Manly Monday, part 1

OK, so "Husbandly Hump Day" is indeed too clumsy.  Hopefully Manly Monday will be better, and we'll see if it catches on.

For a starter that is sobering, it turns out that the suspect in the Norwegian atrocities of last weekend is the son of a diplomat, and this sentence in the article caught my eye:

Jens David Breivik said he had severed all contact with his son in 1995 when the latter was 16.


Now I will grant that 16 years of age used to be a time at which a young man could go out on his own, but the fact remains that the Biblical example is not for a father to sever ties, but rather to shepherd his son into manhood.  Whatever his reasons, Jens Breivik chose his own way, and it appears that part of his punishment is horrendous shame and guilt over the path his son chose.   It is a brutal, brutal reminder of the truth of Proverbs 22:6; train a young man in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Having been taught by example by his father that child-rearing is not all that important, then, Anders Breivik chose not to work against the cultural suicide of the West, but rather to hasten it with an atrocity.   That is, the suspect did understand correctly that western civilization is committing suicide, but failed to realize that the proper response to cultural suicide is not to further assault that culture, but to live well in Him.

Fathers, if you doubt that what you do for your children is important, Anders Breivik would like to have a word with you.