“If your church is not specifically, directly, focused on building strong men and nurturing virtuous fathering you are not positioned to actually bless your community.”

Link to “Confessions of Fatherhood” from Crossroads Tabernacle, The Bronx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxhT0crwRW8&feature=player_embedded

Most evangelical churches foster environments where men are not free to struggle and, therefore, would not produce such a realistic conversation about fatherhood by men who know they need all that the church as to offer.

This Crossroads video, at the moment, receives the most views by 13-to-17-year-olds? Why?

Teens long for this type of honesty and instead they are trapped in churches where the public persona is “I’m ok.”

Test this. Ask the leadership of your church to produce a video like this for your community for the sake of encouraging conversation and support of fathering and watch what happens?

Fatherlessness (physically absent and/of emotionally absent) is the greatest social problem in America outside of divorce. The stats:

· Incarceration Rates. “Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families…those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated — even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant.” (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.)

· Suicide. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census)

· Behavioral Disorders. 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (United States Center for Disease Control)

· High School Dropouts. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)

If your church or Christian organization is not specifically, directly, focused on building strong men and nurturing virtuous fathering you are not positioned to actually bless your community. To win the war we must build strong, virtuous men. Period. And, by the way, “preaching the gospel” alone doesn’t build strong men. We send our kids to school because the gospel message is not enough and neither is the gospel enough to teach men how to live lives of virtue and wisdom and fulfill their roles at home and in local communities. Believing “the gospel” does not automatically translate into prudent application. Jonathan Edwards knew the gospel but did not apply it while he owned slaves. Do we even need to talk about pastors kids? The gospel is the beginning.

When churches boast, “we are here to bless the city” or “bless our community,” and so on, I asked what are they doing to build virtuous men? (other can provide theological information). When I hear crickets I struggle to take them seriously because they seem to not be plugged into reality. This is justice.

Anthony Bradley is an Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at The King’s College, NYC. This commentary is taken from Bradley’s blog, The Institute, and was also published in the Commentary section of WorldMag.com and is used with permission of the author.