Sunday is Fathers’ Day and what a blessing it was for me to have had a godly father and to be a father myself. And now a grandfather nine times over, soon to be ten! Fathers are another of God’s good creations that help us understand, appreciate, and love our heavenly Father.
Sadly, while America has led the world in many desirable areas such as personal liberties, food production, standard of living, and emerging technology, we also now lead the world in fatherlessness. According to the US Census Bureau, over 18 million children grow up in America without their dads. This under-the-radar statistic is impacting our nation as a whole, but more tragically, each individual child in profound ways.
The presence of a father in a child’s life is correlated with many positive benefits including better grades, reduced crime, lower drug use, and much less risk of poverty. Teen girls with fathers are seven times less likely to become pregnant and both boys and girls are much less likely to be abused.
There’s another aspect of this as well that has recently been outlined in Paul Vitz’s book, Faith of the Fatherless. Although the idea that a person’s father, or lack thereof, strongly influences his or her concept of God is not new, Vitz has studied it in depth and established the clear link between the two. He documents on a case by case basis how many famous atheists lacked any meaningful relationship with their dads. From Voltaire to Nietzsche to Camus to Hume, the absence of a father was a common, and seemingly contributing, factor to their aggressive atheism.
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, said that his father, while present, was a sexual pervert. Is it any wonder that Freud subsequently tied every aspect of human thought and behavior to sexuality and developed the concept of the Oedipus Complex where young boys want to eliminate their dads. Sadly, much of our present psychiatry has been shaped by Freud’s perverted ideas.
Vitz also shares the backgrounds of more modern atheists such as Christopher Hitchens, Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Richard Dawkins and once again absentee or seriously defective father figures negatively impacted each of their faiths. Vitz summarizes, “Looking back at our 13 historical rejecters of a personal God, we find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case…In no case do we find a strong, beloved father with a close relationship with his son or daughter.”
Political leaders Stalin, Hitler and Mao Zedong who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of human beings were all brutally beaten by their fathers. Is it any wonder that these “fathers of rebellion and death” began to engender rebellion in their own hearts at early ages against their abusive fathers.
Refreshingly, the author goes on to provide several examples from the other end of the fatherhood spectrum. Great Christian thinkers, authors, and leaders such as Edmund Burke, Blaise Pascal, William Wilberforce, Alexis de Tocqueville, G. K. Chesterton, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer all benefited from good and godly fathers. While none of them nor their fathers were perfect, Vitz clearly identifies vast differences between believers and non-believers based on their dads.
In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us to pray to God as “our Father who art in heaven.” He emphasized this father/child relationship throughout His teachings. And while those who have had negative earthly fatherhood examples, or none at all, this should never negate the truths Jesus taught. If anything, it should help to correct all of our warped concepts of fatherhood since none of us had, or are, perfect fathers. I’m so thankful that God is!
As we celebrate Father’s Day this Sunday, let’s recognize the extreme value and important role of fathers and may those of us who are dads model God’s attributes in all our daily living. Happy Father’s Day, George