We are a people who, for the most part, foreclosed God the Father from our cultures. We did this out of notions of postmodernity and progress, to achieve more freedom and upward mobility than before. But, in reality, what is the result of this foreclosure on our societies, communities, families and individuals?
We became a fatherless world. Unity and cohesion in families, communities and societies disappeared as trickle-down consequences, while violence escalated to unparalleled highs. Families without functional fathers or any fathers at all are now legion, with the children – adult or otherwise – being often lost in terms of their intrinsic identity. The absence of fatherhood from the narratives of individuals, families, cultures and societies has resulted in statistically significant levels of disorder at all dimensions of human life, the manifestations of which we are now witnessing without abatement.
The above occurred because order is built precisely upon and around fatherhood, as it derives recursively from the Almighty Father who is order Himself. Fatherhood – in particular, functional fatherhood – traces its lineage in a direct way back to God the Father, a fact empirically demonstrable. Any conceptualizations or enactments of fatherhood, therefore, which marginalize or foreclose the Fatherhood of God, are at best counterfeit presentations of the effects of true fatherhood upon all humanity.
Note: This is the first in a series of posts on the effects of foreclosing God as Father from our lives, our families, communities and societies.
