The National Crisis of Fatherlessness

Every social crisis we face can be traced back to the same absent figure.

Over 18 million children in the U.S. grow up without a biological father in the home—that’s nearly one in four. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, children from fatherless homes are:

• 4 times more likely to live in poverty.
• 7 times more likely to become pregnant as teenagers.
• Twice as likely to suffer from obesity.
• More than twice as likely to drop out of school.
• And in some studies, as much as 85% of youth in prison come from fatherless homes.

Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor, saw this danger centuries ago: “Keep up family duties constantly; if they are well done, you will have little cause to complain of public neglect. For he that prays daily with his family, shall have a church in his house.”

When fathers forsake that call, it’s not just the home that unravels. It’s the nation.

The Biblical Mandate

God’s design was never complicated.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

That’s the assignment. Fathers are to lead spiritually, discipline faithfully, and teach intentionally. Psalm 78 reminds us to pass the faith down to our children and to our children’s children.

John Owen put it plainly: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” The father’s first duty is to wage war against sin—first in himself, then in his household.

Fathers aren’t optional accessories to the family. They’re covenantal representatives, living pictures of God’s authority, protection, and provision. When fathers disappear, chaos doesn’t just creep in, it storms in. But when godly fathers stand firm, the effects ripple through generations.

And the stats back it up. Research shows that when a father actively practices his faith, about 70% of his children will remain in church as adults. But when only the mother does, that number drops to 15% or less. Fathers aren’t just influential—they’re decisive.

When Fathers Fail, Nations Crumble

History bears this out. Cultures collapse when family order collapses. Rome decayed long before the barbarians stormed its gates. Weimar Germany produced broken men long before Hitler offered them a counterfeit vision of strength.

Today, gangs act as substitute fathers. Activists and celebrities pretend to be surrogate dads. Politicians promise to “care” for the children while pushing policies that weaken the family even more.

Here’s the sobering reality: fatherlessness costs America over $100 billion every year in lost productivity, welfare, crime, and healthcare. But the true cost can’t be measured in dollars. It’s measured in souls.

And here’s the harder truth: even churches have failed. Too many pulpits avoid preaching on manhood, fatherhood, and responsibility because they fear offending fragile ears. But God never soft-pedals this truth. The health of the home determines the health of the nation.

Thomas Watson warned of this spiritual cowardice: “Ministers must not be silenced, but sinners must be silenced. It is cruelty to the soul to let people go sleeping in their sin and never to tell them.” If that’s true of preachers in the pulpit, how much more of fathers in their homes?

Hope for Restoration

Now, let me be clear—I wasn’t a perfect father. I made mistakes. I still do. But God’s grace covered my failures. His Word gave me a map when I was lost. And the prayers of a faithful wife and the hand of a sovereign God carried our family through seasons we could not have survived on our own.

That same grace is available to every man reading this.

The call isn’t to despair. It’s to repent. To step back into the role God has assigned. To lead your family, to protect your children, to disciple the next generation. You don’t have to be a hero to the world. Just be a father in your home. That alone would change the nation. That’s the thing about fatherhood—it echoes into eternity.

by Virgil Walker, serves on pastoral staff of Redeemer Bible Church, Gilbert AZ; popular podcaster and author; and blogs at Sola Veritas

You Become What You Read

We’ve all heard, “You are what you eat,” the principle being that your diet determines what you become. The same holds true for your reading intake. Like the plate, the page shapes us. If you imagine each book like a meal and each article a light snack, what you consume and digest day in and day out, over years and decades, molds your character. So, how do reading habits sculpt you into a particular kind of person?

Whom You Hang With

First, we must realize that though we often read by ourselves, we never read alone. When you open up a book, you sit down with an author. The book is fundamentally a technology of conversation; it fosters the meeting of minds across time and space. The written word captures something of the author and, when read, conjures him. “All writers, by the way they use language, reveal something of their spirits, their habits, their capacities, and their biases. . . . All writing is communication . . . it is the Self escaping into the open” (The Elements of Style, 97–98). In short, when you read, you hang out with an author.

This insight enables us to bring to bear the pervasive biblical principle that you become whom you hang out with. Your companions stamp their imprint on you. Habitually hanging with bad company will sand away the contours of good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33). On the other hand, when holy ones congregate, their love and good works spread like a good contagion (Hebrews 10:24–25).

Proverbs may have the most to say about the transformative power of companions. Befriend a wise man and end up wise; loiter around fools and you will contract folly (Proverbs 13:20). And Jesus says that everyone who follows a teacher — that is, watches his way of life and receives his words — will become like him for good or evil (Luke 6:40). This is the essence of reading. As Mortimer Adler explains, “Reading is learning from an absent teacher” (How to Read a Book, 16).

So, if our companions and teachers shape us, and if in every book an author offers us such company, is it any wonder books hold the magic that can make or break us, that can mold us into a Eustace or a Lewis? Yet we still have not said how this enchantment works. How do we become what we read? The books we read have a twofold effect: They train our desires and frame the way we perceive reality.

Books Condition Desires

“The diet of books we consume and the companionship of their authors change the way we see the world.” Books put pressure on our desires. They can teach us to want well or to want poorly, but none is neutral. Like living companions, authors act as mediators of desire; unlike them, they wield the particularly potent magic of the written word, inviting us to enter into their experiences, to participate in their worlds, to live with their characters, and to test-drive their worldviews. Books make the man because books catechize desires.

Books Frame Reality

The stories we embrace define us. Narrative scholars commonly assert that the stories we choose to read define who we are, but we also become the products of the stories we read. Stories reflect individual identity and have the power to modify it. This is also true for societies and nations. Stories form a chief means through which groups codify, preserve, and pass on their beliefs and values. (Recovering the Lost Art of Reading, 71)

Books put us face to face with authors. And every author presupposes things about man, the world, and God before the pen ever touches the page. Never neutral, they “do more than present human experiences; they interpret them” (Recovering the Lost Art, 59). Over time, the diet of books we consume and the companionship of their authors change the way we see the world. They can shrink our vision to almost nothing or expand it immeasurably. They can warp or straighten, drain or fill, color or desaturate.

Books provide the habitual furniture of the mind. They frame reality.

Befriend Good Books

How do books shape us? They shape us by putting us in close proximity to their authors — men and women who make certain things desirable, who see the world in a particular way, who are never neutral. In the pages of their books, we sit with them and eat from their table. We dwell with them. Alan Jacobs summarizes the effect well: “To dwell habitually with people is inevitably to adopt their way of approaching the world, which is a matter not just of ideas but also of practices” (How to Think, 63).

So, my friend, be careful what you read. Don’t malnourish your imagination. Don’t glut your passions. Attend to your diet. Single meals are not as important as habitual trends. A Twinkie (that fitness post on Instagram, that rant on Facebook, that thriller novel) is fine every once in a while; it might kill you if that’s all you eat. What to read comes down to maturity, discernment, and wise counsel. Your choice of companions is a matter of life and death (Proverbs 12:26). So choose wisely. Befriend good books.

This abbreviated article is by Clinton Manley is an editor for Desiring God and an adjunct instructor for Bethlehem College and Seminary. He and his wife, Mackenzie, have three children and live in Saint Paul.