I only caught a fraction of the interview with Gordon Dalbey - but what an insightful fraction it was!

I am constantly amazed at God's timing as I only very occassionally tune into the show, but the topic tonight was close to home ... I'm going through a pretty rough time at the moment, struggling to keep a marriage together let alone happy and healthy.

Some of the issues Gordon discussed really rang true to my circumstances - there are arguments aplenty in my marriage, and inevitably it will always be my wife coming on very strongly. And sure enough, I'd be the one to lapse into a dead quietness, to the point where after several minutes of constantly being yelled at, I would actually retreat - I'd leave the room, the house, anything, just avoid what was happening.

I know it's the wrong option (I've known that for years!) - but I've never had an example to show me otherwise. I was brought up by my mother, never knowing my father, and only ever having my mother's seasonal boyfriends as 'role models'. I didn't know how to otherwise act - and to some degree, I probably still don't. It's a journey I'm still on - I just hope that the damage that's been done through my neglect of my marriage is not irrepareable.

I'll be sure to pick up a copy of one of Gordon's books tomorrow. And with prayer, humility and a changed perspective, I hope I can salvage my marriage and my family, and make it stronger than it's ever been.

The Lord is faithful.

As a husband and father of nine sons between the ages of 4 and 29 understanding what it means to be a man in any context is important. More important though if your a Christian father because the integration point is upward then downward then outward.

God communicates with the human intellect and this is why the Bible says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he," (my version). Geoffery Bingham wrote some great material on this subject particularly what is meant by 'one flesh' mentioned in the creation account.

The significance of the heterosexual bond is shown here where Man (capitals) is defined both male and female together. In this bond the image of God is exemplified and physically visible to our children. We have twelve sons' and daughters who will tell you what I have mentioned here with intellectual integrity and biblcal backup (maybe 9 of them).

Unfortunately the absence of a father in the family unit means the fulness of God (image) cannot be seen in this physical way. God has other ways beyond our finite thinking but ideally the complete family unit of father mother and siblings is God's preferred way. Obviously the gay couple thinking about adoption will not have access to this kind of thinking and therefore will have next to no resistance in doing what they desire to do from the Christian court.

Where the heterosexual couple exemplify the 'oneness' of Man, the gay couple can only exemplify a distortion of what we must call truth. Truth because either we begin with God or we begin in the chance section of postmodernism particluarly existentialism. Their position is opposite the biblical philosophic position and is therefore an anti-philosophy because it is not with a view to the continuity of the human race. They simply cannot pro-create no matter how hard they think they can.

Understanding the despair here is also most important for Christian's and anyone else who attempts to address these things. But Christian's must apply intellectual clout to the biblical propositions because any compromise here would land us in the chance section. To merely say this is right or this is wrong will not suffice in our information hungry world. They want to know how the Christian can be sure about what they think they know about their world is right.

Take the Bible out of scoeity and what tells man he is man? Science says we are either machines, accidents. or chemicals, not a single living soul. Furthermore they tell us through our education system at every level. Even Christian schools by law must teach this impersonal final reality alongside their Christian 'personal infinite creator God system. Unless fathers like myself understand what confronts them as a total context in the way people reason today. They will soon realise how difficult it can be to make sense to our children.

I grew up in a modernistic framework that applied optimistic humanistic thinking as the only way forward for humanity. When they realised the finiteness of man, they became skeptics and modern man was born. The postmodernist (Rousseau) rejected the loss of humanity rejecting even the human rational. He felt the Rennaissance took more away from man than it gave him. So postmodernism was born as a rejction of the loss of humanity in modernity.

Modernity functioned upon a romantic Christian memory (absolutes) which is another reason why modernity failed. It lacked absolutes because it began with what finite men and women could derive from themselves. So postmodernism is epitomised by its concept of truth where two opposites are fuse together into a synthesis called a higher truth (Hegel). Christianity gave man a 'yes' and 'no' framework and modernity applied a romantic version of this untill it died. In postmodernism the most important thing for parents to understand is that the default framework everywhere is, 'yes' and 'yes'. The danger here is to think that our Christian children are immune from the effects of this context because they are Christians.

However even the best Christian schools in Australia by law must teach a contrary system to the Bible. Why because all the sciences claim to know the origins of everything. Accidents (Darwin), machines (Monod/Frued), and chemicals (Sade). This poses two questions the Christian youth particularly must comfront if they expect meaningful dialogue with their non-Christian world. Unless they know where they non-Christian world reasons their will be no communication. More importantly though is that many of our Christian youth cannot apply intellectual integrity when confronted by contrary systems. And so again meaningful dialogue becomes nigh on impossible when the opposite should be true.

If Christian's understand the 'yes' and 'yes' framework then we can also understand what questions arise out of such thinking. We can sit at the well like Jesus and have meaningful dialogue because we understand what comfronts our non-Christian world as Jesus did in his time. Jesus knew what confronted him in that time and we are to know what confronts us today if we are to resist the spirit of the world in our time. Even more important obviously for the Christian father otherwise we will leave our youth with a mountain to high to contemplate.

One reason these impersonal systems are so dominant today is that their has been a serious lack of intellectual thinking in the Christian world. The Bible says, "As a person thinks in their heart, so are they." It is the intellect of this postmodern world that we must address if we are to be taken seriously as an answer to the world's problems. Secular thought cannot understand the postmodern context because essentially is is a Christian issue. It means people once reasoned upon the biblical framework (absolutes) for appraoching truth and knowledge.

Today they reason upon Hegel's dialectic where the two opposites find a unity in synthesis rather than providing opposite values which gave people certainty of knowledge. This is right or this is wrong as opposed to truth is whatever I think it is which is the postmodern post-Christian way. We the Christian have not only lost the consensus we have lost the God concept in society so much so that abortion and the like are legal ethical means to a relative end. If we say nothing as Christian's we are reminded that God will not be mocked. But we must say the right things and answer the questions that arise with mathematical certainty from these systems. If not then we shall be speaking largely to ourselves. Imagine the job our children will have if we miss this important aspect of human thinking. Our world do not begin where we the Christian begins. If we think they do then we should not be surprised at the funny looks we get from them. To make statements about sin and morality to our post-Christian society would mean the Christian is immoral because truth today is relative which is opposite that of the Bible definition. If I don't make sense to anyone here i think the heart of a father and of the Father can be seen if one looks hard enough...

God is here and He is not silent but has spoken to man in propositonal verbalised reveltaion the bible and through the testimony of Jesus our Lamb.....quote by Francis A Schaeffer.

God Bless