Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their Families by Douglas Wilson

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Fatherhood is a holistic role and endeavor. It impacts politics and government, education, vocation, poverty and crime, religion, and more. There is no facet of culture that is not impacted by fatherhood–or its decline.

Douglas Wilson’s Father Hunger is a rousing and convicting call for men to lead their families. Theologically robust yet pastoral and practical, Wilson gets to the heart of the matter in his characteristically direct manner. Like Chesterton, he has a way of looking at an issue from a different perspective and unearthing the basic truths.

An overarching theme of the book is the idea of gratitude. “Masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility” (41). “Gratitude declares the meaning of fatherhood like little else can” (59). Fathers are generous in all things. He shows how the apostle Paul compared not dirty and clean, but dirty and grateful (175).

We oppose sin with a false standard of holiness, and then are surprised at its impotence. But gratitude, thanksgiving, contentment, and joy are always personal, by definition. Jesus is there, and if you thank Him, then that gratitude fills up all the available space. This is the “gratitude displacement” strategy. Scripture teaches that gratitude and thanksgiving are central to a right relationship with God, which in turn is central to a right relationship to the world around us. The fundamental problem with the unregenerate heart and mind is that it will not honor God as God, and will not give Him thanks (Rom. 1:21). Contrary to this, we need to make sure we do both. Confronting sin, we should approach is with gratitude displacement. (176)

I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to baptize his mind in what the biblical worldview has to say about fathers and fatherhood.

Father Hunger Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

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This book was provided by the Publisher through Booksneeze.com for purposes of review.