A similar piece was recently published under the NEWSMAX column Harden’s Hard Truths.
Many of you know that my wife Linda and I are blessed by God with ten children. Over the years, I’ve developed some snappy comebacks when someone snipes us with a snide remark at the grocery store. “Hey,” they say with an air of superiority, “you know how that happens, right?” My response? “Yeah, every time we go to the hospital, they send us home with one of these.”
Another reply to someone condescendingly gawking as they try, apparently unsuccessfully, to count our children is (with a smile, of course), “You’ll thank me when my kids are paying for your Social Security check.” One does not need to witness the open-mouthed, deer-in-the-headlights silence to know that it goes without saying that few people connect their miserly reproductive choices to macroeconomics.
Happy Father’s Day! A boon to Hallmark card sales, no doubt. But let’s be honest, the “holiday” often feels more like a cultural shrug. I mean, what exactly are we celebrating? Does society truly value fatherhood?
A perfect example of society’s disdain for true fatherhood is New York’s attempt to change the word “father” in official state records to “Non-gestating Parent.” Non-gestating parent?
Well, maybe New York is just stating the obvious. And Father’s Day will remain hollow sentimentality until fatherhood itself is restored.
America is a mess. You want to talk about the reality of fathers being nothing more than a non-gestating parent? Nearly half of all children are born out of wedlock. Even the word wedlock sounds antiquated now as marriage rates plummet. Nation-destroying low fertility rates show that fewer women are interested in helping men become fathers.
And if culture’s insistence is correct, that men and women are no different except for a few body parts, what is fatherhood, anyway?
We should celebrate fathers, real ones. I am indebted to my grandfather and my father. They were flawed men, certainly, but they taught me what it means to be a man. They held the line of manhood as best they could amid the shifting sands of a feminized culture. They stood bravely as the godless tornado of secularism, materialism, and individualism razed to the ground the great forests of civil order–the family, the church, business, and government.
Running medical pregnancy centers in America’s abortion capital to help women considering abortion choose life for their babies, we know that one of the primary drivers of abortion is often the father of the baby.
The simple solution to evaporating the swampy injustice of abortion is not government regulation but the radiant warmth of godly fathers. Not a sane woman alive would consider abortion if she had the support of a loving husband and father.
The simple solution to evaporating the swampy injustice of abortion is not government regulation but the radiant warmth of godly fathers. Not a sane woman alive would consider abortion if she had the support of a loving husband and father.
Imagine an America with a godly, Biblical fatherhood truly worthy of celebration; strong, faithful men who sacrifice their strength, their resources, and themselves for their wives and children, as Christ did for His Church (Eph. 5:25).
Imagine an American fatherhood with ranks of men embracing a robust theology of suffering, knowing the difference between the harder right and the easier wrong, and who choose the right anyway for the benefit of their family and society.
Without godly fathers anchoring and sheltering families with physical and moral strength, society will continue to drift further into the rough seas of godless chaos, arbitrary violence, uncivil discourse, anemic churches, rampant government corruption, dwindling small businesses, and ubiquitous fiscal irresponsibility.
The first step toward pointing America’s prow back home is understanding how we got here. The second step is submitting ourselves anew to God’s revelation of who He is. Only then will we be equipped to take the crucial third step: clarifying what it means to be made in His image, male and female. Happy Father’s Day!
In Christ,
Rev. Jim Harden, M.Div.
CompassCare CEO
EMC Frontline President
P.S. Stay tuned for my three-part series: America’s Homecoming—The Only Path Back from the Brink of Destruction.
It’s not too late to serve women and save babies through the Walk for Life!