9 of 52, or Time to Stop Reading Parenting Books for a While

Gospel Powered Parenting by William Farley came highly recommended, and the author is a pastor of a Sovereign Grace church in Spokane, so I had high expectations for it. But when I finished reading it, in the car on the way home from Silver Falls, I felt totally bummed out. Going back through the book this morning has been good, because I've realized that the majority of the book was helpful, and it was just a small part that bummed me out so much.

The book pretty neatly divides into three sections. The first two chapters provide the foundational ideas for Farley's thesis. Chapters 3-5 detail the gospel mindset that parents need to adopt, and the remainder of the book looks at some practical applications of the gospel in parenting.

The thesis of Farley's book is that "The gospel is the power of God for parenting...{and} Effective application of the gospel empowers parents to reach their children's hearts" (p. 40). He begins by delineating his assumptions:

{1. Parenting will not be easy, but it will be worthwhile
2.Effective Christian parents are willing to hold God's sovereignty and their responsibility in tension
3. Effective Christian parents assume an offensive mindset (that is, they assume their children are not Christians and aim to set before them the beauty of Christ)
4. Effective Christian parents are shrewd about new birth
5. Effective Christian parents labor to focus their families on God, not on their children}

and defining "parenting" and "gospel," emphasizing that parenting is not primarily about doing the right things, but about having a right relationship with God - one that is informed by the gospel.

In this first section, I especially appreciated Farley's argument that the "primary focus of Christian parenting is not morality," which can foster an ugly self-reliance, but heart transformation.

In the second section, Farley explains what it means for parents to have the fear of God, what it means for God to be holy, and what it means for God to be gracious. I appreciated the review of these key doctrines and Farley's connection of them to parenting.

The remainder of the book offers more practical implications of the gospel for parenting, and overall, I found that I agreed with the majority of his conclusions. First, parents teach through example, and our marriage is the most powerful example we possess. As Paul teaches in Ephesians, the mystery of marriage is profound, and it is a picture of Christ and his church.

While I agreed with Farley's premise here, there was one extremely offensive sentence in this section. "When a husband loves a menopausal (or premenstrual) wife, his behavior says, "Christ loves the church even though she is sinful""(112).

Pause and read that again if you need to.

Really??? Did Farley realize that he just equated menopause with sin? Having PMS is sinful? Is having male pattern baldness is sinful too? Farley, where were your editors, dude? Women may sin while experiencing PMS, but experiencing PMS is not a sin anymore than having a headache is a sin. It's lines like these that make me want to stop reading Christian books altogether.

The next chapter, chapter 7, was the one that bummed me out. And I don't just mean that it made me feel bad - I can deal with feeling bad. It made me angry because its arguments were weak. I'll come back to it in a minute.

Next, Farley argues that the gospel motivates our discipline and becomes the goal of our discipline. I liked what he had to say here about indwelling sin and reaching the heart. He hit the nail on the head when he noted that western culture has an animosity towards authority, and this shows up in our parenting. I struggle with being authoritative personally because I feel like I can always see all sides of every issue, and that leaves me conflicted about exerting authority in areas where I see grey (I remember this from my teaching days).

Farley says our discipline must be consistent. It must be in the context of love. We should reference scripture when appropriate. The discipline should hurt, but we should hold the child until she stops crying. We should rehearse the truths of the gospel, and we should have the child perform restitution.

Obviously, physical punishment is out of vogue right now. (Research has a lot to say about spanking, including a new study from Calvin College.) The only thing that really bothered me in Farley's analysis was his claim that "If a parent does not control with spanking, the only other alternative is the verbal abuse of guilt manipulation or accusation." I totally disagree that those are the only options. While I think spanking can be a valid form of discipline in some cases if done correctly, I think we have lots of other useful tools in our discipline toolbox that should not be neglected.

Finally, Farley writes about the importance of teaching the Bible to your kids, and loving your kids sacrificially, incarnationally, and affectionately. Can't disagree with that.

Now, back to chapter seven, which aims to show that "understanding and applying the gospel motivates and trains fathers to be effective parents." I appreciated Farley's emphasis on the importance of fathers as active parents, and I agree with him that fathers have enormous influence over their children's lives. However, I think in his zeal to motivate fathers, he oversteps. Normally I get angry with parenting books for claiming too much importance to motherhood - ie "Motherhood is your highest calling, the source of your greatest joy" - but here, I got angry with Farley for playing down the importance of mothers.

