We're kicking off the June Fatherhood series with seminary professor Dr. Gifford Grobien!
What does it truly mean to be a father? In this episode, Dr. Grobien joins Abigail to explore the deep significance of fatherhood, both from a theological and practical perspective. Drawing on the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ, they unpack how earthly fathers reflect divine love through giving life and modeling repentance.
Aired 6.7.25
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Abigail: Welcome to I Choose Life News and Views.
This is Abigail Lorenzen. Glad to have you guys back with us for another program. Today we have in studio Dr. Gifford Grobien. He is the professor of Biblical and systematic theology at the seminary here in Fort Wayne. So Concordia Theological Seminary, um, been teaching there since 2012, so been there for a little while, was a student there before serving in the Navy, before going to seminary to become a pastor and then a professor later. We have him on to join us for our new series this month on fatherhood. So we're gonna open it up with Dr. Grobien here. He knows plenty about it. He has eight kids and eight grandkids. So lots of practice in this realm.
But as we go through the month, gonna catch different aspects of fatherhood. And also the idea of just godly manhood, right? Because it's hard to be a good father if you don't have the man piece worked out. So we're gonna hit some of those things too as we go through the month. So here we go for the month of June, talking about fatherhood.
Dr. Grobien, thanks for joining us today.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, thanks for having me, Abigail. It's a pleasure to be here.
Abigail: Yeah. I always love to hear about people's experiences in the military, and I know not everybody loves to talk about them. You mentioned to me that you weren't in direct combat, so that sometimes changes people's willingness to chatter about it, but I always find it interesting when people serving in the church, people who are, I mean, in your case, you're teaching future pastors, have a military background. Not too long ago, we had Pastor Eric Kilmer on, and he used to fly helicopters in the military. I think it just adds this different aspect of what you see. See, and what you've been exposed to and the kind of psychology that you have seen in comrades that you've, I don't know, just experienced. And you weren't a chaplain in the Navy, correct?
Dr. Grobien: I was in the Navy before I went to seminary. Mm-hmm. So I was a surface warfare officer, not a chaplain. Although in some commands, and in fact, one of the ships that I was on, they have what are called lay leaders.
So when there isn't a chaplain, because the unit isn't big enough, or they don't have the resources to provide a chaplain. And sometimes lay leaders will kinda do things like conduct Bible studies or maybe even, you know, Matins types of services on Sundays and so forth.
Abigail: Interesting.
Dr. Grobien: So I was already getting into that a little bit, even before coming to seminary.
Abigail: You felt a natural call there?
Dr. Grobien: I think so, yeah. Saw a need already. So I was in the Navy primarily as many people do to pay for college. I had done the ROTC program. So I'd gone to college first, they had paid for college and then I, so then I fulfilled my, uh, commitment afterwards. But already even already in college, I was thinking about the ministry and I talked to a few of my mentors, and pastors and they encouraged me to continue to think about it. And then, and while I was in the Navy then, so like I said, I did some of the lay leadership kinds of things and just as an aside, depending on how much you wanna get into on this, but, but it is besides just the stress of a combat like situation or being out there deployed, even if you're not actually in combat, you know, there are also all of these other kinds of psychological things going on.
Abigail: You're isolated from your networks of friends and family, and especially 'cause you deployed twice, you said.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, and they were six-month deployments each, which in today's terms were pretty short. I understand from talking to people that deployments can last nine, 12 months, maybe even longer than that, depending on the situation.
But you know, especially you get these young guys coming in, you know, when they're 18, sometimes even 17, and suddenly they're whisked off all the way around on the other side of the world, without the friends that they grew up with, without their family connections. And so that puts a lot of psychological stress on them too, and just trying to be kind of a mentor to them. You know, even I myself was only 22 when I was commissioned, 27 when I got out. So I was a young man too, and it's not that I had a lot of wisdom, but I was an officer, so I was in charge of some of these guys, and so I was looking for ways to be encouraging to them and helping them keep their feet on the ground and so forth,
Abigail: And feet on the ground when you're on a boat in the middle of the water.
Dr. Grobien: Right. They talk, you know, they talk about having your sea legs, right? You gotta be able to, to keep your balance when the ships rocking around too. So it's a good time, you know, and sometimes you're out to sea for days, weeks at a time. I was never in a situation where we were, there may have been one situation, if I'm recalling correctly, where I was out for more than a month between port calls.
But, you know, then you hit port and the guys are just, they're going crazy for all kinds of reasons, you know? And so they're running off and they're looking for different ways to entertain themselves. Right? And so you're just trying to help them keep their head, head on straight, too, sometimes in situations like that.
