FamilyLife Culture Watch

Father's Day and Forgiveness

It comes around every third Sunday in June. A day is set aside to honor our earthly fathers and the contributions they have made to our lives. It's a day where we bring ourselves to say the deep, heartfelt things that we often think but rarely utter: appreciation for the sacrifices, strength, and guidance dad has provided.

For many, though, Father's Day is painful. They have grown up in a home where dad was abusive or distant, if he was even there. How do you bring yourself to honor one who seems so dishonorable?

One common choice is to hold on to bitterness. William Ireland was only six when his father, Ken, left the family for another woman. Young William spent his childhood years longing for his father, who had completely disappeared from the scene. A few years before his father's death, William found him and re-established contact. Then, despite the new relationship, the father left the entire estate to the other woman and her son.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, William Ireland has his father's ashes (after all, he paid for the funeral). The other woman and her son wanted to turn the ashes into a diamond. Instead, William is repaying his father by selling the ashes to the highest bidder on Ebay.

Another choice is to seek reconciliation. Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project features several short films about acting responsibly in life. One particular video caught my eye (and left a tear in it as well). A young mother with a past similar to William's is forced to come to terms with the years of hurt and bitterness caused by her father's abandonment of the family. It's well worth the watch. Enjoy.

 

Is it possible to honor a parent who has betrayed you? Yes, but it requires forgiveness that's above your ability to extend. It requires you to know the perfect Heavenly Father, who, even when we have shown hostility to him, reaches out to us.

But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

FamilyLife has resources to help you to honor your father or mother, including a free download to help you craft a personal tribute. For those who have been blessed with good parents, writing a tribute is a way to show the overwhelming gratitude you feel but don't always show. For those who have been betrayed, writing a tribute can be an opportunity to work through hurt and bitterness and to reach out, not in anger, but with the love of the Heavenly Father.

The Family Manifesto

In 1992, FamilyLife created a document to address the critical issues regarding marriage and family in today's world with guidelines from it's Creator. As I read it afresh today, it is as fresh and relevant as it was when it was created 17 years ago.

Following is the Preface. To read specifics on marriage, husbands and wives, childlessness, the sexual union, and commitment read The Family Manifesto on the FamilyLife website.

During the latter half of the twentieth century the American culture has suffered an unrelenting decline. Although scientific and technological advances have created an outer veneer of prosperity and progress, our inner moral values and convictions have rapidly crumbled. Once, most Americans based their sense of right and wrong on Judeo-Christian principles, which provided them with a solid, biblical foundation for life. Today, a growing number of Americans see morality and ethics as relative and subjective and have developed their own version of "morality" with little regard to absolute standards.

This idea of moral tolerance has been eroding the foundation of the American family and society. Many Americans today have little or no concept of how to maintain a successful marriage and how to raise children to become responsible adults. In addition, a growing number of educators, politicians, and members of the media are attacking and redefining the family, creating a vast amount of confusion about what a family is. Many people today proclaim that "family values" are important, but the gradual shift to moral relativism has led to a great debate about what "family values" ought to be.

Abraham Lincoln once said, "The strength of a nation lies in the homes of its people." It is our conviction that the family is the backbone of the Christian church and of society as a whole. History shows that, if any society wants to survive, it must uphold, strengthen, and continue to build upon the biblical institutions of marriage and family.

The Bible begins in Genesis with the marriage of a man and a woman and ends in the Book of Revelation with the marriage of Christ and His bride, the Church. In between, God provides timeless blueprints for family life, which, if followed in a spirit of humility and obedience, provide us with the only true way to maintain healthy family relationships.

The following document affirms this biblical model and challenges us to consider how we should live within the walls of our own homes. It is offered in a spirit of love and humility, not of judgment or contention. Furthermore, it is not intended to be a comprehensive doctrinal statement about what the Bible says about marriage, family, and related subjects.

Unquestionably, this document attempts to face critical cultural issues. We invite response from anyone who wishes to affirm the truths of marriage and family from the Scriptures. It is our hope that this document will serve to accurately represent the truth God has revealed to us in Scripture, will provide insight into what a biblical family looks like, and will show how we can honor and glorify Him in our family relationships.

