The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Kris Vallotton on Devastating 'Pandemic of Fatherlessness' in America

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

America is suffering from a pandemic that is not a virus, it “is a pandemic of fatherlessness.” That’s according to Pastor Kris Vallotton, author of the new book, “Up Rising: The Epic Battle for the Most Fatherless Generation in History.” “Fifty-one percent of all children in America right now are born out of wedlock, 51%,” Vallotton, the senior associate leader of Bethel Church in Redding, California, says. “In 1950, 4% of Americans were born out of wedlock.”  The results of children growing up without fathers in the home are devastating, Vallotton says, with data revealing that “75% of all inmates grew up without a father,” and “63% of all youth suicides come from fatherless homes.”  Vallotton also points to a rise in transgenderism and gay marriage as a side effect of fatherlessness, because “when we embrace gay marriage… what we said is that you can have two mommies and two daddies, because mommies and daddies are interchangeable.” Vallotton joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share his own personal story of losing his father as a young boy and how that affected his life, and to offer a hopeful solution for how children can experience the love of a father amid a fatherless generation. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, January 9th. I'm Virginia Allen. America is suffering from an illness that is not a virus. It's a pandemic of fatherlessness. That's according to Chris Valleton, pastor, speaker, podcast host, and author of the new book Uprising, the epic battle for the most fatherless generation in history. The results of fatherlessness in America are devastating. Valeton says that a link can be drawn between the 51, of children in America born out of wedlock to the rise in gender confusion, youth suicide, and high school dropout rates. Valaton joins me on the show today to discuss how we can trace many issues within society today

to this lack of fatherlessness in the home. And he also offers solutions to this pandemic. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's outpost here in Washington, sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research, a rundown of important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. Sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes. Arguably, the greatest crisis in this generation is that of fatherlessness. It's an issue that

honestly affects every single sphere of society. Pastor Chris Vallaton's new book Uprising, the epic battle for the most fatherless generation in history, addresses the crisis of fatherlessness, but also offers some really practical and powerful solutions for how we can overcome these challenges. And Pastor Chris joins us now. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me on. Well, Pastor Chris, I know that those who are familiar, with Bethel Church in Reading, California. Some of them have maybe heard your story. But if you wouldn't mind, just take a few minutes to share a little bit about your relationship

with your own father, his passing, and how that affected you as a child. Yeah. Well, my mother got pregnant with me in 1954 out of wedlock, which in those days, which, you know, was connected to tons of shame. And my mother and father eloped, and three years later, my father drowned. So my mother was left with an 18-month-old daughter and a three-year-old son. And two years later, I gave me the quick story. Two years later, my mother remarried to a very violent man who, yeah, he was violent.

I can give you details, but grew up in a very violent home with an alcoholic. And she was married to him for eight years and then divorced him. And two years later, didn't learn and married another violent man. And so that's kind of our upbringing. I moved out when I was 17. I had an encounter with the Lord when I was 15. My mother was covered with psoriasis all over her own body. And I didn't, I wasn't raised to, I wasn't raised as, you know, like not believing

God. There was just no really religious upbringing whatsoever spiritual upbringing. I would really say now. When I was 15, I said out loud, if there's a God, if you. my mother, I'll find out who you are and serve you the rest of my life. An audible voice said, my name is Jesus Christ and you have requested. And the next morning, my mother woke up with completely well from psoriasis. And the voice came back again, said, my name is Jesus Christ.

He said, if I healed your mother, you'd serve me and I'm waiting. So that started my journey. I was 18. I actually found the Lord and with my girlfriend now wife, wife of 47 years. So that's kind of the quick, the very quick, three men. minute update of my life. Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing that. Well, with your own personal story and then with the years, decades of ministry that you've done, you've watched a lot of young people kind of go through various challenges in life. And you've also had the opportunity

to serve in multiple different communities and something that you speak very openly about that you've encountered over and over and over is young people who are growing up without fathers, the impacts of that. And especially in current culture and society, your book addresses, you know, what we've observed in recent years in the impacts of this increase of fatherlessness on society. So if you would talk a little bit about how we got here. I mean, we're living in a point in time where one in four kids in America are growing up without a father in the home. And when you say that, you can almost be numb to that. which I think is also shocking.

Like how did we get to this place where one, that's a factor, but then also society is kind of numb to the issue of fatherlessness. Well, yeah, you're right. 51% of all children in America right now are born out of wedlock, 51%. I mean, just for contrast, in 1950, 4% of Americans were born out of wedlock. So think about, you want to talk about pandemic. this is a pandemic of falllessness. And what's, you know, what's, you know, what that, what we need to realize is that we live in the most fatherless generation in the history, in the history of the modern world, at least, since we've been keeping track of statistics in which our fathers are alive, but not home.

And that has never happened in modern culture. In other words, we've had more fatherless generations in history, like during civil war, but our fathers died in war. So, but, you know, what, what happened is, you know, well, first of all, it depends on how far back we want to trace, but this exponential growth of flawlessness is really was birth primarily, or maybe we could say tracked primarily through the sexual revolution. When, you know, the theme of the theme song of Crosby Still's Nation Young was, it can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. And basically it just said, have sex with whoever you want. don't worry about commitment. It's all about how you feel. There's no responsibility. And that, that, and that's, that seated this, or maybe it accelerated this culture of no responsibility. And then we had in our school system, Darwinism was introduced in our school systems in 1920,

but it never actually got any traction until the sexual revolution when people were living like hell, didn't want to answer to heaven. And so the Darwinism gave people the ability to have, if you will, a clean conscience from the standpoint is there would be no creator to answer to. Like you are, you are evolutionized amoeba or you are, depending on what kind of evolution you believe in, you are an evolutionized ape, and you actually, and actually there is no real creator. You are a chance. and part of what happened in that is not only did you not answer to a creator but you don't have a divine destiny if you're you know you're a cosmic burp you're you're the you know the strongest of the the fittest of the species um you don't actually have an eternity you actually have you know it's like why not

you know why not um why not party it up you know because you have you have nobody to answer to And all of these, there's lots of other things that happen in that. And now we have, you know, the influence of homosexuality, transgenderism. And we have this whole idea when we embrace gay marriage and talking about as a nation and as the nations. What we did, we may not have realized what we are actually doing as far as a global expression. What we said is that you can have two mommies and two daddies because mommies and daddies are interchangeable. So now we have another dynamic that's working in falllessness in that we don't even

keep, I don't know if you know this Virginia, but we don't keep fallless statistics anymore. Like after 2017, the government doesn't even release statistics about falllessness because we don't actually need a father because mothers and fathers are interchangeable. So now you have toxic masculinity, you have the masculine women, you have toxic masculinity in men, you're feminizing a generation. Anyway, a lot to say, sorry for taking that much time, but that's where we're at. Yeah, well, no, it's a big problem. It really is. Now, what is the actual effect when we look at what happens to a little boy, when he's growing up and he doesn't have a dad present who's involved with his life?

what are the implications on that little boy's life? Let me give you some statistical implications so that we can look at statistics and then move backwards. So 90% of all, no, I'm sorry, 75% of all inmates who grew up without a father. 75% of all inmates grew up without a father. Just 63% of all youth suicides come from fatherless home. So you're five times more likely to commit suicide if you don't have a dad. Here's another one.

You're 32 times more likely to be homeless if you're. you don't have a dad. 32 times more likely. You are, here's another one, you're 20 times more likely to show this, uh, behavior disorder if you don't have a dad. Wow. You are, you are, this is, this is a huge one. You are, you are, uh, 14 times more likely to rape a woman if you don't have a dad. And I'll give you this last one. You're 71% more likely to drop out of school. You're, I'm sorry, 71% of all high school, uh, dropouts are from home, from, uh, flawless homes. That's nine, times your line time is more likely to drop out of school if you if you don't have a dad. So these are the side effects of falllessness.

