Skip to main content

God, Feminism and Fathering


How does a feminist married to a stay-at home Dad relate to Father’s Day? What does being a Father mean in contemporary society and what can the Christian God, who we so regularly address as Father, tell us about Fathering?

This is a difficult and complex subject to approach for so many reasons. Human fathers leave, abuse, die, love, hate, nurture and encourage their children. None of us has a neutral relationship to the concept of fatherhood and our own particular experiences of our own fathers, or their absence will have had a deep impact on our lives.

Think about your own relationship to the concept of fathering, based on your own personal experiences. What would an ideal Father be like? Are there memories of hurt and failure that you can ask God to heal, today? Perhaps you are a Father who is struggling to live up to that ideal?

God meets each of us in the middle of our messy and difficult lives and gives us that stability and continuing presence that no earthly Father can live up to. And yet, He also inspires men to be Christian fathers, intent on loving and nurturing their children and as far as possible loving and nurturing the mother of their children. Good family life is based upon the love of two people of whom the product of their love is children. Of course that ideal is often smashed apart by life’s difficulties, divorce, death, illness and so on. The Church as God’s Christian family should be a place of healing and restoration. It is in the Church where, as God’s children, we can be commended to one another. A person whose Father was a constant disappointment may find a new Father figure in Church and we can be present to one another in healthy ways as Fathers, Mothers, Sisters and Brothers in the family of God’s Church.

Jesus Christ was born into a family that began with the fear of unfaithfulness, but through trust, hope and faithfulness that family persevered and flourished. In God’s arms and in hope, trust and love we, as God’s children, can be re-united in love. God’s family is full of sinners, but in His love we become holy through new relationships formed in the arms of Jesus Christ, our true brother and friend.



Comments

Post a Comment

Please be respectful when posting comments

Popular posts from this blog

Art and Imagination: the apocalyptic vision

Rev 12.7-12   Michael Defeats the Dragon   And war broke out in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb    and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Things Fall Apart – the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’

 Holy Week Reflection   The Jewish people had a framework for understanding the world and most importantly their relationship with God and with one another. They had the Law and the Prophets and yet at various points in their history they were radically challenged by the events that occurred in their communal history. The deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians became a foundational narrative for them about God’s ability to save. They were not a people unused to suffering, unused to war, unused to persecution and these experiences led them as a people to expect from their God – compassion, mercy and most importantly deliverance. They could understand their sufferings in various ways, they could attribute them to their own sin and waywardness, but at the centre of their faith was a belief that God had established a covenant with them and that he would be faithful even if they were faithless. Jesus came into this history as a possible Messiah, as the Anointed One w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain   The Flight into Egypt  File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderfu...
2 comments
Read more