“Man-Up” Campaigns and God the Father
This week, I was made aware of a renowned pastor in this area (and there are many of them in Texas) who is encouraging black men to “man-up,” and become fathers to their children, and husbands to “their” women.
I have heard these lines before. These “man-up” campaigns, usually from a Promise-Keepers like event or maybe a special sermon dedicated to the topic, or perhaps its a presentation at a local high school, where we black men get to hear a lecture about what it means to be a man and join the great cloud of witnesses to the middle class cult of respectability. The darker side of these “man-up” campaigns–with rants about how young black men, who have a reputation to be more criminal and undisciplined, just need a “man” in the house, a man, as in an authoritarian, angry, and more-likely to use physical violence called spanking in order to force black teenage boys to get their act together. Sorta like a police officer.
I have always been under the impression, as a Christian, that the best model of fatherhood comes from YHWH, who we refer to sometimes as God the Father. Really, what does it even mean to be a “strong black man” apart from an understanding of YHWH as our strength. I say this as a male who is not currently a father, but as a Christian thinker. When Christians recognize God as Father, they confess that the Father has children, and the manner in which God deals with his Chosen Heir, Christ Jesus can serve as a paradigm for Christian theologies of parenting. Right now, I would say that the “strong manly man master” model is inconsistent with the canon and Tradition as they witness to the Fatherhood of God. I am already aware of the criticism, about substitutionary atonement (or any blood atonement) as God being that divine child abuser in the sky. However, I have already made my exegetical response here elsewhere as to why I don not affirm substitution, and prefer the language of Christ as representative and Victor to be consistent with the Gospel’s testimony.
Maleness, anthropologically understood in the contemporary United States, has a close association with violence, in the name of “toughness,” shouting in monologues, as the father behaves in a colonizing manner. In a word, being daddy means domination, no matter how gently we try to hide the meaning and function of our worldly understanding of the role of fathers. One of my favorite quotes from writer bell hooks, in salvation: black people and love, “Mature decolonized black men know love is the healing force that allows true freedom. They know that loving males and females, together or alone, can chart the path to self-actualization for black boys and lost black men seeking to find their way home.” (page 152). Fatherhood, in the story of Christianity, begins with the one Father and God of creation who sends his Son. The Father informs his children of a mission, that their purpose is greater than what society has determined for them. In a white racist society, the culture tells young black men that they are destined from the womb, that they are meant for the prison system or the football field. And so from day one, such as in the lunch room as kindergartener, hall monitors and cafeteria workers sound more like wardens and prison guards.
The Father God, who works within covenant and in love, behaves in a starkly different manner. God the Father becomes strong for the “least of these.” As Leonardo Boff puts it, “The Father is most present in those whose daughter- and sonship is most denied and downtrodden” (Trinity and Society, 177).
In order to free American nationalistic notions of fatherhood, we must come to realize that the God of the Bible is the Father who governs in weakness, who sides with the lowly as part of God’s being relational. I have seen this model of being a father in a number of my friends who are clergy and Christian laypersons, including Optymystic Chad himself. It gives me hope for a more loving future.