Like nobody's talking about this. Like nobody's talking like if you look, you don't have to be a Christian. Like if you look at the statistics and you realize what's happening, you would wonder why every spiritual leader, every political leader, every government leader, every teacher isn't saying we have a pandemic on our hands and it's not, it's not just a biological. virus. It is a spiritual and social virus that is destroying, really destroying a generation. Wow. Well, and one of the outgross of that that I was really glad to see that you went ahead and tackled in the book, because it might be one of the most controversial elements that you do tackle

is in chapter three. You argue that fatherlessness has led to this rise in gender confusion that we're seeing. Talk a little bit about that. Why do you think that is? Well, there, there, I think I do a really good job in chapter three that it probably won't do in two minutes. But let me just give you just an overview of it. What happens when, first of all, what happens psychologically, spiritually, and mentally to a woman who's been abandoned by a father? I'm talking about the mother. She's been abandoned. There are some rare cases where these things aren't true, what I'm about to say.

But first of all, they have a view of men, right? been abandoned. Maybe they have one kid, two kids, three kids, lots of women. It's very common for women to think, I'm going to get pregnant and this man is, this man, whether he married me or not, this man is going to be committed to me because we have children together. But what she finds is she's betrayed and that he leaves and he's maybe, you know, he's an alley cat. He's got, so what is mom's view of men? Now children, now she has a child or maybe two or three, daughters and sons. First of all, son has never seen healthy love between a man and woman. Because mom doesn't have a man.

And mom is tainted. Mom is angry. Mom is bitter with men. And she's raising me. Is mom trying to feminize me? No, but it takes a mother to give birth to a boy, but it takes a father to give birth to a man. You can teach what,

what you aren't, but you can only impart who you are. So, so mom can't make a man. She can make a boy, but she can't make a man. And now she's, and now she is, she's upset with men, right? She's like, men are irresponsible, men are this, men are that. So what does boy, what does boy raise in? Not only do I not have a role model, but I actually have a tainted mom does not like masculine men.

this is the boy right this is the boy and i i don't know how to relate to women as lovers because i've not seen my father relate to my mother as a lover so when i'm when i'm looking for love i'm i'm relating to i'm relating to love as sisters and mothers but not as lovers if that makes sense yeah and then and then the daughter has the same issue because she's never related to to a masculine man. She's only related to a feminine woman. So how does she learn how to relate to someone she's not? All of this is, and by the way, I do a lot better job in chapter three hocking through this. But all of this is leading to it. Like if you look at all of the facts of culture, you would, and you were, let's say you were an alien and you were doing, you know,

there's such things as aliens, which I don't know if there is. But you were, you were doing a study on human behavior, like we study rats, you would say, this is going to lead to same-sex attraction because I am my, because I have been raised to not like or trust men. This is feeding homosexuality. It's feeding transgenderism. The second thing I'll say is this, is that your dad gives you your identity. Think about it. His sperm determines your sex and you typically take on the last name of the husband when you get married in almost every culture. It's a prophetic declaration that fathers bring identity. They're not the only identifier, of course, but they're the primary identifier. This is what's happening in culture when I don't even

know what sex I am is the ultimate identity crisis. So I think that this fatherlessness is feeding an entire generation of dysfunction. Now, it's really easy to look at the problem and get a little bit overwhelmed. And, you know, the obvious solution is, okay, we need good fathers back in the home who are present, who know how to raise their kids well, love their kids well. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. We can't just snap our fingers and have that. What needs to happen in order to bring dads back into the homes so that they can be a part of that journey in the lives of sons of moving them from being boys to being men?

I think one is great question, by the way. And we try to handle that the second chapter of the book, I mean the second half of the book, to say, okay, what are the solutions? Because here's the crisis. What's the solution? And first of all, I want to say it took a 70 years to get here. We didn't get here overnight. It took us 70 years. 50 strong years, 70 years total.

So there's not a magic pill. We're going to take this pill. We're going to vote for this person. We're going to have this president. We're going to have this governor. And thank God we're good. We're going to change this law. That's going to solve the problem.

