Ungodly Influences
The influence of Unitarianism and early feminism, certain adverse effects of the industrial revolution, and the abandonment of the old Reformation view of the family all contributed to the decline of fatherhood in America.
The result, for the first time in the history of the church, was the gradual transfer of spiritual training responsibilities from the father to the mother.
Generations later, few Christian fathers even know how to begin the process of shepherding their children and leading their families in the ways of God.
Visionless Churches
The tragedy gets worse. Though many of us would firmly stand for the proposition that good doctrine leads to sound living, the fact is that rebellious children, broken homes, and vision-less fathers are every bit as present in the Reformed community as the Dispensational.
Even among our most cherished church leaders it has become the exception to find happy, unbroken homes which radiate the love of Jesus, where the children call the parents blessed, where the mother is a content keeper at home, and where the father practices daily family worship.
Like “righteous Lot” who stood in the very gates of Sodom vexing daily, but who did nothing about it (and who lost some of his beloved children to the consuming fire which destroyed the city), many men lament and grieve over the state of affairs, but they lack the vision and the courage to reprioritize their lives such that they can cry out for the hearts of their children, communicate a multigenerational vision of faithfulness, and see their households established on the promises of God.
Few men have the passion of Job who rose every morning to cry out to God on behalf of his children (Job 1:5).
Our "Vision and Hope"
At Cornerstone Bible Church we would like to address this problem. Our "Vision" is that the Lord would use this fellowship to be a community for communicating a vision of victory to Christian families.
At the heart of the message we share is a commitment to see the wedding of orthodoxy and orthopraxy among the people of God. Sound doctrine and sound living must come together.
We can preach the covenant and the sovereignty of God until we are blue in the face, but if we allow our children to be educated by Canaanites, if we encourage our daughters to pursue a careerist philosophy, if we fail to make our homes economically vital, hospitable centers for love and learning, we are hypocrites.
Not surprisingly, the scriptural warning against such hypocrisy is specifically given within the context of the family. If we have not taught our wives and daughters to love children and be “keepers at home” then we are “blasphemers” (Tit. 2); if we have not trained our men to be providers, then we are “worse than infidels” (1 Tim. 5).
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