Our Men’s Ministry Collision Course met this past Sunday, March 18, 2012. We discussed this video from Desiring God entitled, What is Father Hunger?
Here’s a transcript of the interview:
Scott Anderson: So Doug, tell me about this phrase I’ve heard you write about on your blog and talk about before, Father Hunger. What do you mean by that and what are you trying to get at using that phrase?
Doug Wilson: What I mean is that when, when fathers abdicate, when fathers are not fathers, when fathers don’t exhibit the kind of backbone their wives and their children need them to exhibit, there’s a natural and built-in creational need that his wife and his children need him to exhibit but he’s not exhibiting. They need him to give them something that he’s not giving to them. And when he—famished nature will be avenged—when you withhold from your children the praise that children ought to receive from their father, when you withhold from them a love that they ought to get from their father, when you withhold from them provision they ought to get from their father, they have a deep awareness that something’s missing.
Now, oftentimes, because of how they’ve grown up they don’t know what it is exactly. They can’t pinpoint what the problem is but they are highly susceptible to political demagogues, they are susceptible to counterfeit forms of masculinity, screaming at rock stars, people who exhibit some sort of machismo, some sort of strength, people gravitate to that not knowing why they do. They’ll fall for the promises of a paternalistic state: “I’ll take care of you; I’ll provide everything you need.” And that’s all driven by father hunger. Feminism is driven by father hunger. Many people think feminism is the desire to have men go away. I think fundamentally feminism is the deep angst over men not showing up.
After showing this video to the men, we discussed the examples of Abraham (Genesis 22:5), Job (Job 1:5) and Paul’s commands to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 16:13-14). We asked men two questions:
1) What do the examples of Abraham and Job teach us?
2) In what area(s) do you need to “act like a man”?
We closed in prayer with men praying at tables with one another over these things.