No, we have to migrate back. And by the way, I believe we're in a Malachi moment. We're Malachi prophesied in Malachi 4. in the last days I'm going to send Elijah the prophet, he's going to restore the hearts of fathers the hearts of sons and daughters, hearts of sons and daughters fathers. So we are, right now what we're doing is we're beginning to agree with Heaven's

movement, which is the Malachi mandate. But it's beginning with, you know, Isaiah 58, you're taking the fallas into your home. You know, Isaiah 61, the broken are becoming the influencers of culture and restoring broken cities and the foundations of cities. So, you know, it begins with all of us,

who are fathers, who can, who can reach out and say, I can, you know, I can coach a soccer team. I can, I can be, you know, I can be a mentor to, you know, to boys and actually girls too. You know, we, we, Kathy and I, we had a ministry for five years. I called a ministry. It was, it was secular, where we had over 120 kids on an average day twice a week for five years. And we played basketball with them. And we had a half time where we taught them life skills. We taught them biblical principles. Sometimes we taught them right out of the Bible.

And out of those kids, I had one kid who had a father in home. One out of 120 kids. One in five years. And so, you know, this is the problem. And so we became a father and a mother. We became a family, can I say? We became a family to a bunch of orphans. And it was powerful and profound.

And we loved it. They, you know, at first didn't like us, but, you know, they didn't know how to handle boundaries. But they fell in love with us. And we were with them a lot of years. So I think that, you know, you know, boy scouts, girl scouts, all these are, these are all organizations that, you know, over, over, you know, the last 150 years have become surrogant fathers and mothers to culture. And I think they're incredibly important right now. Yeah. Now, when,

when we talk about that shift and that change, one of the things that you talk about towards the end of the book, Uprising, is the importance of legacy and inheritance. And that's something that's not talked about too much in culture or in society, that importance of actually thinking about the next generation and what am I leaving for my kids, for my grandkids, and even for people in my community who I'm not related to, but like you and Kathy did, who I'm mentoring. What is the role? How should we be thinking about legacy as we're making choices in our life? Virginia, you know, we've got to remember that we're growing up in a global orphanage, a virtual growth global orphanage. So, you know, a proverb says the righteous man leaves an inheritance to his

children's children. And you know, and the Bible's teaching us to live future present. That we actually, that God actually has a plan for a future for us to give us a future and a hope. And so, you know, the other thing that I'll say that I didn't mention, I don't think in the book, at least not, I didn't highlight, is the suicide rate among people right now is astronomical. So number one killer among young people right now. And when you take away legacy, you take away the hope for future. When we take away hope for the future, people live in despair. And so I think that it's important for us to think about how our life is affecting the coming generations. And I had an encounter which we don't have time to talk about, but where I was literally in a vision taken

100 years in the future. And the outcome of that when I came out of that and the outcome of that was God said to me, I want you to stop your ministry and live for a legacy. I want you to live for a generation that you will never see. And so I think that it's it's encumbered upon us. It is is a paramount importance that we live for something beyond ourselves. Think about how many of our forefathers and mothers died for it. I mean, they literally went to war because they believe that if they laid their life down on a battlefield, it would make it better for another generation. Like it is it is in our DNA as Americans especially for us to lay down. down our life for the next generation. And, you know, I think there's some of the challenge we have

right now is, is that we live in an instant gratification, you know, generation. And we, we have forgotten that people bled to give us this freedom. Like you and I have, you know, we have religious freedom right now. Like we're talking about Jesus Christ, somebody paid for that. Somebody, some buddies paid for us to have this conversation without fear of demise or, or, or, you know, rebuttal. We have rebuttals, but we don't have demise. We're not going to prison because we're talking about sexuality, that we're talking about morality. But people, somebody paid for that. Like a generation laid down their life so that you and I can have a free speech conversation. And this is, this is the way that fathers think. This is the way healthy fathers think.

