourselves and knowing our location in history and in relationships. Identity, she says, lies at the heart of the Christian faith conveyed to us by Christ in his invitation to call God 'Father'. "If God is our father, then we are God's children, and bear God's image. We have right of access to parental care; we can walk with confidence because we are loved." She talks about a dual task for the Church: "One is to develop a better and more accessible theology of parenthood..." I want to take some time to explore that in much more detail tomorrow morning, arguing that what we understand about the fatherhood of God gives us a model of understanding what human fathers are and what we are for. Elaine Storkey's second task for the Church is to recognise the pain of families going through crisis and to be more on hand to offer the pastoral love and care required. These needs are becoming urgent. Fathers especially may well need to hear more from us in the days ahead."

2. Factors in the contemporary crisis

   One of the important features of our human fatherhood, in comparison with motherhood, comes from our biology. Having provided the sperm for conception, there is no biological reason for the male to have anything more to do with the child. Males are thereafter fairly marginal, biologically speaking, to the reproductive process. Therefore as John Miller puts it[6], "fathering is a cultural acquisition to an extent that mothering is not." In other words, the importance of fathering is about much more than biology - it is about psychological needs and cultural values. For there to be 'fatherhood' those needs and those values have to be acknowledged. Where the needs are no longer present, or are diminished - such as when women take over traditional male roles - or when the values are no longer upheld - such as when society places excessive emphasis on individualism, or on sexual freedom - then the question presses: what is fatherhood for?

   The modern sense of 'fatherlessness', or what is more widely called the crisis in the family, is discussed in Don Browning's influential book From Culture Wars to Common Ground[7]. There he gives four social science explanations for this crisis. First, the increase in individualism, which is part of the shift from the extended family to the Western nuclear family model. When individualism is taken to excess, it undermines family life. Second, Browning refers to changing economic patterns, particularly the way in which what he calls 'technical rationality' takes over and scientific controls get applied to the family life. I suppose the most obvious is the way individual members of the family often each have their own television set and though living under the same roof are watching different programmes and do not relate to each other. Thirdly, there are some psychological causes, such as poor socialisation. We often have much higher expectations on the quality of relationships than earlier generations would have had the energy to worry about, and this can put strains on interpersonal relating.

   Browning's fourth explanation is patriarchy, which is still visble, even though it is declining. This theme is given particular emphasis by feminist commentators. And the ambiguous nature of a diminishing patriarchy leads to the lack of clarity of which Michael Buerk was complaining when he said women do not trust men; men do not trust themselves; the result is indecision, confusion, ambivalence and discontent.

   I want to add three other factors which have contributed to the contemporary family crisis in the West. First is the post-Freud world in which, on the one hand, all relationships are sexualised which has been both liberating and confusing, and in which on the other hand there has been the growth of therapeutic understandings of development which have majored on mothering but hardly mentioned fathering. Second, the ready availability of contraception, and more recently IVF, which has disconnected the procreative from the unitive dimensions of sexual relationships, and opened up the freedom of recreative sex without the demands of pregnancy and family commitments. Third, the changing status of women in Western society.

   How does this crisis show itself? It is seen in such issues as the growing divorce statistics, in the rise in out-of-wedlock births and in single parenthood; in the way the absent father is linked to the move of women into the wage market, in the changes in work- life balance leaving less time for the children. To quote Miller again,

   "Where a culture ceases to support, through its mores, symbols, models, laws and rituals, the sanctity of the sexual bond between a man and his wife and a father's involvement with his own children, powerful natural forces will inevitably take over in favour of the mother-alone family; the fragility of the sexual bond (and the investment of fathers with children) will give way to the strength of the primary bond between mother and child."[8]

   An increasing number of social commentators, especially in USA, are concerned about this 'trend towards fatherlessness.' Books with titles like 'Fatherless America' argue that the implications for social health, especially of children, of this trend are only now being recognised, and there is much that is destructive. A major social science study The Role of the Father in Child Development edited by Michael Lamb (Wiley 2004) documents the significance of the father role, and the implications for child development if that role is not filled.

