There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers, those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their faith, those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful, those whose teeth are swords, and whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth, the needy from among mankind. -Proverbs 30: 11-14
Introduction
The fifth commandment charges believers to “honour one’s father and mother so that one may live long in the land the Lord has given one.” The passage I read at the beginning as a text for reflection brings to the fore a description of arrogance in the sense of pride and abuse of others. According to the passage, arrogance begins with a lack of appreciation for and respect of one’s parents.
It means refusing to obey the fifth commandment creates negative consequences in respect of one’s relationship with others. When we reject the fifth commandment it becomes difficult to relate positively to others.
Today (Sunday) is Father’s Day, a day set apart to celebrate our fathers. Not long ago we had the opportunity to celebrate our Mothers.
On this special day, it is important for us to refocus on fatherhood, and I believe we can better reflect on fatherhood by considering the fatherhood of God as our best example of fatherhood.
When we reflect on the fatherhood of God the following comes out: God’s role as the life-giver, his role as the Protector and his role as caregiver.
As the life-giver, he created us. In Isaiah 64:7 we read: Lord you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” God, as the Father, defines who we are.
He made us. Like a potter God shaped and moulded us to His likeness. So, we live to reflect not only his image but also his generosity, love, and creativity. In Him we have our being.
As the Protector, God is presented in Psalm 91: 1-6 as our shelter, our refuge in time of trouble, and as our protector who carries us through all the dangers, fears, and the changing scenes of life.
No matter how intense our fears when we put our trust and confidence in God by dwelling in Him, he protects us. As we entrust ourselves to His protection, He keeps us safe. We can never avoid strife in the world around us, but with God we can know perfect peace even in turmoil.
So, In Isaiah 26:3 we read, ‘You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you
As our Caregiver, God takes care of our needs including our daily bread. He is the Lord that heals us. Our pain and hunger affect Him. So even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we fear no evil. God, who is our Shepherd, knows the “green pastures” and “still waters” that will restore us, and He leads us to them.
In sum, we call God Father because He created us, He protects, and takes care of our needs. From this brief description of the fatherhood of God we can present the biblical concept of fatherhood in terms of 1).
Generating and establishing household. 2). Feeding, nourishing, and protecting the family and 3). The maintenance and responsibility of the family. Let us do further reflection on this biblical concept of fatherhood.
Generating and establishing Household
Every household owes its existence to a father, mother, and children. No matter what type of family unit (conjugal or extended) under normal circumstances, the father plays the key role as head.
He controls and manages the family. Even in matriarchal societies the Patriarch holds the position of leadership.
The Father has the greater responsibility to provide a secure home for his wife and children, a home where a child can be free to be a child, and the wife a wife. It is the responsibility of the father to establish such a home for his family.
Parental Inversion
Where a father becomes irresponsible, immature, or ineffective in providing a home for his family parental inversion takes place. Under such circumstance, a child is forced to take responsibility to parent one’s parents, or a wife is forced to take leadership of the household.
This has dire consequences for the family. It has been said: “Chores and responsibilities are good training for children, but the weight of care and responsibility should rest on the parents’ [especially on the fathers’] shoulders, never on the shoulders of the [mother] or children.”
Time will not permit me to talk about the dire consequences of parental inversion in detail. One can present a few.
Children or wives who are forced by the failure of the father to take up parental or leadership responsibilities in their homes become far too busy and find it difficult to trust that others will hold up their end or do things rightly.
Such people cannot relax and be refreshed in the home. They lose an important aspect of who they are as children or wives.
A story is told of a man whose father was a heavy drinker and a gambler. As a lad of eleven, he was forced by his father’s failure in the home to work to earn money for the family. In every way he worked hard to support his family.
From then on, he became a compulsive caregiver compulsively feeling that he had to take of everyone – employees, friends, wife, children, church, God, anyone, and everyone. He became the compulsive Good Samaritan for every flat tire and trouble on the road.
He could not purchase and enjoy something for himself without feeling guilty. As a boy he had built into himself that he must give everything to save his family. Now he could not stop trying.
The message here is, man be a father in your home and allow the children, if any, to enjoy their childhood so they can grow naturally into fatherhood or motherhood.
By your failure to build your household you have destroyed your family structure. Your children have lost their childhood, and this has serious psychological repercussion on their growth.
