Why Fatherhood Still Matters - with Bill Federer

Father’s Day is usually framed as a light holiday, but the real story is heavier and a lot more revealing. We sit down with historian Bill Federer to trace the origins of Father’s Day from a heartbreaking coal mine disaster that left hundreds of families without fathers, to the grassroots push that spread nationwide through churches and the YMCA. Along the way, we ask a simple question with huge consequences: what happens to a culture when fatherhood becomes optional, mocked, or absent?

We also get practical about why fatherlessness is not just a private family concern. We talk through the social and economic fallout that follows broken homes, from poverty and school failure to crime and the rising costs communities absorb when stability collapses. We connect that to the deeper hunger every kid has for identity and belonging, and why strong families help children resist peer pressure and manipulation when the world offers counterfeit “tribes” in the form of gangs, destructive subcultures, or ideologies that promise structure without grace.

To close, we look at how to rebuild: recovering respect for fathers, strengthening marriage and family, and choosing daily habits that form resilient sons and daughters. Bill shares standout historical voices and a powerful Father of the Year reflection from General Douglas MacArthur that reframes fatherhood as building, not destroying. If you care about faith and culture, biblical citizenship, American history, and the future of the family, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe for more conversations from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, then share this with a dad who needs encouragement and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders 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 topics. It should be something we're talking about a lot more, and that is Father's Day. We've got an obvious 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 men's groups and people just looking for stronger fathers, it’s 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. 

Bill Federer [00:00:45] Oh, thank you, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:00:47] You've got, I think you have a book on just about every topic ever known to man. How many books have be written now. 

Bill Federer [00:00:53] It's about 30. 

Rick Green [00:00:54] 30 books. I've got five and it took like, drained me every time I did one. I don't know how you do it, bro But Father's Day. Let's talk about it. It's coming up in about a week from the time this interview is going to air. So, what's the history of that and and what's a good way for families to be celebrating that? 

Bill Federer [00:01:14] Well, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that fatherless homes, the children are five times more likely to live in poverty, nine times more to drop out of school, 20 times more are likely to go to prison, higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse, increased incidence of internalized, aggressive behavioral problems, runaways, homelessness, and suicide. So fathers are important. The first Father's Day was conceived by Grace Golden Clayton. As she was inspired by the first Mother's Day observance in 1908. She, reminisced of her father who was a Methodist minister and who raised her and her siblings after the mom died. So Grace Clayton, was moved to West Virginia and there was a coal mine explosion December 6th, 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 few minutes, how sad and frightening to have no father and no husband to turn to at such an awful time. So that was Grace Clayton that organized that Father's Day celebration,1908. But then we go to the person most credited for Father's Day is Sonora Louise 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 Louis Smart Dodd drew up a petition, which was supported by the Young Men's Christian Association in Spokane, Washington. I wrote a book on the history of the YMCA with my son called Courageous Christianity. 

Rick Green [00:03:15] I remember that's a good stuff in it, man. I love that one. Yes. That was just last year, right? Or your, yeah, last year. 

Bill Federer [00:03:21] 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 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. Oregon, Chicago, around. And then finally in 1916, it gathered so much momentum that Woodrow Wilson telegraphed the 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. 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, a 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. 

Rick Green [00:04:38] That was Coolidge? 

Bill Federer [00:04:39] Yeah. 

Rick Green [00:04:41] I've always ranked Coolidge high because he was such a constitutionalist. I had no idea he had something to do with Father's Day. 

Bill Federer [00:04:47] Yeah. And, but then you sort of fast forward and maybe not somebody that's a really good example. Lyndon Johnson issued the first Presidential Father's Day Proclamation. I don't want to comment on him. I'll, I'll I'm getting negative. 

Rick Green [00:05:02] But you know, Bill, actually think about it. The one thing I've bragged on Barack Obama about, 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 Lyndon Johnson. 

Bill Federer [00:05:22] Yeah, that was 1966. And then 1972, Nixon established Father's Day as a permanent national observance, Proclamation 4127. So Richard Nixon, believe it or not, he was the most popular president in America, winning reelection by a huge landslide. He was anti-communist, he was everything. But then there was the Watergate. He ended up 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 them and he never got impeached. He just resigned on the threat of impeachment. But prior to that, he was really popular. And so 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 1:17. 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 are roots in home family, very standard of manhood. All this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us. It is 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. 

Rick Green [00:07:23] And that's Nixon. That was,. 

