29 April 2008

Fathers in the news.

If fathers are in the news, you can practically go to the bank that it is for the wrong reasons. And so it is today. Several blogs are commenting on males (I cannot call them men) in general and father's in a more particular sense, such as here and here and here. The stories are by no means representative, but they are the sort of things that gets newspaper coverage. The common denominator? All the stories are about sex.

But even given bad and skewed coverage, how did it get so bad? I speak in particular about the news stories involving fathers. Do these individuals not understand the awesome responsibility that comes with being a parent? 'Honour thy mother and father' is as much a command to parents as it is to children, for we are implicitly ordered to be honourable. And when Jesus Himself tells us to pray- what a scandal that anyone could drag the name of 'father' through the dirt. What will happen to those males who place an impediment to their children's prayers by being so poor, so vile a parent, that their children can only with difficulty or ignorance utter the words: "Our Father."

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