We freely acknowledge that we, like all people, have often denied the biblical truths of family life by the way we live. We desire, however, to live by God's grace in accordance with the principles stated herein and to pass these principles on to future generations so that He will be honored and glorified as our families reflect His character.

Read The Family Manifesto in its entirety at FamilyLife.com.

Tony Dungy's new direction

By Dave Boehi

I was a bit dismayed when Tony Dungy recently retired from coaching in the NFL, because I saw God using him to influence others in a significant way. But this influence continues after his retirement, as seen in a post from his blog, taken from this week's Sports Illustrated magazine. Dungy describes his visit to quarterback Michael Vick in prison, and speculates about what may have happened in Vick's life if he had benefited from the influence of an involved father.

Dungy goes on to talk about the influence his own father had on him, and says

As a Christian, I follow the Biblical model of how a community should be structured—wisdom should be passed down from elders to juniors, and when that doesn't happen, the results won't be good. That's why I'm concerned about the number of young men growing up without active fathers in their lives.

Dungy has begun a ministry called All-Pro Dad. It is clear that God has given him a platform to address a huge problem in America. We may find out that all his influence as a coach was just a warm-up to what will happen now.

Listen to Tony Dungy talk about fatherhood on FamilyLife Today.

How NOT to Treat Your Mate

We've referred on at least a few occasions on Culture Watch to Emmerson Eggerichs' book Love and Respect. He contends, backed up by Scripture, that a woman's deepest need is to be loved or made secure, and that a man's deepest need is to be valued or significant. Eggerichs discusses about "the crazy cycle" in which a woman perceives a comment or action by her spouse as unloving or threatening, which makes her respond in a way that communicates lack of appreciation.

Well, as Shakespeare put it, "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet..."

I ran across this article in Psychology Today by author Steven Stosny, Marriage Problems: 50 Ways to Cause Fear and Shame.Interesting how closely Stosny's fear-shame dynamic parallels Eggerichs' love-respect crazy cycle. To me, this is further indication that we should heed the wisdom the Apostle Paul gives to husbands and wives in his letter to the Ephesians.

Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Here are a few of the no-nos in Stosny's Psychology Today list of 50 ways to cause fear and shame. Each serves to undermine that deep need for security and respect and invite a downward spiral toward isolation and worse.

• Ignore her

• Tell her to get over it

• Yell or get angry at her

• Flirt with other women

• Dismiss her ideas

• Exclude him from important decisions

• Imply his inadequacy

• Disrespect his work

• Make comparisons to other men

• Rob him of the opportunity to help

Stay-at-home dads: Here to stay?

By Scott Williams

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of dads staying home to take care of their children is on the increase, rising to 159,000, or 2.7 percent of all stay-at-home parents, in 2007. That's an jump of more than 50 percent over a five-year period.

But that number is almost certain to increase. Eighty percent of the layoffs during the current recession have been to men, since they dominate the most heavily-hit fields like construction and manufacturing, according to government data. At the same time, female-dominated fields like health care are more stable.

A recent survey by Career Builder.com found that 37 percent of men would stay home with their children if they had the opportunity.

Feeding the trend
Several factors seem to be fueling this rise in stay-at-home dads.

• In an increasing number of households, the wife earns more money than the husband.
• Many more employers are offering flexible hours and working conditions that allow these men the option of spending much of their time at home, even while working. This also works to allow more women in the workforce, as many more employers are willing to flex the schedules of working mothers.
• Several other factors may be at play that make it more likely for a wife to stay in the workforce. In times past, a woman would either forgo the workplace or make transitions in and out of it to make way for pregnancy and child rearing. Since 1960, the number of childless women has increased by nearly half, an increasing number who are childless by choice.

Cultural factors
Most of what I'm seeing indicates that very few men intend their stay-at-home status to be permanent, or even long-term. It seems to be a temporary solution to meet financial and parenting demands in the midst of a tough economy.

However, in a culture that's becoming more gender-neutral, male/female roles are becoming less of a determining factor in parenting and work. Few couples half a century ago would have even considered having the husband stay at home while the wife works. A substantial percentage of couples today see no problem with it. Instead, they look more at other criteria for making their decision--things like income potential and work benefits, career flexibility (including ability to work from home), and who seems to be the best suited to manage the home and relate best with the children.

In addition, there have been other changes in the culture that have made the idea of the stay-at-home dads more acceptable: