Father's Day

Did you know that the tradition of Father's Day in our country developed within religious faith contexts? To be sure, this should come as no surprise since God has commanded that we honor our father and mother. But here in the US, it takes an act of the Presidency to make it so! Here's how Father's Day came to be:

In the early years of the twentieth century, Sonora Smart Dodd sat in her pew at church, listening to a sermon one Mother's Day.  She and her five brothers and sisters were raised by their single-parent father, and she regretted that he was not similarly honored in the sermon.  She felt it important to recognize and celebrate the selfless and loving sacrifices that fathers make every day.  The nurturing contributions a father makes to a family are too easily overlooked in simplifying a father’s role as merely the family provider.  On June 19, 1910, her efforts to establish a day for fathers were finally rewarded in Washington State as they celebrated the first ever state holiday for Father’s Day. Yet this nation’s desire to honor fathers was rooted even earlier.  The earliest recorded event celebrating and honoring fathers occurred on July 5, 1908. A memorial service specific to the honor of fathers was held in Monongah, West Virginia in direct response to the greatest tragedy in American coal mining history.  In December of 1907, the No. 8 and No. 6 mines at the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah exploded killing nearly 400 men—250 of them fathers. Since then, individual states gradually began instituting their won Father’s Day.

But the idea of a national day for fathers took a lot longer to catch on, partly because fathers are not seen to have the same domesticated and sentimental draw as mothers, and partly because men themselves derided the idea.  Men argued that a Father’s Day was just another commercial gimmick to sell cards and gifts that they’d be the ones paying for in the end.  It wasn’t until President Nixon’s proclamation in 1972 that the third Sunday of June would be designated to the honor of our fathers.  It is estimated that nearly 200,000 fathers in America will be stay-at-home dads, providing the lion’s share of discipline and nurturing.  As Mrs. Dodd maintained, this is indeed worthy of a day of honor.

This Sunday at Trinity Church, while we will not be having a special brunch for Father’s Day (much to the chagrin and disappointment of certain people in our congregation), we will certainly offer prayers of thanksgiving for our fathers, thus maintaining the American tradition of Father’s Day in the context of religious faith.