   From a historical perspective, it is arguable that one significant factor in the development of the role of the father in the family came from the Judaeo-Christian culture of what we call the Old Testament, even more in fact than the New Testament. I believe this is the psychological and cultural basis of what is now being called the "father-involved family". It will be instructive, therefore in a short while to explore the development of the concept of "father" in ancient Israel, particularly in comparison with the contemporary cultures around, and then also in the New Testament, and then see how the concept developed in the Christian tradition.

3. The Father Heart of God

   First, a reminder of Helmut Thielicke's sermon. He says that we can only cry "Our Father" because Jesus Christ has shown us the Father, and so teaches us to pray... "Only in him can we ever know the secret that the Father's voice is really and truly calling our name in the dark forest, and that we can answer as beloved children: "Abba Father!"' Our Christian faith begins with God the creator of all, and it is that almighty Creator God who is disclosed to us in Jesus Christ as a loving Father. In the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, God's gift of love, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, is God's gift of renewal and recreation of all things. So when Jesus shows us God the Father, we are not talking of detached authority, but of personal relationships and personal presence. As we shall see, it is the quality of Jesus relationship with the One he calls 'Father' that gives us some way into the question of what a Christian view of fatherhood should be. Throughout all our discussions this weekend, it is important that whatever we think the Church should be doing in supporting fathers and promoting fatherhood is rooted in this experience of God as a Holy Trinity of persons in relationships of love. It is that which holds on to us in family life, enabling us to learn to express something of God's loving fatherhood in our human experience. It is that which holds on to us in what Thielicke calls the 'dark forest' of human breakdown, of separation, of the pain of family fracture. In all the anxiety of life it is still possible to know the love of God the Father. Indeed, I would like to quote the end of another of Thielicke's sermons, this time, on the Prodigal Son - which Thielicke calls the parable of The Waiting Father[9]. God is waiting, looking, loving, forgiving, celebrating, making things whole again. Thielicke ends it with these words:

   "Jesus, who tells this parable, is pointing to himself, between the lines and back of every word. If this were just anyone telling us the story of the good and kindly Father, we could only laugh. We could only say "How do you know?"... But this is not anybody. This is Jesus Christ himself who is speaking. Does he not eat with sinners? Does he not seek out the lost? Is he not with us when we die and leave all others behind? Is he not the light that shines in the darkness? Is he not the very voice of the Father's heart that overtakes us in the far country and tells us that incredibly joyful news, "You can come home. Come home!" The ultimate theme of this story, therefore, is not the prodigal son, but the Father who finds us... The ultimate secret of this story is this: There is a homecoming for us all because there is a home."

   In that faith, let us now turn back to our Scriptures, and to what the Old and New Testaments say about fatherhood.

4. "Fatherhood" in the Bible

   (a) The Old Testament

   In the Old Testament, there are many references to human fatherhood, and a few to God as Father. It is worth exploring this for a moment.

   In ancient Israel, the family consisted of all those united by common blood and common dwelling place. Jacob's family comprised three generations (Gen 46:8-26)[10]. From the time of our oldest documents, the family was patriarchal - "the house of one's father" (Hebrew: beth ab). This contrasts with the contemporary ancient near Eastern cultures. The Enuma Elis, the Babylonian creation story, tells of strong mother gods, strong sons and weak father gods. In the Canaanite Baal myths, the goddess has a strong place in the drama, and again the son, but much less so the father-god. In the Egyptian stories of Isis (mother god) and Osiris (father god), it is the actions of the mother which safeguards the world, and rescues and empowers the father god[11]. By contrast, in ancient Israel, Yahweh, the covenant God and sovereign lord of all, is a divine father. John Miller argues that it is from this that the Israelite emphasis on the importance of fatherhood derives in all later Judaeo-Christian civilisation. In comparison with the divine father gods in other ancient myths, the picture of Yahweh in Israel stands out. Israelite patriarchy is not simply copying the stories being told in the other cultures around - it is doing something new and distinctive. It is reflecting the faith that God can be known as Father. It is this fact which lies behind the importance of fathering in Western culture.

   I say that Yahweh is described as 'father' and that is correct, but in fact even in the Old Testament it is still a relatively minor theme.