First, Farley claims that "Fathers are the parents, and their wives are the assistants" (126). To support this, he states Western culture pre-1830 assumed that relationship, and that it was assumed because the Bible addressed its parenting instructions to fathers.

Where does the Bible address parenting instructions to fathers? Farley says that the OT tells a lot of stories about fathers and sons (true, but hardly prescriptive, and probably indicative mostly of Jewish culture). In some of these stories, God holds fathers responsible for their children (are we to assume from this that mothers have no responsibility?). Then Farley says, "the Bible contains few direct instructions to parents. Those few God addresses to fathers. For example, Deuteronomy 6:4-7 says,

4"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Now, maybe there is some context I'm missing here (like Deut 5:1, which says that "Moses summoned all Israel and said to them..."?) but I don't see that this passage is directed to fathers. At all.

Farley goes on. "God holds children responsible to honor both parents, but the command is always in the context of the father's overarching authority. "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land" (Deut 5:16)."

Again, I see nothing in that verse to indicate that the command is "in the context of the father's overarching authority."

His next scriptural proof comes from Proverbs:

"A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother." (10:1)
"A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son despises his mother." (15:20)
"The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother." (29:15)

His commentary: "The idea latent in these passages is that Mom is Dad's assistant. If she fails to carry out his instruction, she will suffer the fruit in her children."

I do not see that idea latent in these proverbs at all. In fact, I think these Proverbs are prime examples of Hebrew parallelism. The first two are examples of synonymous parallelism, in which the same sentiment is repeated in different but equivalent words, and the third is antithetical, in which the parallel members express the opposite sides of the same thought. In other words, these verses are actually equating the father and the mother, not implying that one parent is more important than the other.

Farley is correct in noting that the only two verses instructing parents in the New Testament are directed to fathers (Eph. 6:4 and Col. 3:21).

In sum, though, Farley does not give his claim a strong scriptural foundation.

Next, Farley claims that "God holds fathers accountable for parenting because he has given them inordinate influence over their children" (129). To support this, he does not turn to scripture, but to cultural studies, citing a Swiss study that showed that a "father's spiritual example was the primary tool that shaped his children's desire to embrace his religion". The study, from 1994, was published in The Demographic Characteristics of National Minorities in Certain European States. The article about it which Farley references does not state how wide-reaching the study was or how many participants were involved. In addition, it measures church attendance rather than personal statements of belief. Given these facts, I'm not sure that it's a study to base too many conclusions upon.

Farley uses this study to show that children are more likely to attend church when they grow up if their father attended church. The troubling finding it cites is that children are most likely to attend church if they grow up with a regularly attending father and a non-practicing mother. Farley did not address the implications of this finding, leaving me wondering if it would be better for my children if I was not a practicing Christian!

After arguing that fathers are to be the primary breadwinners, the chief parents, the ones responsible for their children's spirituality, and that children are more likely to grow up to be church-goers if their fathers are and their mothers aren't, Farley kindly gives one line for moms. "In terms of intimacy, care, and nurture - crucial functions - Mom's role is primary." He goes on. "But it is equally true that when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and engagement with the world "out there," he or she looks increasingly to the father for direction." (I think this point is true, but I think it is more a reflection of the way the "traditional" 1950s style family is set up than a reflection of essential truths about men and women.)

In sum. I totally agree with Farley that fathers are crucial in the lives of their children, and that our culture has not done a good job of honoring and supporting fatherhood. However, I don't believe that he makes a good scriptural case for his claims that fathers are the primary parents or that God has given fathers more ("inordinate") influence over children than mothers have. The structure of this chapter is discouraging to mothers, and I think the reader would profit from hearing more than one line about a mother's role. Perhaps this chapter could be re-written and paired with a chapter on "Gospel Mothers" in the second edition.



I know that no one actually reads blog posts that are this long! But I had to write it for my own personal well-being :-)

Today I went to the library and checked out some poetry. I won't be reading any more parenting books until I recover from this one.