Abigail: Yeah. What was your major in college?
Dr. Grobien: So I went to Georgetown University in, Washington D.C., which has one of the colleges there is called the School of Foreign Service. And it's specifically actually to train you to work for the State Department.
Abigail: Interesting.
Dr. Grobien: And so basically the major there, they call foreign service, but you study history, politics, and economics.
So that's what I did. I really enjoyed my studies. I mean, in a sense it gave me a broad background in these kinds of things that I was interested in at the time, but the more I did it, you know, the more I realized I didn't actually wanna be in the State Department per se. You know, kind of working in that type of government bureaucracy.
So being in the Navy was also helpful. It just gave me something to do. It gave me a place to be productive, to learn, to grow, to mature a little bit, and also maybe think more about the ministry.
Abigail: Right? I like how you put that. It provided you somewhere to be productive while you think about things. So talking about fatherhood, let's see, when did you get married?
Dr. Grobien: We got married, my wife and I, in December of 1995, so we're coming on 30 years here.
Abigail: So you got married right after you joined the Navy, correct?
Dr. Grobien: Yeah. I was commissioned in July of 95, and so I was 22 and my wife was a year behind me in school. So I had just graduated from college, and she was in her senior year, and so we got married actually halfway through her senior year of college, and then we left.
So she didn't even finish college that semester. She ended up finishing, uh, she had her last semester at the University of Hawaii where I was stationed in Pearl, Pearl Harbor.
Abigail: That doesn't stink.
Dr. Grobien: I really liked Hawaii. Obviously Hawaii itself is wonderful. It's a beautiful place. Uh, I was able to go back, uh, about four years ago and see it again.
It's wonderful. Obviously there are many things going on. You know, a young couple, again, being pulled away from her families and networks. Right. And there were ways in which she felt pretty isolated, but sure. Thankfully in our military housing we moved, it was a duplex and the young couple, right in the same, uh, building as us, same kind of situation.
Young couple, he was just commissioned. They just got married. So she and this friend of hers, they lived next door to each other for those four and a half years or so that we were in Hawaii and were great friends. Great supports to each other.
Abigail: That's so nice. So that's how that worked out.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, it was a real blessing.
Abigail: And did you guys start having children while you were in Hawaii?
Dr. Grobien: Yes. So our first child was born couple years in, actually it was March, spring of 98 then. And then our second child was born while we were still in Hawaii as well. About six months before we left. And came to the seminary. So yeah, we had two already while I was in the Navy.
Others came after that.
Abigail: So I wanna get your broad take on fatherhood, what it should look like. Maybe a couple of pitfalls that we see people currently in, though we don't wanna harp on people too much. But then also we can come back to this idea that you, like so many military families, your wife has young children at home in a place that's far away from her family and your family.
And you are gone. For six months at a time. Thankfully, only six months at a time, but six months at a time. And so what fatherhood looks like that way as well, and how that affected your relationship with your children, because you're missing those early bonding formative times. And six months is a long time in the development of a small child.
Right. And for a mom, those are hard months or can be really difficult months.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah.
Abigail: So let's start really broad. Fatherhood. Sure. Tell us your, your take.
Dr. Grobien: So, I mean, there are a couple of ways you can approach this. I mean, you can look at it simply from a natural perspective, what it's like to be a father in creation in the world that we live in.
It's also, I think, important to think about fatherhood, really from a theological perspective. First, to understand that God himself is our father. He's certainly the father of Christians. He is the father of all people in a certain way. And desires that all people through faith would, you know, repent and return and enter into that life of that relationship of sonship with him.
But God is not just a father because he's a father to us. He is eternally a father, right? He's a father to his son, Jesus Christ. He's a father from eternity. And so there are certain things that, you know, we have to be careful. Obviously, we don't wanna speculate too much about all that that might entail because of the Bible emphasizes God's fatherhood primarily to talk about God's provision, protection, the gifts that he gives us, the way that he loves us and cares for us.
Abigail: Yeah. The support and the caretaking and the sacrificing.
Dr. Grobien: And so those are definitely things that we can take from that. And I think, but especially when, when we look at how God, the Father and God the Son, uh, relate to each other, that does also help give us a picture of what human fatherhood can be like.
And so there's, we can see this, especially in the gospels, the way that Jesus. Has complete fellowship, trust, and confidence agreement with his father, and in turn, his father loves and trusts him because of the gifts that his father has given him, because they share the same will and the same purpose. And are in complete agreement with each other and indeed have the same power.