   There are, of course, numerous references to human fatherhood in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew word translated 'father' [ab] meaning also 'ancestor' or 'source' or even 'inventor'[12]. The narrator in the second creation story says 'for this reason a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.' (Genesis 2:24) Abraham is the father of many nations (Genesis 17:24). At the Exodus, God says 'I am God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.' (Exodos 3:6). The Ten Commandments require God's people to 'Honour your father and mother' (Exodus 20:12). King David blesses God 'O lord the God of Israel, our father...' (1 Chronicles 29:10). Nehemiah acknowledges that 'I and my father's house have sinned.' (Nehemiah 1:6).

   But what of references to God as Father? Very occasionally in the Old Testament God is compared with an earthy father, in his compassion, discipline and protection.

   As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. (Psalm 103:13)

   The Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. (Proverbs 3:12; cf Deuteronomy 8:5)

   In the wilderness...you have seen how the Lord your God bore you, as a man bears his son. (Deuteronomy 1:31; 8:5)

   Slightly more frequently (15 times out of about 1200) the word "Father" is used to describe God in his relationship with the people of Israel, or in his relationship with the King. 'Is not he your father, who created you?' (Deuteronomy 32:6). In comparison with Israel's neighbours, God as Father of Israel is less thought of in terms of biology, but more in terms of salvation. God is a father who cares for and rescues his people. To be a child of God is a miracle of God's grace Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 14:1f; Hosea 11:1. For an individual believer to see God as his father is because he is one of God's people. A God who scatters enemies, drives away the wicked, rides upon the clouds is also "Father of the fatherless and protector of the widows.... God in his holy habitation. God gives the desolate a home" (Psalm 68:5-6 in context of vv1-4).

   In much later Judaism, the understanding of God as Father became more widespread, and also at that time another word became more common - the word abba. In some of the prayers of the rabbis, God is addressed as abba, best translated as "dear Father".

   So the picture is developing in which fatherhood, derived from the understanding of God as father, means authority, protective care, compassionate covenant love.

   It is important before we move on also to note the ways in which God is also described in the Old Testament in motherly terms. Just as both male and female are said to bear the image of God, (Genesis 1:27), so in the nature of God there are motherly as well as fatherly attributes. Moltmann uses the phrase "Motherly Fatherhood", and we can give substance to this by recalling the Psalmist's pictures of God as a mother bird (Psalm 17:8); a mid-wfe (22:9), a mistress as well as a master (123:2). Deutero-Isaiah pictures God weaning the infant (Isaiah 49:15): "Can a women forget her sucking child...? I will not forget you." Isaiah 66:13 reads: "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you." Hosea depicts God with a tenderness usually associated with motherhood "Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk" (Hosea 11:3). The male begetting and the female bringing to birth are both pictures used of God in Deuteronomy 32:18: "You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth."[13]

   (b) The New Testament

   In the New Testament, there are many more references to God as Father, especially in Jesus' reference to God as his Father, and to God as Father of Jesus' disciples.

   There are 151 times when the Greek word pater refers to human fathers, and 265 times when it refers to God the Father. Significantly most of these come from the lips of Jesus as recorded in all the Gospels, especially John. Jesus did not seem to call God the Father of Israel, but rather his own Father and the Father of his disciples. He said to Mary Magdalene in the Garden on Easter Morning: "Go to my brethren and say to them 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God' (John 20:17).

   The Sermon on the Mount has a number of references to God the Father. Jesus in the Gospels speaks of God as 'my Father' and 'your heavenly Father'. Significantly, most of the references to the Fatherhood of God refer to the disciples - to the Christian Church - not to human beings in general. This seems to imply that people discover the Fatherhood of God through their relationship to Jesus Christ his Son. To quote Helmut Thielicke one more time: "Only on one condition could we say "Our Father". And that would be if the Father had first spoken to us, if he had revealed himself to us...this is the tremendous importance that is to be attributed to the fact that it is Jesus Christ himself who teaches us the Lord's Prayer... He alone, in his life and his death, is the guarantor that there is a Father, that God is nevertheless at work in the cruel, hard and fatherless world, building his kingdom of mercy in the secrecy of the Cross.'[14]

   There are three places in the New Testament when the writers pick up the intimacy of relationship with God the Father expressed in the word "Abba", dear Father. The first is Jesus himself in the Garden of Gethsemane:

   'And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.' (Mark 14:36)

   The second is Paul's letter to the Romans where he is talking about the Holy Spirit aiding our prayers:

   'When we cry "Abba, Father" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.' (Romans 8:15)

   And similarly in Galatians:

   'Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" (Galatians 4:6)

   So we are taken into the intimacy of the relationship of Jesus with his Father, a relationship which we, his disciples, are privileged to share, as we are united with the life of Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and so adopted as children into the family of God.