Your wife, having taken up the role of fatherhood, has had her motherhood disturbed. She has become a surrogate father and husband in the home playing the roles of husband and wife at the same time.
In such a situation, the family unit normally involving the father-husband, mother-wife, and children is dislocated, the normal family then suffers abnormality.
Human Beings are made
“At birth the human baby is completely helpless and absolutely dependent on others.”
In a strict sense “the infant is not a ‘human’ being but a little animal without speech or self-control, two of the most important attributes of the normal adult member of the human society. Growing up into a human is a process, which necessitates contact with other people.
A child grows to acquire the standards of the social group into which it has been born through the process of socialization. The parents are the primary agents of the process.
Through the socialization process what it means to be human are inculcated into a child. So, you are what you are through socialization, the primary agents of which are your parents.
Social values are hardly inane qualities of the human being. In other words, human beings are not born with social values already inculcated in them.
This, of course, is not to deny that the human being by the law of nature knows that one must seek the highest good, which, in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas includes seeking after God, intellectual development, and being on good terms with those with whom one has relationships.
Human beings, however, are made particular social beings through the process of socialization, a sociological term which refers, in a general way, to the process of growing up into a human being, a process which necessitates contact with other people.
The human being acquires the language, the thought forms, and standards of the social group into which he has been born through the process of socialization.
The sociologist, Eleanor E. Maccoby confirmed this when she wrote as follows:
From the standpoint of the larger society, one of the objectives of the socialization process is to produce individuals who will not only conform to the socially prescribed rules of conduct but will, as members of society, accept them as their own values.
The State of the Question
The state of the question is there seems to be a serious break down of social values in our society. People seek immediate sexual gratification without any reservation as regarding time, age, place, rights of or obligations to the partner or may seek to be rich without regard to hard work, honesty, probity, and accountability.
Indiscipline and corruption seem to be having a field day. One of our own, the late Rev Prof. Joshua Kudadjie, captured the state of the question when he wrote:
In private as in public life there is irresponsibility, dishonesty, corruption, subterfuge, people of all walks of life and status engage in currency and drug trafficking, abuse of office, cheating, fraud, misappropriation, embezzlement, nepotism.
It looks as if we cannot distinguish between right and wrong and have no recognizable standard of behaviour. We are pompous, extravagant, materialistic, and vain; there is lawlessness, lack of respect for authority. We are ungodly, and do not have much fellow-feeling or love for country.
How do we explain this moral state of the question? Clausen noted well when he wrote that if the socialization apparatus functions effectively, most individuals will acquire the necessary motives, skills, and knowledge to perform competently the social roles expected of normal adults in their society.
For our purpose, it would suffice to say that the problem of the general moral decadence of our society cannot be considered in isolation from the moral state of the wider society.
The problem is the problem of inadequate moral socialization, which in itself points to parental failure, breakdown of the family unit, and the lack of moral rectitude in the wider society.
This certainly comes as a serious indictment on all agents of moral socialization in our country. All agents of moral socialization- family, Church, educational institutions, the state are culpable.
Truly all have sinned. Daniel Maguire said it all when he wrote, ethics is not the consuming passion of our time as it has been in the past.
Home and Parental Training
There is the need to intensify home training and find appropriate ways of making it work. It has been said that the child is the parent of the adult.
What this means is that much of what the adult will be in society is what the child is as it lies in its mother’s lap.
Parents must help children to form the right habits and values right from the beginning both by precept and by example. Proverbs 22:6 reads train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not turn from it.
This saying is true. Once a good foundation has been laid in the home, the possibilities that children will grow up to be responsible, upright citizens are high.
As fathers we have the greater responsibility in the matter. To be celebrated as fathers we must demonstrate a fatherhood that is grounded in the biblical conception of fatherhood.
A Methodist minister, Esther Magill, who taught at the Trinity Theological Seminary (then Trinity College) said: “at all stages of a child’s development relationship will have a deeper influence than verbal teaching.”
Magill further notes: “the person by whom a child is first surrounded are the most important in the child’s whole life. It is from them he will, first of all, receive his right, or it may be, his wrong ideas of God.”
John and Paula Sandford echoed the same idea: “Parents color God to children so that whether consciously or hiddenly the child’s picture of God begins to resemble the failing parent(s).” To be celebrated as parents, parents must earn it.
By Prof. Emmanuel K. Asante, former Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana and past Chairman of the National Peace Council
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
