Fathers Day in America

Yes, today is Father’s Day in America.  The following is sent to you to help us both remember what it means to be a father and to have a father:

Ron

U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and other agencies report that children from fatherless homes are:

• Five times more likely to live in poverty;

• Nine times more likely to drop out of school;

• Twenty times more likely to go to in prison;

• Higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse;

• Increased incidents of internalized and externalized aggressive behavioral problems;

• Greater chance of runaways and homelessness;

• Twice as likely to commit suicide. 

In an effort to recognize the importance of a father in the home, several “Father’s Day” services were celebrated:

One was organized by Grace Golden Clayton, who on July 5, 1908, arranged a church service to honor all fathers, in memory of her father who was a Methodist minister in West Virginia.

Another event was celebrated June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.

Sonora Louise Smart Dodd heard a church sermon on the newly established Mother’s Day and wanted to honor her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who had raised six children by himself after his wife died in childbirth.

Sonora Louise Smart Dodd drew up a petition supported by the Young Men’s Christian Association and the ministers of Spokane to celebrate Fathers’ Day.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson spoke at a Spokane Fathers’ Day service.

On December 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt addressed Congress:

“No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the to-morrow.”

Roosevelt continued:

“The prime duty of the man is to work, to be the breadwinner; the prime duty of the woman is to be the mother, the housewife.  All questions of tariff and finance sink into utter insignificance when compared with the tremendous, the vital importance of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of the man and of the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable circumstances.”

In 1972, President Nixon established Father’s Day as a permanent national observance (Proclamation 4127), stating:

“To have a father, to be a father is to come very near the heart of life itself. In fatherhood we know the elemental magic and joy of humanity.  In fatherhood we even sense the divine, as the Scriptural writers did who told of all good gifts corning ‘down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning’ (James 1:17); symbolism so challenging to each man who would give his own son or daughter a life of light without shadow.”

Nixon added:

“Our identity in name and nature, our roots in home and family, our very standard of manhood, all this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us.  It has long been our national custom to observe each year one special Sunday in honor of America’s fathers; and from this year forward, by a joint resolution of the Congress approved April 24, 1972, that custom carries the weight of law.  Let each American make this Father’s Day an occasion for renewal of the love and gratitude we bear to our fathers, increasing and enduring through all the years.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby request that June 18, 1972, be observed as Father’s Day.”

On May 20, 1981, in a Proclamation of Father’s Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:

“‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,’ Solomon tells us (Proverbs 22:6).   Clearly, the future is in the care of our parents. Such is the responsibility, promise, and hope of fatherhood. Such is the gift that our fathers give us.”

Dr. Ben Carson explained:

“The more solid the family the more likely you are to be able to resist peer pressure. Human beings are social creatures. We all want to belong, we all have that desire, and we will belong, one way or another. If the family doesn’t provide that, the peers will, or a gang will, or you will find something to belong to.”

On Father’s Day, 1988, Ronald Reagan said:

“Children, vulnerable and dependent, desperately need security, and it has ever been a duty and a joy of fatherhood to offer it.  Being a father requires strength and more than a little courage to persevere, to fight discouragement, and to keep working for the family.”

Reagan ended:

“Let us express our thanks and affection to our fathers, whether we can do so in person or in prayer.”

U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall commented on Marxist social deconstruction (20 Centuries of Great Preaching Vol. 12 Waco: Word, 1971 p. 11-19):

“The history of the world has always been the biography of her great men.  There was a time in these United States when youth was inspired by (heroes), when a picture of Washington or Lincoln adorned every school room wall, along with the ponderous Family Bible on the Victorian table and the hymn books on the old-fashioned square piano, there looked down from the walls the likenesses of our national heroes.

Those were the days of great beliefs, belief in the authority of the Scriptures, belief that prayer was really answered, belief in marriage and the family as permanent institutions, belief in the integrity and worth of America’s great men.  These beliefs laid the groundwork for producing more great men, for many a boy figured, “If that man could do it, get an education, make his life count for something, then I can too'”

Marshall continued:

“Then there dawned the day when the pictures of Washington and Lincoln did not fit in with our concept of modern décor. The old Family Bible looked embarrassingly out of place.  So, the pictures and the Bible were often relegated to the Attic of Forgotten Things.  There went with them some of the most stabilizing influences of American life.  We had become a more sophisticated people, somewhat cynical of the cherished beliefs of our ancestors, rather blasé, frankly skeptical of old-fashioned sentimentalism.

Along with our higher education came a debunking contest. This debunking became a sort of national sport.  It was smarter to revile than to revere, more fashionable to depreciate than to appreciate.  In our classrooms at all levels of education, no longer did we laud great men, those who had struggled and achieved. Instead, we merely took their dimensions and ferreted out their faults.

We decided that it was silly to say God sent them for a special task. They were merely  products of their environments.  The Constitution, that hitherto cherished charter of American liberties, was drawn up by men who never spoke on a telephone or flew in a plan therefore, we should change the Constitution to suit modern ways.”

Senate Chaplain Marshall added that sons and daughters need courageous fathers to defend them against predatory agendas:

“We failed to realize that when we were denying the existence of great men, we were also denying the desirability of great men.  So now, many of our children have grown up without the guiding star holding in their hands, only a bunch of question marks, with no keys with which to open the doors of knowledge and life.  The young no longer had any particular ambition to become heroes. Their ambition now was to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, in whatever way was most convenient.

Thus, our debunking is a sign of decaying foundations of character to the individual and in the national life. We who are Christians, believe that God gives the world a few great men to lead the rest of us closer to Him, that to depreciate or to deny their greatness is to deny one of God’s revelations of Himself to mankind.  The heroes the Christian cherishes were (or are) human. They have their weakness. Their faults are well-known to their friends, better known to themselves. But the point is that with God and His guidance, they can provide the moral leadership that our nation so sorely needs.

America needs heroes on the battlefield of everyday life, in our homes, in our schools, on college campuses, in offices and factories, who can lead us towards a return to idealism. For time is running out for us.”

U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall concluded:

The call today is for Christian heroes and heroines who are willing to speak a good word for Jesus C”hrist, who are willing to live by the undiluted values of Christian morality in the pagan atmosphere of our society surrounded by lewdness, pornography, and profanity. This may be a higher bravery than that of any battlefield: to face ridicule, sarcasm, sneering disdain for what one believes to be right.  To fight for goodness and right, fighting the battle first in our own hearts and souls, seeking God’s help to overcome our particular temptations for the sake of peace, for the sake of America, for our own sake, and yes, for God’s sake.”

In 1942, General MacArthur was named Father of the Year. He stated:

“By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact.  But I am prouder. infinitely prouder to be a father.

A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life.

And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still.

It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, ‘Our Father Who Art in Heaven.'”

MacArthur composed “A Father’s Prayer”.  Please read it while thinking of yourself and your father:

“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail …

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously.

Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.'”