The Fatherhood Movement: A Call to Action

Twenty-nine authors have come together to produce a collection of essays calling for the resuscitation of fatherhood in America. What makes this work unique is the wide spectrum from which they write. They disagree at certain points of policy, initiative, and causation. Yet they all agree that fatherlessness for even one child in America is no longer acceptable. This work is edited by Wade Horn, David Blankenhorn, and Mitchell B. Pearlstein

His Excellency: George Washington

"It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior" (Joseph Ellis, p. xiv).

Renowned author, Joseph Ellis has put human flesh on the immortal, George Washington. For some this might well leave a bad taste in their mouths. For me, understanding the very human and cultural struggles Washington navigated through to American immortality makes his achievements and character development all the more impressive. Ellis does a brilliant job of reminding us that great men are more often made than born, and Washington's greatness was birthed and matured in first hand experiences with raw human depravity amid high and lofty idealism.

In particularly impressive is Ellis's dealings with the question of slavery and the founding fathers, especially Washington. He notes that many felt slavery severely out of tune with the republican ideals of the American Revolution. Yet he also acknowledges the egg shells the nation, which Washington hoped to build and preserve, was birthed on. While Washington, himself, eventually came to be morally repulsed by the institution itself, this plank took a long and tortuous path at which to arrive. While it was easy for Quaker dissenters to criticize the existence of slavery ... and criticize Washington, himself, neither one of them were responsible holding together a group of people for whom "We the People" amounted to little more than wishful thinking. He believed that the best course was to establish the country on sound footing, and then allow the next generation or two to navigate a course to emancipation.

What Ellis fails miserably at is his handling of Washington's faith. While it is true he was not he Billy Graham of his day, he certainly was an authentic orthodox Anglican believer. Ellis asserts that Washington was a slack Anglican at best, never partaking of Communion. Yet the fact he partook of Communion is indisputable. Besides whether he partook of Communion or not bears little telling on his own faith and in the nature of Providence ... whether Providence for Washington was an impersonal force or the preeminent Christ.

All in all this book is a must have for anyone interested in the study of "His Excellency."

Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism

"... How could an idea that so consistently showed itself to be incongruent with human nature have spread faster and further than any other belief system ever devised? And how did an idea calling upon so many humane sentiments lend its name to the cruelest regimes in human history?" (Joshua Muravchik, pp. 338 & 339)

Joshua Muravchik presents us in the American "experiment" ample reason to do what we can to avoid the socialist siren. He presents the story of significant socialist experiments in world history (including their unhappy consequences) in a masterful narrative. Particularly interesting is his account of Julius Nyerere's Tanzania and the Kibbutz movement in Israel.

Tagging off of the opening quote, one more question about socialism penetrates our contemporary American political scene:

When socialism is the most failed "experiment" in history, why is its siren successful in casting her spell over our elite populous today? It appears our elite stand ready to butter themselves up and rush to be devoured by the Siren herself ... dragging the rest of us with them.

This book is a must read for us in this election year. For while our three democratic candidates promise the world to include the moon and stars, we forget that only the Creator of that earth, moon, and those stars is the only one smart enough to provide according to the intermeshed intricacies of our deepest human needs. In other words Government makes a pretty pathetic god ... but quite a powerful devil. Yet, the architects of Socialism strove exactly to replace God ... and in the end became the devil incarnate.

"The biblical account of Adam and Eve's fall explained the hardships of life. It also portrayed mankind's capacity for evil as well as good, suggesting that we might ameliorate the hardship by cultivating our better natures. As Harrington's bold promise suggests, socialism made things easier. Not only did it vow to deliver the goods in this world rather than the next, but it asked little in return. At the most, you had to support the revolution. At the least, you had to do nothing, since ineluctable historical forces would bring about socialism anyway. In either case you did not have to worship or obey. You did not have to make sacrifices or give charity. You did not have to confess or repent or encounter that tragic sense of life that is the lot of those who embrace a nonsecular religion. No doubt, many or most of those drawn to socialism felt some sense of humane idealism, but its demands were deflected outward onto society as a whole. If this is what made the religion of socialism so attractive, it also explains what made it so destructive" (Muravchik, p. 343).

Fatherless America: Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem

Fatherhood is a social role that obligates men to their biological offspring. For two reasons, it is society's most important role for men. First, fatherhood, more than any other male activity, helps men to become good me: more likely to obey the law, to be good citizens, and to think about the needs of others. Put more abstractly, fatherhood bends maleness ... in particular, male aggression ... toward prosocial purposes. Second, fatherhood privileges children. In this respect, fatherhood is a social invention designed to supplement maternal investment in children with paternal investment in children (David Blankenhorn, p.24)

David Blankenhorn has given us a superb picture of the state of "Fatherhood" in the United Sates ... at least 10 years ago (as this book was published in '95). But ... and that's a big nasty but that needs to be wiped ... things have only gotten worse.

Rather than waxing eloquent on tips for being better fathers, Blankenhorn looks much broader to the contemporary notion of fatherhood itself. That is a huge distinction that consumes 90% of his much needed message. In addition to giving the contemporary scene, he briefly reviews the historical drama leading up to the demise of fatherhood, as well as giving a picture of healthy fatherhood and some public policy directions which should be heeded.

Filled with then contemporary research, solid thinking, and masterful phrasing, this book is not merely hard to ignore ... its hard to put down. I lapped up every word that dripped from its oasis-like pages, eagerly hoping to hug my wife and baby girls a bit more passionately. If you only read one book on fathers, fathering, or fatherhood this year ... choose this one.

