Parental's part 2:-the sins of the father

Feel free not to listen to me, I'm not a parent, I'm just an observer, but hey, some observations are accurate.

I saw the film 'East is East' on television last night. I had seen most of it previously, and to be honest, I struggle with the labeling of it as a comedy. To me it is anything but.

To those who have not seen it, 'East is East' is a film set in Salford in 1971, and focuses on a family of 9 who run a successful chip shop. The father is a traditional Pakistani Muslim who has been married for a long time to an Irish-Catholic woman, and have 7 children, who were born in Britain but of course have Pakistani descent.

The father is a domineering traditionalist, seeking to bring up his children as Muslim. What he does not realise is, though his sons accompany him to the Mosque once a week, all bar one are not interested, and in fact, behind their father's back, do not comply. For example, the film opens with the non-Muslim members of the family (that is the mother, all sons bar one and the daughter) are seen secretly taking part in a Catholic march, and other times, the older children are seen secretly cooking and consuming bacon, something forbidden for a Muslim.

The film deals with the eldest son running away from an arranged marriage, to which his father responds by disowning him, his younger sons rebelling against arranged marriages of their own, but the father accusing the wrong son (ironically, the practicing Muslim), and beating him up. The father beats his own wife, twice, during the course of the film, and forces his youngest son, aged nine, to be circumcised. I must point out that this son's term of endearment by his own father is 'bastard'.

All the way through the film, the father is trying to teach the Muslim way to his children, by bullying and violence if his demands are not met.

This is a huge stereotype attributed to many families trying to teach their children to follow a particular way of life, and sickeningly, it's not too far from the truth in a lot of cases.

As Christian men, we are called by the Bible to teach our children the word of God, to show them the truth and live by said truth. Ephesians 6:4 says:

"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."

As men, we are to lead as Christ led, teaching, loving, and self-sacrificially, not with dictatorial violence and bullying, not provoking our children to anger and therefore driving them away from the love of Christ shown most on the cross. We are to teach the Bible, which most try to do, but the very important fact is, they fail to live the Bible. The dad in the film was not heretical in his teachings, but I very much doubt there is room to bully your way of life to your own family.
That is not the way of the cross. Christ died in a violent way, not to others, but Himself. The Christian martyr dies because they refuse to renounce Christ, they are murdered, they DO NOT murder.
Christian fathers can fall into two categories: they either do not live up to their leadership, and are timid, or they take their Biblical role of leadership to mean domination, and tryincal households are born. I confess that out of the two, I would more likely fall into the latter camp. We are so keen to get our point across that we sacrifice relationships to do it sometimes. Our pride is that powerful. This is sin, that we think we are God, the ultimate Father. This is reality, we are just as undeserving of grace as the people we try to teach. Yet God has sent Jesus to die for us.
This is what we are to teach, the grace of the gospel, the truth of the Bible, and we are to live it as well. For how can we teach what we do not live? 1 Peter 2:9-12 states:

"⁹But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

¹¹Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. ¹² Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."

We have nothing to boast in, save in the grace that has been given to us by God. We are not like this world, we are to stand out by speaking and living for Jesus. That should be the same as we teach our children. Not beat them into submission, but love them by putting ourselves out for them, showing them the good of God by how we live and speak. It is God who saves, not us. We need to be loving and being loving does include discipline, Godly discipline that brings those we teach to a repentance and faith in Christ, not beating them to a bloody pulp and calling them 'bastard'.