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.

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