The Apostles' Creed

William Barclay has attempted to give the Church a contemporary manifesto in analyzing the Apostles' Creed. However, I can only say "attempted" since he has given way too much ground to theological liberalism.

While I can certainly appreciate his detailed analysis of the Creed (324 pages worth), and while we certainly need to be humble in our approach to truth, I feel that Barclay has waffled on some important issues, rendering the heart force of the Christian faith a mere paper tiger.

For example: In his analysis of "I believe ... in the forgiveness of sins" he maintains that Jesus did not die instead of us but for us. He doesn't believe there is a shred of evidence in the New Testament that the Atonement contains an element of Substitution about it. He argues that it would be totally unjust for a totally just God to pour out his wrath on the sinless Jesus. He then explains that the language of sacrifice was used because the early writers were Jews ... and to Jews sacrifice only meant the means of restoring right relationship between God and Man.

So how does he work out this quandary he has created for himself? On the one hand he proclaims that Scripture doesn't teach substitionary atonement. On the other hand he acknowledges Scripture is full of sacrificial language regarding the death of Jesus. What is his solution?

Until Jesus came no one knew what God was like. In Jesus we see what God is like ... particularly the love of God. In Jesus we see God's love for his enemies ... and if Jesus had stopped short of the Cross ... then there would have been a point beyond which the love of God would not go.

While this all might "feel" nice, the truth is that which Scripture might well teach that there is not a point beyond which the love of God will not go (except against human free will), this in no wise captures the whole of the love of God nor of the justice of God. In the Old Testament forgiveness came only with the sacrifice of blood (Hebrews 9:22). The whole of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus's death fulfilled the Temple ritual system in one final act that forever made reconciliation with God possible ... not only mere reconciliation but transformation into his image. "But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:12-14; ESV).

I'm afraid that if you exclude the full picture of God (which includes his wrath) you arrive at an impotent picture of his love. God's love is one that is transformative even in the vilest of men. Barclay's version of God's love is transfixed on weak victim-pity, which doesn't require transformation in depraved man.

The LORD Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms

James L. Mayes has given those of us who care about Christian worship an exhilarating reminder: worship is about declaring to one another and the world ... and to God ... that the LORD reigns. Mayes not only calls us back to God-centered worship, but he also deals with topics that are not pleasant for our 21st Century social palates (ie. war-talk, calling on God to take vengeance on enemies). While we, in our 21st Century liberal sophistication tend to look down on the social ethics of a time long past, we tend to forget that we are just as beset with idols in our churches as they were in yester-year. In studying the Psalms the call to cast down our idols is larger than Buddha's belly.

"Worship led by the psalms sets the congregation in a polytheistic world, which it claims for Adonai. Does that make it anachronistic? Some serious assessments of our culture say it is as much pagan as it is secular. The idolization of sex, wealth, patriotism, armed force, ethnicity, for example--that is, taking a good for the power that define and orders human life-- continues and revives the old paganism. Tom Wright in his incisive book New Tasks for a Renewed Church calls the roll of the ancient gods to name the powers of modern culture: Mars, Mammon, Aphrodite, Gaia. He argues, rightly, I believe that it is urgent for the community of faith to identify the powers for what they are. You know, of course, that Gaia, the earth goddess, has been given a literary epiphany in Christian theology. The confessional situation of the church has haunting similarities to that of Israel in the eighth century and Christians in the second (sic). Monotheizing, liberating the good realities of life and world from the perversion of divinization, is again the crucial agenda. The praise of psalms as confession is the liturgy for the mission" (p. 68).

What's So Great about Christianity?

Dinesh D'Souza is following in the footsteps of Ravi Zacharias and C.S. Lewis. D'Souza answers the rising stars in the militant atheist camp with his unique but sharp & entertaining witt. His voice is certainly a breath of fresh air in the midst of the postmodern, leftist hurricane breaking on the shores of Evangelicalism.

While the postmoderns have done well to remind us that living the gospel is a necessary part to effective gospel witness, many seem to have forgotten that effective vocal presentation and defense is needed just as ever in our day and time. The likes of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and most secular-progressive professors in state universities illustrate this clearly.

In this particular work D'Souza addresses objections not normally found in the apologetic material, namely reassessing the Spanish Inquisition and Galileo. He takes a theistic evolutionary perspective, emphasizing that evolution is not the problem ... Darwinian philosophy is. Conservative Christians might be put off by this, but stick with him. Even if you guys don't agree with him, he makes a great case for purpose and design in creation in general and even emphasizes points that young earth creationists have failed to address adequately (ie. the problem of the travel of light from the far reaches of the universe).

This work is also important for another important reason. D'Souza demonstrates that sound intellectual Christianity is not simply the property of White people, as he, like Zacharias, is Indian. Truly Christianity has gone global ... which is the call of Christ. Below gives you a flavor of this work:

"First, Christianity makes sense of who we are in the world. All of us need a framework in which to understand reality, and part of Christianity's appeal is that it is a worldview that makes things fit together. Science and reason are seamlessly integrated in a Christian framework, because modern science emerged from a Christian framework. Christianity has always embraced both reason and faith. While reason helps us to discover things about experience, faith helps us discover things that transcend experience. for limited, fallible humans like us, Christianity provides a comprehensive and believable account of who we are and why we are here" (p. 300).