Father of the Year

I am father of the year.

I apologize to those who thought they might win, but I clinched the victory in early October.

It was mid-Saturday morning.  I noticed that we were running desperately low on three staples that fuel our household: coffee, bananas, and bread.  Normally, Lindsay does the grocery shopping but today I volunteered.  Adding to my heroism, I also offered to take the kids with me.  So there I was:  Saturday morning after a long, hard week of work and I was taking the kids grocery shopping!  My medal was minted.

I slowly and carefully strapped the navy blue Baby Bjorn^® onto my body and gently placed Max inside.  It had just enough masculinity to prove that I was male, but giving.  Not one of those emasculated types.  I was different.  Next, I pulled out our burnt-orange Bob^® stroller and Rory hopped on.  As anyone who has spent 12 minutes in downtown Bellingham on a Saturday knows, the Bob^® is not feminine at all.  It’s a jogging stroller.  And it rules.  As I began the three block trek, I thought about how much Lindsay deserved this 30 minute respite.  My pride was swelling.  Still, I didn’t realize how great a father I was until I reached Haggen and whipped out my re-useable grocery bags.

No shopper said a word, but their eyes betrayed their thoughts: “Wow! What a Dad!” “Shopping with the Kids? On a Saturday?” “I wish Jim was here to see this.  Unbelievable.”  With no extra purchases, I picked up our supplies and headed home without incident.  Lindsay was so pleased she spent her 30 minutes alone planning my parade and bragging to her friends.  Then she prepared a feast of pork loins in my honor.  I grilled them and watched Rory play in the back yard.

In his book Manhood for Amateurs, Michael Chabon makes the point it doesn’t take much these days for dads to be praised.  The bar is set so low, a trip to grocery store with a kid or two is all it takes.  For him, he was even told outright by a fellow-patron that he was a good dad, she could tell.  Again, all he did was take the kids to the grocery store.  And this was in Berkley, where they’re pretty evolved as far as gender-busting roles are concerned.

Should it come as much of a surprise that a dad taking his kids to grocery store or fulfilling any other domestic duty is a prelude to sainthood?  We live in a country where women have been able to vote for only 100 years.  I don’t know about you but I find that extremely embarrassing.  “You take care of the house honey, leave the important things to me.”

For the complementarian (The male is the head of household and leader of the family.  The women was created by God as a helper to the man), this is ordained by God and written into the very fiber of the created order.  Consider the continental theologian Emil Brunner writing in 1939:

“The man is the one who produces, he is the leader; the woman is receptive, and she preserves life; it is the man's duty to shape the new; it is the woman's duty to write it and adapt it to be that which already exists. The man has to go forth and make the earth subject to him, the woman looks within and guards the hidden unity. The man must be objective and universalize, woman must be subjective and individualize; the man must build, the woman adorns; the man must conquer, the woman must tend; the man must comprehend all with the mind, the woman must impregnate all with the life of her soul. It is the duty of man to plan and to master, of the woman to understand and to unite.”

I pity the interior decorating firm where a female serves as president and CEO and hires a male decorator.  But is this really any different than the Wild at Heart movement started by John Eldredge?  While the book has waned in popularity, the thesis behind it thrives.

Eldredge believes humanity, according to Genesis 1:27, is created in the image of God as male and female.  However, because God does not have corporeality, gender is found at the soul and expressed through the heart.  The desires of a male heart, and thus “maleness”, are to have a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.  Conversely, the woman longs to be fought for, an adventure to share, and a beauty to unveil.  Closely related to this is a pattern of leadership where the man leads and the woman falls in line.  In church-life this means the man preaches and leads and the woman is moved to the side-line where she is encouraged to practice such gifts as hospitality or ministry to other women or children.

Or as a prominent “network” explicitly states in their doctrinal statement:

We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders/pastors should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ.

“Masculine love like Jesus Christ?”  So much for imitatio Christi being equal opportunity. As an egalitarian I wonder what Jesus would have done?  Would Jesus have slapped the bjorn upon his chest and rolled the stroller down the street?  If not, I better give back my trophy.  If he would have, I was simply doing what a man and father who is part of family should do.

Would Jesus have let a women preach?  His first resurrection appearance was to Mary after all.  He also gave her a task—go tell Peter and the other disciples the good news, that he was alive.  Sounds like a fine sermon to me.

Are these “roles” really Biblical?  Can we really argue that what sounds an awful lot like sociology is determinative of what it means to live as a male or female?  I am thankful that I have been surrounded by strong, talented, gifted, and fully human women preachers, professors, elders, mothers, bosses, and friends.  It’s in relation to these women and mostly in serving with such a wife that I recognize and understand my maleness. It’s in relation to these women (or any women for that matter) that I understand what it means to be created in the Image of God, male and female, and thus male or female.  I live my life as a man, husband, and father in an equal encounter with my wife where we walk, live, serve and lead together.