Why Father’s Day Should Be Bigger

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Boover Show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. I don't know if this is a hot topic, but it should be a hot topic. It should be something we're talking about a lot more, and that is Father's Day. We've got an obvious uh problem in the culture with a lack of fatherhood, but I do think it's coming back. I think there's a lot of good things happening, movements in the church and and uh men's groups and um people just looking for stronger fathers, not running from masculinity anymore, but actually wanting more of that. Well, with us to talk about it today, Bill Federer. We're always glad to have Bill on the program. Bill, thanks for joining us today. Oh, thank you, Rick. You got you've got, I think you have a book on just about every topic ever known to man. How many books have you written now?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

It was about 30.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

30 books. I I I I've got five, and it took like drained me every time I did one. I don't know how you do it, bro. Um, but Father's Day, let's talk about it. It's coming

Fatherlessness Stats And First Father’s Day

SPEAKER_02 1:05

up in uh about a week from the time this interview is gonna air. So uh what's the history of that and and uh what's a good way for families to be celebrating that?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Well, the uh U.S. Department of Health and Humans Hearst Services says that fatherless homes, the children are five times more likely to live in poverty, nine times more likely to drop out of school, 20 times more likely to go to prison, higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse, uh, increased incidence of internalized aggressive behavioral problems, runaways, homelessness, and suicide. So fathers are important. Uh the first Father's Day was conceived by Grace Golden Clayton. Uh, she was inspired by the first Mother's Day observance in 1908. Uh she um uh reminisced of her father, who was a Methodist minister and who raised her and her siblings after the mom died. So Grace uh Clayton uh was moved to West Virginia, and there was a coal mine explosion December 6, 1907, worst coal mine disaster in the nation's history. Uh, in the town of a thousand people, 360 men died, leaving the families fatherless. So she arranged a single special service at the Central United Methodist Church July 5th, 1908, saying it was partly the explosion that set me to think how important and loved most fathers are. All those lonely children, those broken-hearted wise mothers made orphans, widows in a matter of a few minutes. How sad and frightening to have no father, no husband to turn to at such an awful time. Um, so that was uh Grace Clayton that organized that Father's Day celebration, 19 uh eight. Um, but then we go to the person most credited for Father's Day is Sonora Luis Smart Dodd. And Sonora, she heard a Mother's Day sermon at church, and her father was a Civil War veteran who raised six kids after the mom had died in childbirth. So Sonora Luis Smart Dodd drew up a petition which was supported by the Young Men's Christian Association in Spokane, Washington. Uh, I wrote a book on the history of the YMCA with my son uh called Courageous Christianity.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

But I remember that's a good stuff, Anna, man. I love that one. Yes. That was just last year, right? Or year before. Yeah, last year.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah. And the YMCA was like where the revivals took place. They had continual prayer meetings. They had rooms for prayer and Bible study, and you know, now it's it focused most mostly on exercise, but back then it was mostly on prayer. So the YMCA in Spokane had the celebration of Father's Day on June 19th, 1910. And with the help of the YMCA, Sonora spread this across the nation the third Sunday in June, uh, Oregon, Chicago, around, and then finally in 1916, it gathered so much momentum that Woodrow Wilson uh telegraphed the Mescuit message to the Spokane Father's Day service. 1924, Calvin Coolidge signed a Father's Day resolution to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children, to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations. Coolidge said, My father had qualities that were greater than any I possess. He was a man of untiring industry, great tenacity of purpose. Uh, he always stuck to the truth, always seemed possible to form an unerring judgment of men and things. He would be classed as decidedly a man

How Father’s Day Went National

SPEAKER_01 4:30

of character. I have no doubt he is representative of a great mass of Americans who are known only to their neighbors. Nevertheless, they're great. And then Coolidge goes on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

