A Switch in Time
Who gets to define what's proper fatherhood? A church leadership composed of people who are horrified by any sign of male domineering, and always on the lookout for it, always demanding more and more "servant leadership"? That is the practical condition in many churches today. But they won't last long, for they don't like men and won't raise them up. I suggest that "leading through sacrifice" is, in many modern conservative churches, a poisonous idea. The only place it is not is where men are encouraged to exercise their God-given authority in their families while avoiding cruelty and injustice.
In general, to hell with this notion of servant leadership as I've most frequently heard it used—its cash value is "wimp." And you can't make applying the biblical rod to the breech of your son anything other than pain by inserting the equally damnable adjective "loving." Just make sure the kid deserves what he is getting, completely forget the offense once it's paid for, and you've done your duty.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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more on fatherhood from the online archives
32.1—January/February 2019
Answers Secular & Religious by Allan C. Carlson
16.5—June 2003
on the Importance of Fathers to Churchgoing by Robbie Low
14.1—January/February 2001
A Sociologist Looks at Fatherlessness & Its Causes by David Blankenhorn
more from the online archives
28.2—March/April 2015
Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails by Jonathan Witt
30.6—Nov/Dec 2017
Christ, Individualism & the Meaning of Cultural Diversity by Anthony Esolen
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