Bill Federer [00:07:25] That was Nixon, 1972. Then we've got Reagan.  I, you know, love, I got a whole collection of Reagan quotes, but Reagan said May 20th, 1981, train up a child in the way you should go when he's old to 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 that's a great quote from Ronald Reagan. And then Dr. Ben Carson. And I've known him and his wife, Candy, for years. We served on the board of Regent University together. 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 wanna 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, they call it social-emotional learning, behavior modification, We're in the classroom, the manipulated so if the child holds old traditional values, they're shamed and made fun of and subtly mocked and no kid likes that. And then if they come out as trans, they celebrate them and have parties and every kid wants to be the center of the party. So they're manipulating the child's desire to be accepted by a group. And here is Ben Carson saying... It's hard for kids to resist 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 school, public school behavioral modification. 

Rick Green [00:09:20] And you mentioned the, you know, even early in the program, you're talking about all the negatives when, when there is no, father in the home, I would think gang membership would be just off the charts, kids that didn't have a, a strong good father figure because they're looking for that. You just, you just kind of mentioned that, but I mean, I don't know if you have a stat on that, wouldn't you think just intuitively that that, cause that's part of what the gang provides, right? They give you those, those male role models. 

Bill Federer [00:09:50] Yeah, yeah and Islam in a sense is like a gang that if you join, you do get emotional reinforcement. You have the Ummah, the community, but if you leave the gang, they kill you. So it's not, it's very cultish like that, right? You join a certain cult and they'll all be around you. But if you lead that cult, well, they'll be, you're dead to them, you know? Yeah. But with Christianity, the test is if somebody leaves, you still love them. 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, in Islam, Allah only loves those who have submitted. And you never know if you've submitted enough. It's 100% conditional. Where in Christianity, 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 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. Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 said, no Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-luckly 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 mother, the housewife. Now there are women that work, but as a kid growing up, nobody can take the place of a mom who loves you and cares for you and will hug you. I always had that fear of my dad. I grew up in the John Wayne era when, you know, my dad would pull out the belt. We were, I was one of 11 kids and he was a captain in the army. And when things would go wrong, he would pull out the belt and even like put it around his thumb and he'd snap it. And just the sound of it would make us start,. 

Rick Green [00:12:08] I remember that sound myself, yes. 

Bill Federer [00:12:12] And I remember my I'd have a, if I ever talked disrespectfully to my mom, that she would say, I'm going to 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. 

Rick Green [00:12:28] I know what's coming. 

Bill Federer [00:12:32] Anyway, so here's Theodore Roosevelt. He says, 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 all the stuff the government does we should be supporting families. We should be supporting men and women being able to raise, you know. The Heritage Foundation did a study saying that if the marriages fall apart you have the kids without a father in the home and is at a certain age, they end up getting rebellious against their moms and even violent. And then they go out on the streets and then the gang says, we'll be your identity. We'll give you a new DNA. And then, they ended up becoming gang. Well, then when there's gangs, there's crime. And when there is crime, property values go down. People don't want to live in those neighbors and businesses suffer and that you're losing a tax base. If the price of the houses go down, the property taxes will go down. And if there's fewer businesses, there's less sales tax. And so, and then you have more vandalism and more fires. And so you got to hire more police and hire more firemen. And so the cost of having broken homes, there's a financial fallout. 

Rick Green [00:14:05] For everyone. 

Bill Federer [00:14:06] It's not just, oh, that's sort of a religious and social thing. No, it's a financial burden, because then they get into drugs, and then they, you know, get into a lot of the immorality and the stuff that comes with that. 

Rick Green [00:14:23] 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 falls into chaos. All right. Hold that thought. We're going to take a quick break. Bill Federer, our special guest today. We'll be right back on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:15:50] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Bill Federer, our special guest today. We're talking about fatherhood. 

Bill Federer [00:15:55] I was reading one of the studies. It says how when the Christians, prior to LBJ and the Great Society Welfare State, the black family was the strongest unit in society. They actually had a lower divorce rate than all the other races. And their community was church centered. The Sunday service, they'd dress up in their finest clothes. The pastor was like the pastor over the whole neighborhood. But when the LBJ's Welfare Society came in, it began to eat away on that. And then when there is the more crime, and that's when Islam comes in and says, we'll give you a structure. And it's like people are attracted to any type of structure, even if it's one that does not acknowledge forgiveness and the God of the Bible, it's, they say, well, it's better than just the lawlessness of gangs, even though it's more just simply a structured gang. But that's why it's important for us as Christians to keep our families strong and to vote for politicians that wanna keep families strong. 