I I I've always ranked Coolidge high because he was such a constitutionalist. I had no idea he would had something to do with Father's Day.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah. And um, but uh then you sort of fast forward, and maybe not somebody that's a really good example. Uh Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential Father's Day proclamation. Uh I don't gonna comment on him. I'll I'll let him get it.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Well, you know, Bill, actually think about it. That I've I've the one thing I've bragged on Barack Obama about, right? He was so bad and so wrong on so many things as president, but he did talk about fatherhood. I didn't realize I could I can now say that about Lyndon Johnson because I couldn't think of anything else nice to say about him. So he did a Father's Day proclamation. So now I have one nice thing, thank you, that I can say about uh Lyndon Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, that was 1966. And then 1972, uh Nixon established Father's Day as a permanent national observance. Proclamation 4127. So Richard Nixon, um, believe it or not, he was the most popular president in America, uh, winning re-election by a huge landslide. He was anti-communist with everything. Uh, but then there was the um the Watergate. And um he ended up uh defending some underlings who had broken into a building. And now they found out that the underlings who broke into the buildings were actually connected with the CIA. So it maybe looks like the whole thing was a setup, but nevertheless, he defended him and uh he never got impeached. He just resigned uh on the threat of impeachment. But prior to that, he was really popular. And so uh Nixon established Father's Day as a permanent national observance. He said to have a father, to be a father, is to come very near to the heart of life itself. In fatherhood, we know the elemental magic and joy of humanity. In fatherhood, we even sense the divine, as the scripture writers did, who told of all the good gifts coming, quote, down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variables, neither shadow of turning, James 117. Symbolism so challenging to each man who would give his own son or daughter a life of light without shadow. Nixon goes on, our identity and name and nature, our roots and home family, very standard of manhood. All this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us. It has long been our national custom to observe each year one special Sunday in honor of America's fathers, and from this year forward, by a joint resolution of Congress approved April 24th, 1972. That custom carries the weight of law. Let each American make this Father's Day an occasion for renewal of love and gratitude we bear to our fathers, increasing and enduring throughout the years. And then he signs it.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

And that's Nixon. That was that was that was Nixon, 1972.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Then we got Reagan. Um, I I you know love, I got a whole collection of Reagan quotes, but uh Reagan said May 20th, 1981, train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, and not depart from it, Solomon tells us. Clearly, the future is in the care of our parents, such responsibility, promise, and hope of fatherhood, such as the gift that our fathers give us. So

Presidents On Duty And Gratitude

SPEAKER_01 7:50

that's a great quote from Ronald Reagan. And then Dr. Ben Carson. And um I've known him and his wife Candy for years. Uh, we served on the board of Regent University together. Um, but Dr. Ben Carson said, the more solid the family, the more likely you are to be able to resist peer pressure. Human beings are social creatures. We all want to belong. We all have that desire. We will belong one way or the other. If the family doesn't provide that, the peers will, or the gang will, or you will find something to belong to. So that's a really powerful quote because they're manipulating, uh they call it social emotional learning, uh, behavior modification, where in the classroom they manipulate it. So if the child um holds old traditional values, they're shamed and made fun of and subtly, you know, mocked. And no kid likes that. And then if they come out as trans, they celebrate them and have parties and and um and every kid wants to be the center of the you know the party. And so that they're manipul manipulating the child's desire to be accepted by a group. And um, here is Ben Carson saying it's hard for kids to resist that that peer pressure, but if they have a really solid family and the family gives them this positive reinforcement, then they won't cave to this manipulated uh school, public school um behavioral modification.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

And uh you meant you mentioned the you know, even i i early in the program you were talking about all the negatives when when there is no um father in the home. I would think gang membership would be just off the charts for kids that didn't have a a a strong good father figure because they're looking for that. You just you just kind of mentioned that, but I mean I I don't know if you have a stat on that, but wouldn't you think just intuitively that that because that's part of what the gang provides, right? They give you those those male role models.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah, yeah, and and Islam in a sense is like a gang. Um that if you join, you do get emotional reinforcement. You have the umma, the community. Um, but if you leave the gang, they kill you. Yeah. So it's it's not gen, it's very cultish like that, right? You join a certain cult and they'll all be around you. But if you leave that cult, well, well, they'll uh the uh you're you're dead to them, you know. Yeah. Um but but with Christianity, the test uh is if somebody leaves, you still love them. Um and you care about them and you pray for them. And it's the love of God that brings men to repentance. It's not, you know, in in Islam, uh Allah only loves those who have submitted. Uh and you never know if you've submitted enough. It's it's 100% conditional. Where in Christianity is God loved us while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In our complete sinful state, he loves us, and it's that undeserved love that causes us to respond to him. And then when we uh we were, well, we're sinners. Well, Jesus paid for the sin. So there's nothing standing in the way of us accepting God's love, and then we want to share that love with others. Uh, Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 said, No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy, go luckily lack of concern for the youth of today. For if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow. He goes on the prime duty of the man is to work, to be the breadwinner. The prime duty of the woman is to be the mother of the housewife. Um, now there are women that work, uh, but uh as a kid growing up, uh, nobody can take the place of a mom who loves you and cares for you and will hug you. Uh I always had

Family Strength Against Peer Pressure

SPEAKER_01 11:45

that fear of my my dad. I grew up in the John Wayne era when you know my dad would pull out the belt. Um, we were uh I was one of 11 kids, and um uh he was a captain in the army. And uh when uh things would go wrong, um he would uh pull out the belt, he'd even like put it around his thumb and he'd snap it, and just the sound of it would make us start. I remember that sound myself. Yes. And um and I remember my, you know, I'd have a if I ever talked disrespectfully to my mom, she would say, I'm gonna tell your dad when he gets home. I couldn't be happy the whole rest of the day. My friends would say, Hey, come on, let's play. It's like, yeah, but I'm gonna get killed. I know what's coming. Anyway, um, so here's Theodore Roosevelt. He says, uh, all questions of tariff and finance sink into utter insignificance when compared with the tremendous and vital importance of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of the man and the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable circumstances. So uh all the stuff the government does, we should be supporting families, we should be supporting men and women, being able to raise, you know, uh the Heritage Foundation did a study saying that if uh the marriages fall apart, uh you have uh the kids without a father in the home, and is at a certain age they end up getting rebellious against their moms, um, and even violent, and then they go out on the street, and then the gang says, We'll be your identity, we'll give you the new DNA, and then they end up becoming gang. Well, then when there's gangs, uh the there's crime. And when there's crime, property values go down. Uh, people don't want to live in those neighborhoods, and businesses suffer, and that you're losing a tax base. So if the if the price of the houses go down, the the property taxes will go down. And if there's fewer businesses, there's less sales tax. And so yeah, um, and then you have more uh vandalism and more fires, and so you got to hire more police and hire more firemen, and uh and and so the cost uh of of having broken homes, there's a there's a financial fallout for every. It's not just oh, that's uh, you know, sort of a religious and social thing. No, it's a financial burden because then they get into drugs, uh, and then they um, you know, get into uh a lot of the uh immorality and the uh stuff that comes with that.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

At some point you'd think there's a tipping point where it's not just a societal cost, but societal failure, like the collapse. I mean, if you get to the point where that it becomes, you know, you become Venezuela or what, you know, whatever the country is that that falls into chaos. All right, hold that thought.

Break And How To Book Speakers

SPEAKER_02 14:38

We're gonna take a quick break. Bill Federer, our special guest today, will be right back on the Wallbuilder Show.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Hey, this is Tim Barton with Wall Builders. And as you've had the opportunity to listen to Wall Builders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the wall builders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a wall builder speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling. And if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers' bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, of religious liberties and freedoms, go to the wall builders website and bring a speaker to your area.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Welcome back to the Wall Builder

Welfare Policy And Community Breakdown

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Show. Bill Federer, our special guest today, we're talking about fatherhood.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

What prior to LBJ and the Great Society welfare state, uh, the black family was the strongest unit in society. Um they actually had a uh less lower divorce rate than than all the other races. Um, and their community was church-centered. Uh the Sunday service, they'd dress up in their finest clothes. The pastor was like the pastor over the whole neighborhood. And but when the uh LBJ's welfare society came in, it began to eat away on that. And then when there is the the more crime, uh, and that's when Islam comes in and says, we'll give you a structure. And and it's like people are attracted to any type of structure, even if it's one that does not acknowledge uh forgiveness in the God of the Bible. Uh it's it's they say, well, it's it's better than just the lawlessness of gangs, even though it's more just simply a structured gang. But um uh but that's why it's important for us as Christians to keep our families strong and to vote for politicians that'll want to keep families strong.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah, I think the the the whole structure thing, I mean, you see it in gangs, you see it in in biker gangs, even even biker clubs and that sort of thing. Like, you know, they that structure is going to come from somewhere, and uh we have the chance to to to, you know, if we have strong fathers in the home, you get a strong nucleus, then a strong community or a strong neighborhood, then a strong uh community, then strong states, then we we have a strong nation. But it starts with good strong fathers.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

You know, um Peter Marshall was the U.S. Senate chaplain. Yeah, and he um wrote great sermons. And there's one that I uh copied and put into my books, but um, and he said this the history of the world has been the biography of her great men. There was a time in the United States when youth were inspired by heroes, when a picture of Washington or Lincoln adorned every schoolroom wall, along with the ponderous family Bible on the Victorian table and the hymn books and the old-fashioned square piano, there looked down from the walls the likeness of our national heroes. Those were the days of great beliefs, the belief in the authority of scriptures and prayer and marriage and family. Uh, these beliefs

Losing Heroes And Rewriting Foundations

SPEAKER_01 18:10

laid the groundwork for producing more great men. Uh, for many a boy figured if that man could do it, get an education, make his life count for something, then I can do it. He goes on. Then there dawned the day when the pictures of Washington and Lincoln do not fit with our concept of modern decor. The old family Bible looked embarrassing. The pictures in the Bible were relegated to the attic of forgotten things. They there went with them the some of the most stabilizing influences of American life. We had to become more sophisticated, somewhat cynical of the cherished beliefs of our ancestors, rather blasé, frankly, skeptical of old-fashioned sentimentalism. Along with our higher education came a debunking contest. This debunking became a sort of national sport. It was smarter to revile than to revere, more fashionable to depreciate than appreciate. In our classrooms at all levels of education, no longer did we laud great men, those who had struggled and achieved. Instead, we merely took their dimensions and ferreted out their faults. We decided that it was silly to say that God sent them for a special task. They were merely products of their environment. The Constitution, that hitherto cherished charter of American liberties, was drawn up by men who never spoke on the telephone or flew a plane. Therefore, we should change the Constitution to suit modern ways. Now, he was commenting on this deconstruction tactic that the socialists put in place. But uh Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, said, ours may be the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity. Artificial stupidity. Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Before you do that one, Bill, go back. I just wondered what was the date again of the Peter Marshall one? Because man, that one really applies today, but I'm guessing that would have been what you know 80s, 70s, 80s? When did he do that?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Well, um, he was the uh U.S. Senate chaplain in uh during the 1940s and 50s.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Oh, it's that far back. Okay. So during so that was that was that was not the Peter Marshall that did Light and the Glory and all that. That was his dad then.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

His dad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

So man, that has come true. That quote is that would have been 50, 60 years ago. 70 maybe. That was that quote is man.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah, that was the beginning of you know, where Madeline Murray O'Hare, uh, you know, prayer out of the schools, and that um what uh that 22-word prayer that they got rid of in New York, and um, and then you had the 1960s. Um, a matter of fact, that was the first book that I read of David Barton's, right? The separation of church and state. Yeah. Um the myth of separation, where he said, you know, in the 1940s, the the the crimes in school was chewing gum, right? Running in the hallway, right? And and and then you can you take God out and it's raping the girls and it's you know stabbings in the in the bathrooms, and and it's like, wow, just in just a few years, you remove God, uh, you remove the Ten Commandments, and it it it falls off a cliff.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Yeah. And um it doesn't take long, man. So how do how do Bill, how do we rebuild then? How do we how do we get that back? How do we get that father that respect for fatherhood? Because it's also just the the the entertainment, you know, devaluing