They don't just, they don't think nine to five, you know, seven days a week. They think what, what am I leaving the next generation? What am I leaving? What, what will they say about me 100 years from now? What is the effect of my life? My hundred years from now. And I'll tell you, that conversation comes up four or five times a week in my, in my circles and in my life. Yeah.

Well, Pastor Chris, I'd love to hear just from you, you know, this is obviously an ongoing in conversation. And we've talked a little bit about solutions, but we know that this is a long game that we're playing. So share a little bit about, just before we go, share a little bit about what is next for you as you're kind of continuing on this mission of saying, I want to be a part of calling fathers back and actually seeing a fatherless generation shepherded and disciplined and restored to a place where boys can be men. Well, we started an organization called Braveco out of this encounter that I had three or a half, four years ago that the book was written out of it. And Braveco is basically think kind of promise keepers, if you're old enough to remember promise keepers.

But on steroids in that we have more technology now. So what promisekeepers didn't have is they had no way to, you know, disciple nations, can I say it that way? Because they didn't have platforms like right now, what we're doing right now. they didn't have ways they didn't have they didn't have the technology we have to you know have two thousand men on a live conversation and and disciplining you know and having you know fantastic fathers be able to pour into to sons who are you know on the other side of the world or in a different in a different state and so this is this really this really become profound it's only a two-year-old organization but is growing amazingly rapidly

We had, I think, a thousand men, 900 men, I think, graduate from our first Braveco training that was 12 months long. So it was a big, like you say, it was a marathon. You know, it wasn't like a six-week course. It took a big commitment to be there. And then those men now, many of those men are part of our team that are helping to mentor other men and boys. So I think that, you know, we're not, you know, there's no one person that's big enough to solve the problem. but together we can be an inspiration to other movements, to other churches, to other men, to other organizations, and say, you know, hey, you can't do everything, but you can do something.

You can't touch everybody, but you can touch someone. And if everyone just does their part, you know, it's the Isaiah 58, if you take the homeless poor into your house, you make an effort to, you know, be an answer to someone. Sometimes you probably feel this way, I do too. you know when I finished when I was writing this book especially the first half it's I wanted to be really clear on the problem like here's what is it we're trying to solve and then the second half of the book is you know about lots about solutions but first half of the book you know I finished that first half it was overwhelming like the problem is so freaking big like what can I do it's like you know it's like I'm a drop in an ocean of this is huge problem yeah but then I'm Then I remembered God. And I remember, you know, I grew up and I got saved in the Jesus movie where, you know, the people that we wrote off, like these people will never love God. The hippies, the drug-addicted hippies that were filling our nation, they just suddenly turned around.

And in three years, there were so many baptisms that the only tank that would hold him was the ocean. And we saw a nation literally just turn on its heels over a very short period of time. And I'm like, we're in that Malachi moment now. And we can partner with that. And I'm so excited. And I just want to say, I said it in the beginning, but thank you so much for believing in this message and in my message, especially as a woman that you actually have me on your show. And you're giving me the opportunity to share, I think, what the word of the Lord is, but what definitely is a message we're carrying. Yeah.

Well, I mean, we see the effects. every single day in every sphere of society, what happens when you have a generation that is growing up without fathers in the home? And it's devastating. And so, Chris, we really thank you for your time. For everyone listening, be sure to check out Uprising the epic battle for the most fatherless generation in history. And you can get the book on Chris's website, chris-valleton.com. And Chris is spelled with a K-K-R-I-S and Valatin, V-A-L-L-T-O-T-O-N. And we I also encourage you to check out Chris's podcast, the Chris Valleton podcast, wherever you at your podcast. But Chris, thank you. We really appreciate you coming on today.

Thank you, Virginia. God bless you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining in today. We hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pastor Chris Vallaton. Again, if you want to learn more, you can visit his website at chrisvalaton.com. If you haven't had a chance already, be sure to take just a moment to subscribe to the show. we love hearing your feedback. It really helps us get the word out to even more listeners. Also, be sure to check out our evening show right here in your podcast feed,

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