The father, of course, is able to trust the work of salvation to his son, Jesus Christ. So, we can see that in the fellowship that they have in John 17, Jesus talks about the unity that he has with his father and how he desires then that Christians would also have that same kind of unity that he has with his father.
So I think just from that, we can pick up that fatherhood really entails, first of all, a giving of life. When we think of the word. Beget. So in the creed we say the son was eternally begotten from the father. A simple way to just understand beget there is that the father gives his life to the son, and in giving life creates life in another person.
And so that certainly we see in early fatherhood. The first thing is that what makes us fathers as human beings, it's when we give of ourselves to create life. So what that is, it's really a sharing of our essence. It's a sharing of our nature. So when I have children, there's something about me then that gets passed on to this new person who now has life. And in God's case, of course, it's all perfection and, and goodness. In human cases, of course that includes, you know, the good with the bad. But of course that's kinda how we start off and that's how we live. But that, I think that's something important to think about for fathers that.
The beginning point is, as fathers, we give life to our children, and we're sharing of our very person and substance in giving that to them. So we're giving them gifts, but we should also see then that because we in the sense, have shared of ourselves so that this new person has life, that that person is.
The next generation a legacy. I mean, these are all kind of inadequate words, but there's a way in which who I am again, both for good or for ill, um, then continues on in the life of that person. And so there's a kind of. Love and a care and a desire to see our children flourish. That should be part of that.
Abigail: And I think this is something that we see, like this is an idea that I've butted up against and in talking with my mom friends, I know they've butted up against it too, is this idea of that legacy 'cause men. So God, hands down a legacy of perfection, which humans beings cannot replicate. We should strive for it, but we can't replicate it.
And so there's this baggage that dads bring into their fatherhood, and that also can be handed down. And so I think this is, is really interesting and I'd love to poll people and probably somebody has already done this study of like Dads, what kind of a dad do you want your son to be? Mm-hmm. What kind of a mom do you want your daughters to be?
And how does your fathering affect that in the way that is modeling or making sure that they don't end up with the same baggage, trauma wounds, right? That you have. Right. And there's a lot of cycle breaking that can be in there. In some ways, I've done you a disservice 'cause I've given you an absolutely enormous topic to talk about.
But you know, as you know, getting this umbrella is, I think helpful.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, I actually have some thoughts on this that hopefully would be very helpful for people. I don't know if a lot of parents maybe think, just feel a lot of pressure, right? Like I have to, you know, I want my children to be better than I am.
Right? Trying not to mess up my children. I want them to be a great dad and mom and something that I actually, as parents, we need to recognize that our own repentance, our own recognition of our sin, and then repenting of that. And doing that so that our children see that. Actually is really significant in this because children, especially young children, what do they know?
They know the life that they live. And so, especially before they're going to school, all they have is life at home. And then even when they're at school, you know, still if they have a good relationship with their parents and there's a lot of time spent in the, in the family dynamic. They're learning how to live from their parents modeling,
Abigail: This is my normal.
Dr. Grobien: Right?
So parents actually have to give, as an example, they have to demonstrate what it means to repent, to say that they're sorry for things that they do wrong, and then to be forgiven. And I have these conversations with my children quite a bit, I think. Um, probably not as much as they would like. But how it often comes out.
And kids, if you're listening to this, if you think that I don't, if I don't repent enough, um, fair enough. But the thing that we do talk about quite a bit is I, I tell 'em, look, I make mistakes and it's okay for you to recognize that I make mistakes. Mm-hmm. And we have devotions every day at home, we pray, we read the Bible.
And I always try to tell them, I always try to emphasize the Bible, what God speaks to you, what God your father speaks to you. That's the measure of all things, right? That's what you want to really be the wisdom and trust that you can have. And you might, at some point, you know, maybe I'm reading a Bible passage and you're like, you know, gee, God is saying to do this, but Dad doesn't model that very well.
And I say, you know what? That's okay. You can own that and recognize that what, what God is calling us to, whether it's in repentance or faith, is really what we want to push for. And if I and I make mistakes. I even tell 'em now that my children are older, right? Most of them are adults. I say, look, if I sin, you can tell me and it's okay.
And obviously, we always wanna honor our parents. Sure, right? According to the fourth commandment. But there's a proper way that you can actually call, we can call our parents to repentance. It's still honorable. What better way to honor somebody than to help them recognize their sin? Kind of pull them back from that.
So anyway, that whole a family life that in a sense begins and is always one that is trying to live out repentance and forgiveness, I think really goes a long way in helping children just kind of recognizing and, and mature in this recognition that, yeah, my parents aren't perfect, but look at what they've given me.