How To Rebuild Fathers And Sons

SPEAKER_02 21:40

dads, making fun of dads for that was for years in the eighties and nineties, a lot of that. Um what would you suggest for people to to restore the the the value of fatherhood and the respect for fatherhood?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Well, um, you know, uh since we're on uh US Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall, he said the call today is for Christian heroes and Heroines who are willing to speak a good word for Jesus Christ, who are willing to live by the undiluted values of Christian morality in the pagan atmosphere of our society surrounded by lewdness, pornography, and profanity. This may be a higher bravery than that any battlefield, to face ridicule, sarcasm, sneering, disdain for what one believes to be right, to fight for goodness and fight and for and right, uh fighting the battle first for our own hearts and souls, seeking God's help to overcome our particular temptations for the sake of peace and for the sake of America. Um and then so that's Peter Marshall. Uh at the same time, you have General Douglas MacArthur. Um, and he uh was the uh general uh during World War II uh in the Pacific. He's the one that helped win the Korean War. Um uh and he was actually in charge of Japan for a year. He was more or less the benevolent dictator of Japan for a year. Um uh but in 1942, General MacArthur was named Father of the Year, and he gave this quote. He says, By profession, I'm a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I'm prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build, the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death, the other embodies creation in life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle, but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, our Father who art in heaven. I thought, wow. And then MacArthur goes on, he actually composed a prayer called the Father's Prayer. And uh General Douglas MacArthur, build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he's afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. Build me a son whose who whose wishes will not take the place of deeds, a son who will know thee, and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge. Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Let him learn to stand up in the storm. Here, let him learn compassion for those who fail. Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master others, one who will reach into the future yet never forget the past. And it's just a great prayer. He goes on. Uh then I, his father, will dare to whisper, I have not lived in vain. And so here he is. Um Build me.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

I'll uh that that's exactly the mindset we need to have. Building sons. That that'd be a good book, bro. That'd be that that's a good that's your neck next book. Building sons that and you then use a few of those uh those descriptions.

Where Bill Federer Speaks Next

SPEAKER_02 25:00

So okay, last question, Bill. Where are you gonna be on Father's Day this year? Are you traveling? Are you you speaking somewhere? What do you got?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Um uh yeah, every week I'm speaking somewhere. Um let's see. This week I'm gonna be in um uh the mission church in um Oceanside, Carlsbad, California. All right. And then the next week at Day Spring Church, Pastor Rick Brown in um uh Idaho. I think it's Star Idaho, maybe. Um that'll be on Father's Day then for the twenty for the 21st. Yes, yes. Excellent. And and then the next week I'll be with um uh Keith Kraft at Elevate Life Church in Texas.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

I love Keith. Yeah, man. All right. Well, good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I'm gonna be with you, and then and I look forward to that. And Gene Bailey and and uh just uh tremendous work that you're doing, uh Rick. And I brag about you all across the country. I tell every church you have to have biblical citizenship, Patriot Academy. That's the key to turning the country around.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

I love it. Well, I'm glad you and Michael, uh, you got it, you got a strong son right there. So I'm glad you and Michael are gonna be with us for uh for Flashpoint being in Constitution City and uh and and just appreciate the education, man. Thank you for all the research and the and the uh and the history on Father's Day. Bill Federer, thanks for being on, brother. Thank you, Rick. That was Bill Federer. Thanks so much for joining us today, folks. Don't forget our website, wallbuilders.show. If you need to catch up on some of the radio programs, want to share them with your friends and family. Go to wallbuilders.show. And then, of course, wallbuilders.com is our main website. Lots of great information on there, especially for throughout this summer and honestly throughout the 250th. A lot of great things coming up even in the fall for the 250th. You want to be on our website and on our email list there at wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening to the Wall Builders Show.