Denying God's Fatherhood Undermines Human Fatherhood and Well-Being
Source: Casey Chalk. "Denying God's Fatherhood Denies Fathers." August 17, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that when people try to make God gender-neutral or non-masculine, they're missing something important: Jesus always called God 'Father,' and this matters because human fatherhood is supposed to teach us about God's love, protection, and guidance. He claims that many people want to abandon this idea because their own fathers let them down, but doing so just makes things worse—since research shows kids without good father figures struggle more, and humans have a deep need for both earthly and heavenly fathers that can't just be wished away.
Conclusion
Efforts to describe God as nonbinary or genderless (rather than as 'Father') are theologically mistaken and socially harmful, because they sever the connection between divine fatherhood and human fatherhood, ultimately deepening society's fatherlessness crisis and human unhappiness.
Premises
- Jesus consistently and overwhelmingly referred to God as 'Father' (over 150 times across the Gospels), making this the central biblical image for the divine.
- Jesus's respectful treatment of women shows his use of 'Father' was not sexist but intentional and meaningful.
- Human fatherhood is meant to be the primary lens through which people understand God's character (protection, provision, discipline, love, identity-formation).
- Many people reject or reconceive God's fatherhood because they have experienced absent, broken, or harmful relationships with their own fathers, given high rates of father absence, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce.
- Children without father figures suffer documented harms: worse academic performance, more behavioral problems, cognitive delays, and higher social costs.
- Rejecting God as Father in response to bad human father experiences is analogous to avoiding something beneficial (like exercise or relationships) because of a past negative experience, which ultimately increases harm rather than resolving it.
- Humans are inherently designed for communion with fathers, both earthly and heavenly, so denying this need doesn't eliminate it but leads to greater alienation and brokenness.
Assumptions
- That the traditional Christian understanding of God as literally best-described by masculine paternal imagery is correct and normative, rather than merely one culturally conditioned metaphor among many.
- That human psychological and social needs for fatherhood are evidence of a metaphysical or theological truth about God's nature, rather than simply a sociological pattern.
- That people who advocate for gender-neutral or feminine language for God are primarily doing so out of personal pain or political motives rather than legitimate theological reasoning.
- That correlation between father absence and negative child outcomes implies a causal link specifically to how God is described/worshipped, rather than being a separate socioeconomic phenomenon.
- That there is a single, universally valid concept of 'good fatherhood' that maps consistently onto theological claims about God across cultures and eras.