Look at the faith that you've given me, and then look at all the other things that they've, they've given me. And, I think it creates a. A real bond, a lasting bond. Mm-hmm. For parents and children.
Abigail: I think the confession and repentance, and forgiveness piece is so important and something that humans, I think, are very hesitant of.
Like this idea. I've seen family dynamics where it seems that the idea is if mom or dad admits that they've done something wrong, then that destroys this sort of perfectionism. Like kids need their parents to be perfect, and if I admit I've done something wrong, now they don't have that anymore. And so I'm, I'm shattering that image.
Mm-hmm. When really it's the opposite. Right. Right. Because we want our children to be able to see and own up to when they do something poorly. But also, I have friends who are adult children, so to speak, and as they're coming through, working through things in their life that they realize, oh, wait a minute, that's not how that should have been.
It is such a detriment to their healing work when their parents will not recognize the damage that's been done and apologize for it. And it's so interesting to see how deep that wound can be, I think, because there's that break in the reflection of what God intends the relationship to be. Yep. So it is interesting that like, it not just carries for little kids who need to be learning.
How do I, how do I say sorry, when I've done something mean to my little friend, but it stretches much farther in life.
Dr. Grobien: Right? And I think, and this is also why again, kind of that culture of forgiveness in a family is so important also for, you know, when the children grow up. Because there are ways, of course, that parents, yeah, may have wounded their children that they may not even be aware of when they're younger.
And so, if there is the sort of a culture of practicing forgiveness, then those things can be broached even as adults. I'm not trying to make this sound Pollyannish in that it's gonna be easy, right? Sure. I. But at least then, children, you know, can kind of recognize things that may have affected their lives and how they're parenting and try to address that with their parents.
Abigail: Yeah. So, so far we've been talking biological relationships, and the parenting that flows in that, and in adoption, we wanna say the same things are happening, right? Because the goal of adoption is absolutely, this child is as if they were from my own person. Yes. Right? That's the whole point of adoption.
There is no difference now. Right. So I'm gonna also tuck that into what we've been talking about. But you know, recently I was talking to a friend, and this friend has big wounds from their dad, and it made me start to think, like, how can we encourage our Christian dads to fill that gap? For children who are not their adopt, but this idea of like almost pseudo adopting someone to help heal those wounds because there isn't, I got the sense in this conversation that I was having with this friend that there just was this vacuum, this emptiness still, and that no one had stepped into fill that.
And I thought, how sad is that, that in a world full of Christian men, that no one has stepped in to fill this void? For this friend.
Dr. Grobien: So it's kind of like in, in a sense where maybe there's some difficulties with the father and so are there other men in that person's life that can help?
Abigail: Right, because to help with a healing, help mentor, things like that. Yeah.
Dr. Grobien: You can't just be fatherless, right?
Abigail: Ultimately, you can lean on God to be, 'cause no father's really going to be able to fill the void, right? Because our hearts are seeking God. But also God intended each person to have an earthly father. So if somebody has essentially abdicated that role, I think inside the Christian society, we need to be more interested in filling that role for other people.
Because people need dads, right? Like you, you don't just survive in life without a dad. They're not optional, which is largely what our culture's been saying lately.
Dr. Grobien: Right.
Abigail: The dads are optional, and that's not the case. Those wounds persist.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, and this is where I think as Christians, we need to begin to kind of push and emphasize the community nature of the church. You know, it's very important, especially as Lutherans, to emphasize the forgiveness of sins that we have in Jesus Christ. To emphasize that, to help people to know and believe that their sins really are forgiven in Christ through his suffering and death and resurrection, that also then creates a new community.
It creates a new congregation. It creates a new body in Christ where we live with one another. So we have to be able to live in the community. And there's a way then in which the church ought to, as you say, begin to step in where maybe there's been wounds or brokenness or imperfections in, whether it's in family life or in civil life.
And so, you know, one of the things that I look back on that I am profoundly thankful for for my own father is that he actually did this very intentionally. Um, when I was a teenager, there were a couple of young men at our church about 10 years older than I was. And he was very intentional about asking them to spend some time with me, you know, to just kind of be a mentor, to be somebody that I could bounce other things off and learn from, that maybe my dad recognized or thought he wasn't giving me the wisdom that he wanted to give me, even though interesting. I think everything that my dad did was very, you know, he did so many things for me. I mean, you can't even begin to list them. But this was another great gift of his.
Abigail: Yeah. That would take a ton of humility, I think, for somebody to say, you know what, I don't feel like I have this. I'm gonna pull somebody else in.