   Matthew's Gospel ends with the commission to baptise disciples 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' (Matthew 28:19). St Paul begins some of his letters; 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2 etc) It is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity - God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which is at the heart of the Christian meaning of fatherhood - and Christian discipleship is living as adopted sons and daughters in the Father's family.

   The concept of family thus takes centre stage also when we are trying to discover a meaning for fatherhood. As the Letter to the Ephesians graphically puts it:

   'I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.' (Ephesians 3:14).

   This text from Ephesians, though rooted in the love of God which is seen manifest in Jesus Christ, also has a more universal reference than just the Christian church: 'every family in heaven and on earth'.[15]

   So if we are going to give a Christian answer to the question "What is fatherhood for?" we need to think more about God the Holy Trinity, and what that means for understanding family, and we will do that shortly.

   The New Testament also gives us some instruction for human fathers in relation to their children, and children their fathers. Ephesians 6:2 picks up the commandment to "Honour your father and mother" , and goes on to say to fathers: "do not provoke your children to anger." (v4; cf Colossians 3:21). In 1 Thessalonians 2:11 Paul reminds his readers how, "like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God." And in 1 Timothy 5:1: "Rebuke not an elder, but exhort him as you would a father." The writer to the Hebrews makes reference to "earthly fathers to discipline us" (Hebrews 12:9), and St John writes to the fathers, as well as to children and to young men (1 John 2:12f).

   As in the Old Testament, so in the New, fathering is depicted as including care, protection, encouragement, teaching, and authority.

   Let us now pause to sketch out how the concept of fatherhood has changed and developed during the course of Christian history.

5. The changing faces of fatherhood

   In the developing history of the Christian church and of Western civilisation, the ideal of the good father goes back a long way. But over time, the face of fatherhood has changed. Elizabeth Pleck has helpfully explored the various faces of fatherhood in more recent times, especially in post-colonial America, though much also applies to the whole Western world[16]. St Augustine paints a picture of orderly family life in which everyone has their proper place. St Thomas Aquinas writes of the place of families within society ("the family is part of the political community")[17]. At the time of the Protestant Reformation the father was a moral guide, and the nuclear family was both a religious and an economic unit. The good Protestant father was expected to teach his children the catechism and lead the family prayers. So Luther saw the family as the starting point for all social development. The Puritans of the seventeenth century saw marriage and family life as a calling: 'the domestic calling of the husband and father, and the entire calling of the wife and mother.[18]' They believed that humane family life, in which Christian love and joy would find full and free expression, could not be achieved until the ordered pattern of a structured routine and discipline had been firmly established.

   In the 17th century, George Herbert gives us a little insight into the "Parson in his House" in chapter 10 of The Country Parson. He tells us that the father first makes his children Christians, then 'Commonwealth's men'. He seasons them with piety, prayers, reading. He visits children who are sick, tends their wounds, sends charity to the poor. He helps them with their future professions and trades, and even helps them sort our their money. "Good deeds and good breeding are his two great stocks for his children."

   In the 18th century, white fathers were viewed primarily as moral teachers[19]. Fathers were responsible for ensuring that their children grew up with an appropriate sense of values. At the time of industrialisation in Western societies, the focus shifted from moral leadership to breadwinning and economic support of the family.

   Pleck argues that the good father in the 19th century was usually seen as a 'disciplinarian, a protector, a shadowy figure and a dutiful or inadequate provider.[20]' Working class fathers tended to spend after-work hours with other men in the saloon, rather than playing with the children. As society became more secular in the late 19th century, the religious support for paternal involvement in family life began to diminish. Social scientists instead began to argue that fatherhood was 'proof of male virility.'[21] Pleck quotes Frank as saying "this biological celebration of paternity had little to say about the tasks of fatherhood, but its logic was to reinvest the parental role with masculine meaning.' Father involvement, with masculine toughness, was needed to toughen up the son. Fathers were needed, says Pleck, because mothers had too much power and father needed to gain some back.

