Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Two Different Fathers: The Church and Absentee Fatherism

I wrote an article for Holy Culture concerning the similarities between common church methodologies and the common trend of absentee "fatherism."  Here is a section from the article:

"The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how we have allowed this distorted view of fatherhood to influence how we represent and embody Christ’s church in the world. If the marriage union is one of the most significant ways that we are to see and experience Christ’s relationship to His church, it should not surprise us that the utter breakdown of marriages in our culture is deeply affecting our perceptions of how we Christians ought to represent Christ in and to the world around us. It has been my observation that we have allowed the fatherly role in our culture to cloud our understanding of our Father’s role in heaven. Consequently (and tragically) the fallen world sees a heavenly Father who is merely a weekend playmate and a guy who is supposed to send us a check every month.

If we are honest, we would have to say that most churches do the same things. Church is a place where we go on the weekends to have fun, and, if we get in a bind, it writes checks too. I am not downplaying the importance of weekend worship services and events. Nor am I undermining efforts that churches make to provide financial help to individuals in need. However, when the church is only these things, it has failed to be the embodiment of Christ on earth, and has become the embodiment of the all-too-common absentee father. At this juncture, it would be appropriate to point out a few ways in which Christ is distinctly different from our common distorted perceptions."

You can read the entire article here.

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