Dr. Grobien: Right. And wisdom too. And it, because it was never, it never came across as though he was never like self-deprecating in the sense of I'm a worthless father. Sure. It never came across like that. He was always, he was still very active in my life, but he also recognized, hey, maybe I needed somebody a little bit younger who could also connect with me in certain ways.
Abigail: Like a, it could be like a big brother, uncle kind of a feel. Yeah,
Dr. Grobien: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like a young uncle. This was a profound blessing to me, and I, I think any, yeah, ways that in the church that we can do this and kinda encourage this kind of thing, and both asking and looking for these opportunities, right. Men, can, as we interact with other parishioners, other people in our congregations, and we get to know them and we can see, is it okay if I, you know, hang out with these young men or just sort of make that something that he does on a Sunday morning and see what kind of relationships develop.
Abigail: And I think too, you know, in general I am, I've been seeing this theme in my life of like.
Everybody needs to slow the heck down. Like, can we just all take a breath here? I started doing sourdough and kombucha, and I saw a post the other day. It was like, if your wife's doing sourdough and kombucha, just buy her a goat already. Yeah. And I was like, that'd be great. Thanks. But I think so many people are taking those things up because it slows things down.
Mm-hmm. And I think when we are so fast paced, like picture in your head, the last church fellowship lunch that you were at. How much time did you really spend getting to know the other people in the church who you didn't know, to a point where you might be able to see, you know what their family isn't as complete as it could be, and maybe by pulling them into tighter fellowship with us, we might provide something that they're missing in those familial connections.
This idea of pseudo adopting people. You know, to think like, oh, at Easter, do they have somebody to be with, but not just the big holidays, like on a daily basis. Yeah. And there are really beautiful stories of people creating those relationships. And then every Thursday they always get together and whatever the family's doing on Thursday, whether it's tee-ball games or just dinner or you know, whatever.
This person is a part of that now and gains something from having a more holistic life because you took the time to actually think, maybe we can pull them in, and maybe they can gain something from that.
Dr. Grobien: Yeah. The more we just try to interact with each other in our congregations, right? The more these things can develop organically, I mean, there's a certain sense in which we have to be somewhat intentional, but again, the more we know people, then the more these things are gonna develop.
And this is also why I think. We should think about the Christian virtue of hospitality. Yeah, hospitality, I think for a lot of people, seems really risky. Do I have to bring somebody into my home? We think of our home as some kind of safe space that's closed off for people.
Abigail: This is totally my husband. My husband is like, my home is my cave.
Don't bring anybody here.
Dr. Grobien: Right. And I think as Christians, we have to kind of fight against that a little bit and say, yeah, we are vulnerable in our homes. But that's actually the point. That's what God wants us to do. You know, Christ wants us to open up our homes precisely so that people can see another way of life, maybe there are some differences.
And when we invite people into our homes, they also can feel a level of comfort that allows them to be more intimate with us as well. And so this helps us to kind of see differences and appreciate them, and in that vulnerability, get a little closer to one another and help each other out.
Abigail: Yeah. You know, it's interesting that we end here on a fatherhood episode because I'm not sure that vulnerability is something that comes naturally to fathers.
So maybe that is a good ending note of like, here's something to chew on. Dads, are you being vulnerable? In the ways that the Christian community and that your Christian family needs you to be vulnerable.
Dr. Grobien: And there's a way in which fathers, of course, need to be providing leadership Sure. And be taking initiative.
But in a sense, by being open to others, then they know better how to take that initiative, how to take that leadership and how to really help and to serve other people. Yeah.
Abigail: Well, thanks for joining us today, Dr. Grobien. I appreciate insights. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, friends, again, more on fatherhood coming up.
I know that June and Father's Day is not always easy for everybody. I hope that the episodes coming up are edifying for you guys. Again, if you miss any of 'em, I choose life.org back slash radio. You can pick 'em up there or on your favorite podcasting sites.
Life Issues: This is life issues with Brad Mattis, president of Life Issues Institute.
As always, my role isn't to support or oppose any political party, but simply report on events. Pollsters say there's a seismic shift in the way Catholics are voting, normally Democrat voters, but that appears to be changing in large part due to abortion. The Democrat Party is now viewed as the pro-abortion party with the Republican Party, largely opposing it.
Catholic voters have taken notice and are voting accordingly. Political Analyst, Steve Cortes points to the recent election, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have huge Catholic populations in all three battleground states supported Donald Trump. Consistent polling shows this trend is nationwide. The pro-life movement has long applicated, single issue voting regardless of party.
It appears American voters are listening. Follow us on social media at life issues. Institute
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