   In the early 20th century the trend went the other way: men were called on to cook, to share housework, to be present at childbirth. Men were expected to spend more time with their children, to prevent sons from falling into evil ways. 'By the 1920s the rationale for father involvement was a complex mixture of companionship and an antidote to maternal overprotection.'[22] The term 'daddy' was invented in the 1920s. However, in the 1930s and 1940s 'real men' were needed in wartime, taking them away from the family, leading to over-compensation and an exaggerated masculinity in the post war world. Pleck quotes Griswold who explained that post war experts called on fathers to become involved with their children in order to offset 'the new dangers of the age, authoritarianism, juvenile delinquency, schizophrenia and homosexuality.' Then the 'hypermasculinity' of the 1950s was replaced through feminist pressure in the 1970s, and coming to its highest effect in the 1990s, by fathers who participate equally in childrearing, as part of an equal relationship between husband and wife. The new father, the 'co-parent father' had arrived who played an active role in his children's lives. From the 1980s, social science was talking about the concept of 'father-involvement'.

   Lamb argues that social theorists now "recognise that fathers play a number of significant roles - companions, care providers, spouses, protectors, models, moral guides, teachers, breadwinners (elsewhere he rightly adds 'playmate') - whose relative importance varies across historical epochs and sub-cultural groups."[23]

6. Christian Perspectives on Fatherhood

   (a) The Meaning of 'family'

   Let us now return to Christian theological reflection on the meaning of fatherhood.

   Don Browning says: "Evolutionary psychology tells us why both biological parents and members of the extended family are so important to a child's well-being."[24] He argues that 'kin altruism' (what the Bible means by family love - storge) is foundational in all love. It is kin who are most likely to contribute to the flourishing and defence of children - crucially father and mother, but not these only: siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles are the context in which children grow up and significantly influence their lives for good or ill. Family is rooted in the way things are. From a biblical perspective, family relationships are intended to reflect something of the way God is. That is part of the meaning of covenant. God in his covenant love holds his covenant partner through love, faithfulness, forgiveness, grace, patience. And according to the holiness codes of the Old Testament, the human covenants which we make with each other, especially husband to wife, and parent to child, are meant to reflect something of God's way of relating.

   That is another way of saying what we have noted before, that the heart of God the Holy Trinity is Persons in relationships of love - and that our human families are intended to be reflections of the way God is. In our thinking about fatherhood, I wish to reflect first on the intimacy we see in Jesus' relationship to his heavenly Father. It is especially seen in the prayer recorded in John 17. It is seen in his calling God 'abba' (Mark 14:36). It is such fatherly love and personal intimacy which can be experienced within the Christian community as the Holy Spirit enables us to call God 'abba' (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6) - that community who with all the saints comprehend something of the length and height and depth of the love of God made known in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:17f). The Holy Trinity is thus our starting point for a theology of family. Family is not merely a social arrangement, a conventional institution. Family is a way of being in this world, a way of being which is essentially communal and personal because that is the way God the Holy Trinity is. The central focus of the Bible's view of family is not on the institution, but on the personal relationships within it, of child to parent, of husband to wife, of all to God.

   Family is thus meant to be a dynamic social unit which derives its meaning from and in turn reflects something of God. Fatherhood belongs within that micro-society, its importance not being so much about 'masculinity' as about being part of such a dynamic social unit with complementary gifts to offer. Fathering is about helping children to become social beings, and in providing a bridge from the family to the wider society. In that the value of a warm parental partnership has been shown to be more significant than the gender of a parent.[25] The covenant qualities of faithfulness, love, forgiveness, patience and steadfastness are part of what makes a family reflect something of God.

   (b) Jesus relation to his father can illuminate the nature of parenthood.

   There are three features in particular of Jesus' relation to his Father which I would like to underline as a pointers to the nature and meaning of fatherhood.

