The Effects of Femininity on Our Culture, Part I: Appeal vs. Command in the Exercise of Fatherhood

 When I attended Moody, I perhaps heard the most emotionally stirring story in a sermon that I have ever heard. It was about a young woman who had brought her two boys to the zoo for an afternoon of fun. While in front of the lion exhibit, one of those open ones that were shielded by a pit of water and a fence, she glanced away for a moment only to look back and be filled with absolute terror at what she saw. While she had looked away, her two boys had slipped through the fence that separated the edge of the enclosure and were now playing on that edge. "If they slip," she thought, "because I scream out to them and stir them, they'll be killed for sure." So she got down on her knees and in a tender voice called out to them, "Boys, come give momma a hug." The boys quickly came away from the danger and ran safely into her arms.

It's a stirring story indeed. The preacher then argued that God is this way with us and we should be this way as well. 

The problem with this statement is that it's completely false. God is not this way with us, and neither should we be with others who are in the peril of sin. The real problem here is that the preacher was telling men to act like women by speaking the way women do, in an appeal rather than in a command.

I'm sure many of you have been shopping at a grocery store when a screaming child is demanding something from his mother and the mother attempts to bribe the kid by telling him that if he's good she'll buy him something. What she has done is made an appeal. She has attempted to communicate to him that it is in his best interest to obey her. He will get something out of it. So she can appeal to him, give him the choice as to whether he obeys, and hope for the best. In this scenario, the authority remains with the child. At no time does the mother take it away from him by commanding him to be quiet and behave because of no other reason than who she is as his mother.

Now, it's understandable why women appeal. They can probably command a small child but its much more difficult to do so with a bigger child who has not been raised to respect his mother for who she is rather than for what she can give him.

However, this would be the fault of the father, as long as she didn't get rid of the father or diminish his authority to her child. 

You see, fathers should not appeal to their children in sin. Fathers need to command because that's what God does to His children when they are in sin. 

Now, I don't mean that God does not display the benefits of following Him to His people and urge them to repent, even pleading with them sometimes. What I mean by "appeal" is that the ego is either stroked or at least uninjured by the person making the appeal in order to get a desired result. An idea is presented to a person in sin or error in such a way so as to pay homage to the person's autonomy rather than to draw out his rebellion by presenting the idea as non-negotiable, i.e., a command to which he is bound to obey.

The problem with this is that fathers need to represent God in His authority to their children and their goal is not to get their children to do what they want them to do, but to expose their rebellion so it can be addressed with the Word, repentance, and prayer. Rebellion is not exposed if no command is ever given. For this reason the command, not the appeal, is the tool of the true father that allows him to see where the work of the law and the gospel need to be applied. Where the mother may ask for a hug, the father, filled with the same terror as the mother, would yell out, "Boys, get your butts over here right now!" because they would not leave the decision up to the boys. The situation is too dangerous and there is no time to experiment with what bribe may work.

This runs completely contrary to our culture. In the book entitled, How to Make Friends and Influence People, the author makes an argument that could probably be summarized in one statement, "Don't bruise anyone's ego."

You see, people love people who appeal to them because it supports the idea that they are autonomous, i.e., they have the freedom to choose whatever they want to believe and do without accountability. They are the ones in control. There is nothing to trigger an angry reaction. There is no reason for the one to whom the appeal is made to dislike the one making it. We appeal to kings because they are kings, so the appeal itself confirms one's own view of himself.

The problem, unfortunately, for everyone who has to represent God is that part of that representation is conveying that God is king and demands to be obeyed whether the individual likes it or not. This is conveyed not only in particular wording but in the way that those words are spoken. If I teach my kids that God is the authority and their egos have exalted themselves as a replacement authority due to our sinful tendencies, but then do nothing but appeal to them when they need to be rebuked for their trespasses and sins, what I have done is undermine the explicit message with a much louder and far more potent implicit one. If, however, I demand that they repent as God does, I don't convey to them that they can decide to take God or leave Him. Even if they do reject Him, they reject the full message of His authority, that He is Lord, despite what I have conveyed to them rather than rejecting Him because of what I conveyed to them.

The goal of fatherhood is to represent God so that children understand who He is in relation to them, but a father who seeks to appease his children and appeal to them even when they are in sin conveys a God that has less authority than they do. Eventually, kids will grow up to realize that such a god is not worthy of their worship since their supreme being resides within.

The problem, however, is that we have a culture that does not like fathers because it does not like external authority because it does not like God who is the external authority. So we have been doused with the waters of the feminist ideal of men, a man who is frankly more like a woman in the way that he speaks. 

Anyone who does not fit this image of this man who is more in tune with his feminine side is considered arrogant, angry and mean, or in Christian circles, ungodly and un-Christlike. 

This fits well within our postmodern culture where truth is not something that can be fully known by the individual and therefore the fabric of our relationships must be sewn with how we make one another feel when we talk to one another about anything. If I feel offended, that means that you have exerted yourself over me and that does violence to who I am as regent over my life. As the Sodomites say to Lot and the Israelites to Moses, "Who made you a judge over us?" or as the Nazarenes said about Jesus, "Isn't this the son of the carpenter?" All were offended that anyone would bring a rebuke and stand in judgment over them. They were made to feel bad about themselves and felt judged, so they hated those who spoke in such ways to them.

If we are to reestablish a Christian culture in the church, however, our duty to represent God and His authority accurately in our families must be understood and practiced to the best of our abilities, but this first must be pictured in the church. That will be for our discussion next time.