Skip to main content

BIBLICAL FATHERHOOD

By EChamberlainMD ~

"Virtually every major social pathology -- violent crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and suicide -- is strongly associated with fatherlessness. A majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers, and rapists all come from fatherless homes. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. An estimated 70% of the juveniles in state reform institutions grew up without fathers. After taking into account race, socioeconomic status, sex, age, and ability, teenagers from single-parent households are 1.7 times more likely to drop out of high school than teenagers living with both biological parents." (Reference: ncpa.org/pub/st267)

So, apparently good fatherhood is important.

Now, the very last verse of the Old Testament proclaims that one will come who will TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN AND CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS, lest god comes and smites the earth with a curse.

I would think that the last words of the Old Testament would mean something important for the New Testament.

But the first book of the New Testament gives us something else entirely. Early on in jesus' ministry, one of his disciples requests, "Let me first go bury my father." But, in heretical contrast to the Old Testament's last sentiment, jesus delivers this cold eulogy: "Let the dead bury their dead." (Matthew 8)

Who says that kind of thing?

And, yet, just two chapters further on (Matthew 10), jesus says he has "come to set a man at variance AGAINST HIS FATHER."

This is the same jesus who had just used father-son family values to tell people to confidently ask god the father for things, saying, "If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father...?" (Matthew 7)

And what about that touching father-son reunion in the Prodigal Son story jesus told of?

Well, not long afterward (Hebrews 12), the apostles, influenced by jesus for three years, tell god's people who are turning to him that if they're not scourged by god, then they are "BASTARDS and not sons." Who calls a returning, repentant child a bastard? Manifestly, this heavenly father is not Ozzie Nelson, Andy Griffith, Mike Brady, Mr. Cunningham, or Bill Cosby, and certainly not my all-time favorite TV father, Phil Dunphy (from "Modern Family"). If Phil's son asked for a fish, he'd be riding Flipper before the next tide came in.

The Old Testament shows us what the fathers of the faith taught jesus and his disciples about fatherhood. Here are the headlines, taken directly from the writings of their heavenly father--

JUST AND RIGHTEOUS Father Offers VIRGIN DaughterS To Be Raped By Mob.

"I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out to you and you do to them as is good in your eyes." (Genesis 19)

JUST AND RIGHTEOUS DRUNKEN Father HAS SEX WITH DAUGHTERS.

"Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." (Genesis 19)

FATHER OF FAITH THROWS SON OUT TO WANDER IN WILDERNESS.

"Sarah... said unto Abraham, Cast out this... son... And God said to Abraham, Let it not be grievous in your sight because of the lad... in all that Sarah has said to you, hearken unto her voice... And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar and the child and sent her away... in the wilderness." (Genesis 21)

Father OF FAITH Nearly Kills Son In Sacrificial Obedience To Voice Of God.

"Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son." (Genesis 22)

FATHERS PERMITTED TO SELL OFF DAUGHTERS AS SERVANTS AND SLAVES.

(Exodus 21)

FATHERS COMMANDED TO KILL CHILD WHO CURSES HIS FATHER OR MOTHER.

"For every one that curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 20)

FATHERS COMMANDED TO KILL CHILD WHO IS DISOBEDIENT.

"His father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town... Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death..." (Deuteronomy 21)

Father Makes Vow To God AND SACRIFICES Daughter.

"Then the spirit of the lord came upon Jephthah... And Jephthah vowed a vow to the lord and said, If you will without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that whatsoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace.. shall surely be the lord's and I will offer it up for a burnt offering... And Jephthah came to his house and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child...and... her father... did with her according to his vow..." (Judges 11)

The bible warns that "in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be... disobedient to parents... without NATURAL AFFECTION."

But isn't that cold lack of natural affection exactly what the bible is guilty of?



IF YOU'RE ASKING WHO KILLED THEM

Eddie Chamberlain


Buried in the bullet casings

Between the lines of chalk line tracings

In that place dead men come down on things,

Round and round the sirens chasing

Far behind the bullets racing

Face to face with what consequence it brings,


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


The guns report, the pistols chatter,

The language of a splatter pattern,

The echoes of a spent and empty shell.

No one matters when dead men battle.

They spill out like a spreading shadow

That covers secrets dead men never tell.


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


In obituary epitaphs,

In backpage buried paragraphs,

Another John Doe Junior, a cold case report.

No longer than life cut in half,

The M.E. writes the final draft,

No pulse, no breath, no time left, no day in court.


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


Born into this funeral parlor,

Orphan children soon will father

Another round of drive-by life under the gun.

On corners squashed and lined in squallor

Mourners pinch for dime or dollar

And flinch with every target practice run.


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


The public house of ill-repute,

Of politician prostitutes,

Pregnant with its full-term fiscal fraud,

Gives birth to death and destitute

In slums that poison and pollute

Where crud and crust and crumbs are sold and bought.


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


The choirs rehearse their funeral hymn.

The fires of sacred candles dim.

Here now, every funeral a Father's Day.

Before the final verse begins,

Another shiny hearse rolls in.

The Father says his polished solemn sermon anyway.


If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two