   1. Authority for freedomThe first feature of Jesus relation to his Father is a recognition of authority, but the sort of authority which enables freedom. Jesus refers, for example to 'the will of my Father', as the decisive direction for what is good. The authority of the divine Father relativises human parental authority ("call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father who is in heaven" Matthew 23:9). But the authority of the divine Father gives a pattern for the authority of human parents, who according to the Letter to the Ephesians are to bring up their children in such training and admonition as Christ himself would give. (Ephesians 6:4). Parental authority is for the wellbeing of the children. This is the pattern in the Fourth Gospel. In John 7:17 we are told "if any man's will is to do his will he shall know whether the teaching if from God" . That teaching is 'from the Father' (8:28) and its purpose is our freedom: 'the truth will make you free.' The authority of the truth of God is an authority exercised for the sake of our freedom. The goal of parental authority in the human family must be freedom. Parents' authority aims at releasing the child from their authority.

      It is all too easy - and it is there in Christian teaching - to let authority fall into authoritarianism which is not liberating but controlling. The philosopher John Locke found it necessary to offer a theory of parenthood which undermined the way fatherly authority was being used to bolster 'the divine right of kings'. Locke suggests instead that fathers are there as trustees to ensure that by the use of their authority a child's natural wilfulness will be replaced by the exercise of reason.

      A Note on Headship

      It is perhaps worth an aside at this point to reflect on the concept of male headship, as understood by some Christians. There are those who use the New Testament texts about 'headship' to speak about male authority and female obedience in a way which is often simply a reflection of patriarchal authoritarianism. My starting point is the recognition by St Paul that in Christ there is no distinction of status between male and female, slave or free (Galatians 3:28), and that the teaching about Jesus Christ being the head of the church, his body, leads directly to the statement "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). There is therefore a complementarity, a mutuality and an equality between men and women, both alike bearing God's image, and sharing the joys and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood. Some of the difficulties for interpreters come in the statements about the leadership role of women in the church, the thorniest of which is 1 Timothy 2:12 in which the NIV reads "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. She must be silent." But that is not a good translation. "Have authority over" is an unusual word with a nasty meaning - that strong sense of authority which overbears, bosses, dominates, suppresses and crushes. The text does not say that an appropriate form of authority - that of the servant Lord - cannot be exercised by women as much as by men. So St Paul is forbidding the sort of teaching which is expressed through bossiness - and that must be true for men as for women. He does not tell them to be silent, either, but to be quiet. Perhaps that they should be educated and learn before they accept a teaching role. But I do not think 1 Timothy 2:12 can be used to justify a view of headship which rules out women just as much as men exercising a ministry of servant leadership and of quiet and reflective teaching within the life of the Church. I believe with Don Browning that in male-female relationships we need to talk not of headship but of equal-regard.

   2. Protection for GrowthA second feature of the Fatherhood of God which helps us understand the meaning of human fatherhood is the way God the Father cares for and provides for his children so that they need not be anxious. (Matthew 6:25). Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father knowing (10:29). The birds of the air are fed (6:26), and your heavenly Father knows your needs also (6:8,32). He can be asked for daily bread (6.11), for forgiveness (6:12,14), for direction and for deliverance from evil (6:13). He, much more than earthly fathers, gives good things to those who ask (7:11). It is not the Father's will that any little ones should perish (18:14). The Father offers a place of security and unconditional welcoming love, even to the prodigal (Luke 15:11f).

      Taking this picture as our guide, together with Paul's injunction that fathers should not provoke their children, we can see that parenting involves providing a context of security which does not smother, but is sufficient for personal growth free from anxiety.

   3. Revelation for UnderstandingA third aspect of God's Fatherhood is Revelation for Understanding, as the very title of the Son as 'Logos' (meaning 'reason' or 'understanding') implies. Part of the meaning of God's Fatherhood is to reveal truth to and through the Son. Just as in the Old Testament, the family was the primary locus of education in matters concerning God (Deuteronomy 6:1-8), so in the New Testament, the Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known (John 1:18) - and parents are to instruct their children in 'the fear and nurture of the Lord.' (Ephesians 6:4). As Eric Berne once noted, a parent has done well if the child, on reaching maturity, can say "my parents told me the truth about the world… I have found out that they were right." Parenting involves a teaching function of enabling children discover the truth about the world and about themselves in a way which leads to an independent understanding.

      In summary, then, the exercise of authority must lead to free-decision making as an adult; the provision of security and protection must lead to the growth of an individual who can think and act independently of its parents; the conveying of truth must lead to an independent understanding and and the ability to make responsible choices for one's self.

