Kingdom Come

I grew up under a malignant narcissist father who, due to his utterly rebellious nature against any authority, was unable to hold down a job, even being discharged from basic training at a time when the Army needed every soldier they could get to end WWII. 

He found his “calling” in the Fundamental Independent Baptist Movement where he had enough charisma to gather a following to start his own churches, from which he was inevitably voted out within a few years as his true nature surfaced, so we moved from state to state and town to town every few years as he started a series of churches for which he was acclaimed as a “church planter” by a diminishing group of mindless followers.

Life at home with a father who claimed total authority on grounds of “Children obey your parents” (Ephesians 6:1) even after we were adults and married, and was as well a misogynist was, of course, hell on earth for our mother and the six female and three male surviving children of our mother’s twelve enforced pregnancies. As an adult, one of my last conversations with my father included the assurance that I would stand in witness beside him when he faced the Judge of the whole earth and testify that he killed our mother with his total domination, which went beyond imposing a lifetime of daily suffering to overruling medical treatment just to prove he was in charge over everyone including the doctor. She was called a saint because whenever asked how she was doing she would point upwards with a smile and answer “Just waiting to go home.” She was actually suicidal, a common outcome of domestic abuse.

Lacking healthy relationship modeling and turned out into the world on our own as soon as he could legally relinquish support of any kind including housing, all of us children struggled as hard to make a decent life as if we came from “unsaved” families broken by divorce, drugs and crime. Following standard familial patterns, all of us either became the new narcissist dictator head of the family or the victim of one, as well as entrenched in FIBM churches (Stockholm Syndrome). My own escape has left me with medically diagnosed and ongoing treatment for PTSD and isolation from all society, especially my family. My solace is that I didn’t become the narcissist, the only other alternative in family dynamics to becoming the victim.

THIS is NOT biblical Fatherhood.

The best definition is found in the prototypical expression of one’s relationship with a godly father: “your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Therefore after this manner pray / archaic term for ask ye” (Matthew 6:8)

• use not vain repetitions – understanding he’ll provide in time.

• Thy will be done – not mine, acknowledgement and appreciation of his care and obvious position of power to provide.

• Give us this day our daily bread – trusting him to meet tomorrow’s needs.

• And forgive us our debts / failures, as we forgive our debtors – demonstrate what he is role modeling as the right thing to do.

• For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory/victory – all this belongs to the Father who is sharing them, show some respect!

The ancient definition of father was not exclusively or even essentially sperm donor, or even head of a family, but an  authority empowering others who submitted themselves to him to benefit from his authority.

• “Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.” Think primary food providers, like the ranchers in the American West 
• ‘Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. (Genesis 4:20-22) the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals…to give thanks and to praise the LORD. (I Chronicles 25:1-3)

The (in my view) phenomenally relevant television show Breaking Bad demonstrates this concept to a society that has lost touch with this reality. When the quintessentially rebellious teenager Jesse, despite his natural disinclination for submission to authority, apprentices himself to an obnoxious high school teacher in order to gain power from him. 

Still today in underdeveloped countries with unstable national governments that do not safeguard human rights or guarantee provision of needs, societies with a long history of stable clan membership depend on the head of the clan / the Father for provision and protection of everyone in his clan.

From NPR, not a Christian advocacy group. Fatherlessness is growing, and the correlations with any number of risk issues are considerable. 20 percent of white fathers are absent in their children’s lives, 31 of Hispanics, 57 percent of African-Americans.

A U.S. Department of Education study…found 39 percent of students, first through 12th grade, are fatherless.

Children are four-times more likely to be poor if the father is not around.

Seven out of 10 high school dropouts are fatherless.

Girls are twice as likely to suffer from obesity without the father present. They’re four-times more likely to get pregnant as teenagers.

Children growing up without a father are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.

More than half of incarcerated females came from a father-absent home. Youths who never had a father living with them have the highest incarceration rates 

Ancient Egypt was saved from devastation by Joseph’s assumption of the role of Father of the Nation.

“And Joseph said unto his brethren…God…hath made me 

• a father / Provider and Protector to Pharaoh,
• and lord / boss of all his house{hold] / government,
• and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:4-8)

This demonstrates that the father’s ability to provide for the wellbeing and protection of his family / clan requires him to be in authority over his family.

“And the king of Israel said unto Elisha…My father, shall I…?

And [Elisha] answered, Thou shalt not.” (II Kings 6:21-22)

God does not initiate us into a religious club with a rigid set of rules and practices that sets us apart as being “better than” other people.

God invites us to engage in relationship with him and his family. When we love someone, our behaviors are based on what brings us into a closer relationship with them, becoming more and more like each other.

The guidelines and boundaries that make for a loving relationship with God and the members of his family are written down for us to follow to ensure our own provision and protection, and enhance our growth and development within the family.

“ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but...of the household of God;” (Ephesians 2:19)

What this means in terms of fatherhood and brotherhood can only be found in the foundational scriptural documentation.