Rick Green [00:17:02] Yeah, I think the whole structure thing, I mean, you see it in gangs. You see it and in biker, even biker clubs and that sort of thing. Like, you know, that structure is going to come from somewhere. And we have the chance 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 community, then strong States. Then we, we have a strong nation, but it starts with good, strong fathers. 

Bill Federer [00:17:27] You know, Peter Marshall was the U.S. Senate chaplain, and he wrote great sermons. And there's one that I copied and put into my books, but, 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 hymnbooks 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. These beliefs laid the groundwork for producing more great men. 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 went with them 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 debunk became a sort of national sport. It was smarter to revile than to revere, more fashionable to depreciate than to 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 fared it 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 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. 

Rick Green [00:19:56] Artificial stupidity, that's good. 

Bill Federer [00:19:58] But there's more. Well, here's a Federalist, June 12th, 2020. 

Rick Green [00:20:01] Wait, wait, wait. Before you do that one, Bill, 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's, you know, eighties, seventies, eighties when, when did he do that? 

Bill Federer [00:20:12] Well, he was the U.S. Senate Chaplain during the 1940s and 50s. 

Rick Green [00:20:19] Oh, it's that far back? Okay. Okay, 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. 

Bill Federer [00:20:26] His dad. 

Rick Green [00:20:28] Wow, man, that has come true. That quote is, that would have been 50, 60 years ago, 70, maybe that quote is man. 

Bill Federer [00:20:37] Yeah, that was the beginning of, you know, where Madeleine Murray O'Hare, you know the prayer of the schools and that, what, that 22 word prayer that they got rid of in New York. And, and then you had the 1960s. A matter of fact, that was the first book that I read of David Barton's, right? The Separation of Church and State, um the Myth of Separation, where he said, you know, in the 1940s, the, the crimes in school was chewing gum. 

Rick Green [00:21:05] Right, right. 

Bill Federer [00:21:05] 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 it's like, well, just in a few years, you remove God and you remove the 10 Commandments and it, it falls off a cliff. 

Rick Green [00:21:25] Yeah. 

Bill Federer [00:21:25] And. 

Rick Green [00:21:27] It doesn't take long, man. So how do we rebuild then? How do we get that back? How do get that respect for fatherhood? Cause it's also just the entertainment, you know, devaluing dads, making fun of dads, that was for years in the eighties and nineties, a lot of that. What would you suggest for people to restore the value of fatherhood and the respect for fatherhood? 

Bill Federer [00:21:53] Well, since we're on 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 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 right, 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. And then, so that's Peter Marshall. At the same time, you have General Douglas MacArthur, and he was the general during World War II. In the Pacific, he's the one that helped win the Korean War. And he was actually in charge of Japan for a year. He was more or less the benevolent dictator of Japan, for a year. 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 proud, infinitely proud, 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'm 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 General Douglas MacArthur, build me a son, Oh Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he's weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will proud and unbending in honest defeat and humble and gentle in victory. Build me a Son 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 talking about...

Rick Green [00:24:48] Oh, that's exactly the mindset we need to have building sons, that'd be a good book, bro. That'd be, that, that that's a good, that your next, next book, building sons that you then use a few of those, those descriptions. So, okay. Last question, Bill, where are you going to be on Father's Day this year? Are you traveling? Are you speaking somewhere? What do you got? 

Bill Federer [00:25:08] Yeah, every week I'm thinking somewhere, let's see this week, I'm going to be in, the mission church in, Oceanside, Carlsbad, California, and then the next week at Dayspring Church, pastor Rick Brown in Idaho, I think it's Star, Idaho maybe, it's the next day. 

[00:25:30] On Father's Day then for the 20-21st 

Rick Green [00:25:31] Yeah, you're correct. Yes, yes. 

Bill Federer [00:25:34] And then the next week I'll be with, Keith Craft at Elevate Life Church. 

Rick Green [00:25:39] Love Keith. Yeah, man. All right, well, good stuff. 

Bill Federer [00:25:43] I'm going to be with you, and I look forward to that, and Gene Bailey, and just tremendous work that you're doing, 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. 

Rick Green [00:25:58] I love it. Well, I'm glad you and Michael, you got, you got a strong son right there. So I'm, you and Micheal are going to be with us for, for Flashpoint being in Constitution City and, and just appreciate the education, man. Thank you for all the research and the, and the and the history on Father's Day. Bill Federer, thanks for being on brother. 

Bill Federer [00:26:16] Thank you, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:26:17] 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, I 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 wanna be on our website and on our email list there at wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders