“One of the toughest challenges Pastor Corey Brooks deals with on the South Side of Chicago is fatherlessness. For better or worse, the pastor has become a father figure to many youths in the neighborhood where approximately 80% of the homes do not have a father. He teaches them how to look someone in the eye and give a firm handshake. He makes them sweep the floors and wash the windows before he hands them a dollar, to teach them the value of earning. He meets with wayward kids and often spends hours counseling them back onto the straight path. There are those Americans who look at the pastor and the kids surrounding him and dismiss it as a ‘black’ problem. They lecture him that the culture needs to change and that it begins in the home. The pastor never disagrees, for he bears direct witness to these social ills. But what he disagrees with is that this is just a ‘black’ problem. Fatherlessness affects all Americans and continues to worsen with each passing year. According to the Census Bureau, approximately 89% of the ‘post-war generation’ grew up with a mother and father who were married to each other. That number has fallen today to approximately 68%. The Department of Education reports that 39% of all American students enrolled in grades one through 12 live in homes absent their biological fathers. While the number of fatherless children remains unacceptably high among blacks nationwide at approximately 56%, according to the Census Bureau, the numbers have risen significantly for other races. Approximately 31% of Hispanic children and approximately 21% of white children do not live with their biological fathers. According to data the Department of Justice released in 1998, children from fatherless homes accounted for 63% of youth suicides, 90% of all homeless and runaway youths, 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders, 71% of all high school dropouts, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 75% of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers and 75% of rapists motivated by displaced anger. These statistics are likely worse today.”
“Rooftop Revelations,” Fox News, Dec. 30, 2021
CONCLUDING NOTE: The fatherless problem is a product of many things, including (1) the spiritual powerlessness of churches, (2) the attraction and negative power of the hip-hop culture, (3) the poor moral example of a great many black leaders, secular and ecclesiastical, and (4) the character-destroying influence of the welfare state.
(Friday Church News Notes, January 7, 2022, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)