      There are doubtless many other features of Jesus' relationship to his Father on which we could draw, but these three seem to me to go to the heart of the task of parenting in the contemporary world. They are all essentially features of that covenanted relationship of love and faithful commitment which God the Father shows to his people, and which are to be reflected in the relationships of human families.

7. Conclusion

   Christian theology rightly roots understanding of family in the concept of God the Holy Trinity, making interpersonal relationships fundamental for human welfare. The importance for children of having mother and father is therefore not just about male and female role models, but about the family as a micro-society in which children can discover their freedom, be enabled to grow, and develop in understanding, and in which interpersonal skills may be learned and practised. The current 'trend towards fatherlessness', cuts at the heart of this Christian conviction that family is important because it reflects something of God. Parenting is therefore something to do with nurturing, and something to do with enabling the child find a bridge to the wider society in which they will live. Whereas through the intimacy of the womb and the provision of breast milk, mothers are naturally fitted for nurturing, the role of the father is less biologically given and is more socially defined. Both parents, of course, can act as a bridge to the wider society, but this is more frequently a fatherly role, and is a crucial aspect of co-parenting if the micro-society of the family is to function healthily in the wider world.

   Fatherhood is a relational word, rooted in the language of God's covenant. It is an authority word which is liberating, a protecting word which is nourishing, an educational word which is about enabling responsibility. Fathers are needed with mothers to provide the social context in which these skills can be learned.

   The Church needs to take more seriously its theology of fatherhood. But it also needs, as Elaine Storkey said, 'to recognise the pain of families going through crisis, and to be more on hand to offer the pastoral love and care required.' At its best, the fatherly role reflects the God who is the Waiting Father of the Prodigal Son, waiting, looking, loving, forgiving, celebrating, making things whole again. And as we said earlier, the ultimate secret of that wonderful parable with its unique insight into the Father heart of God is this: "There is a homecoming for us all because there is a home."

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The Rt Revd David Atkinson is Bishop of Thetford in the Diocese of Norwich

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End Notes

The notes in the text are hyperlinked into the end notes; to return to the text, click on the end note number

[1] Margaret Mead Male and Female, Penguin Books 1950 p181

[2] John Miller Calling God Father, Paulist Press 1999 p xvii

[3] For example Michael E Lamb ed The Role of the Father in Child Development 4th Edition, Wiley 2004

[4] H Thieliecke The Prayer That Spans the World, 1960 ET James Clark 1965

[5] Church Times 19 August 2005

[6] John Miller Calling God Father, Paulist Press 1999 p11

[7] D Browning ed From Culture Wars to Common Ground, Westminster John Knox Press 1997

[8] p17

[9] H Thielicke The Waiting Father: Sermons on the parables of Jesus James Clarke 1960

[10] R De Vaux Ancient Israel Darton Longman and Todd 1961 p20

[11] See Miller op cit pp36ff

[12] Young's Analytical Concordance

[13] This paragraph taken from D Atkinson and D Brown chapter on "The Future of the Family" in C Baxter ed Stepping Stones Hodder and Stoughton 1987

[14] H Thielicke The Prayer that Spans the World: Sermons on the Lord's Prayer, James Clarke.

[15] This is one of just three places where the New Testament seems to picture a more 'universal' fatherhood of God. The writer to the Hebrews refers to God as the 'Father of our spirits' (Hebrews 12:9) - that is our spirits as well as our bodies; and James calls the him the 'Father of lights' (James 1:17), a reference perhaps to the Creator of the stars.

[16] Elizabeth Pleck "Two Dimensions of Fatherhood" in Michael E Lamb ed The Role of the Father in Child Development.

[17] Cf the chapter on Cultural Context in the Church of England Report on the family: Something to Celebrate 1995.

[18] J I Packer A Quest for Godliness, Hodder 1990 chapter 6

[19] Lamb introduction p3f

[20] Pleck op cit p38

[21] Ibid p39

[22] Ibid p39

[23] Lamb op cit p3f. See also John Gillis "Marginalization of fatherhood in Western countries", Childhood, vol 7, no 2 (2000): 225-238; and H W Montefiore "God as Father in the Synoptic Gospels" NTS 3 1956-57, 31ff.

[24] Browning Culture Wars p109

[25] Lamb op cit p10