Father's Day and Sustainability

It was Father's Day this past Sunday and it was good to be with extended family and children on that day. With the bankruptcy of GM and the talk of needing 'greener' cars, the high price of oil this past year, the debates about wind and nuclear power, climate change, and so on sustainability is all very much top of mind as well. However, still this few days after Father's Day I am thinking and wondering more about the sustainability of fatherhood in our culture. Perhaps it is bigger than that, an issue of moral sustainability.

In the news today Governor Sanford admitted he had been missing the past week due to an affair with a woman in Argentina. A few days ago Senator Ensign admitted to an affair with a staff member and gave up leadership roles. Both are conservative Republicans, the party less reputed for supporting such behavior. Of course, many in both parties have had the same problem, as does culture in general. Something like 40% of all children are now born out of wedlock in the U.S. , up to 70% among African Americans. The family itself is looking to be not very sustainable, regardless of what happens to Father's Day.


I heard in a sermon recently that something like 60% of kids who are active in church youth programs leave the church entirely when they graduate from high school and go off to college. These are not all kids, these are the ones that show up regularly and participate. This is clearly an unsustainable approach to building the next generation of Christians.

The Southern Baptist Convention is meeting this week in Louisville, KY, and the news there is glum; church membership and baptisms are falling. If the rate continues, the denomination will be half its current size in another 30 years or so. Unsustainable.

All of this is symptomatic to me of moral unsustainability. Someone has said that we are living on the fumes of prior generations morals, our own moral gas tanks having long since gone empty. The results seem to support that. We attempt to honor Father's Day while abandoning marriage and leaving our children with no father in the home. We think marriage is only about our own personal satisfaction so we cannot distinguish between so-called 'gay marriage' and the real thing. We do not live our faith daily so our children run away from the church at the first opportunity.

Rev. Johnny Hunt at the SBC Convention says we need revival. That is true, but it doesn't go far enough. We need to be actually living the faith, having it as our own. We need to be fueled with our own personal walk with God, not trying to live on the fumes left from the faith of prior generations. Nothing else will ever be sustainable.