Guilt is one of the most painful emotions in human experience.  Sometimes it is valid and represents the displeasure of God Himself. When that is the case, it can be forgiven and forgotten.  On other occasions, it is entirely of our own creation.

This tendency to assume the responsibility for everything our teenagers and grown children do is not only a product of psychological mumbo-jumbo (determinism) but it reflects our own vulnerabilities as parents. We know we are flawed. We know how often we fail.  Even under the best of circumstances, we are forced time after time to guess at what is right for our children. Errors in judgment occur.  Then our own selfishness surfaces and we do and say things that can never be undone. All these shortcomings are then magnified tenfold when a son or daughter goes bad.

Finally, the inclination toward self-condemnation also reflects the way Christians have been taught to believe.  Though I am not a theologian, it is apparent to me that a serious misunderstanding of several key passage has occurred.  The error has produced false condemnation for circumstances that exceed parental control or influence.

Consider, for example, the pastor who wrote me in anguish after his twenty-one-year-old son impregnated his girlfriend on a Christian college campus.  The minister was devastated.  He felt as guilty as though he had personally been caught in an adulterous affair.  This anguished man, who was a successful and popular pastor, wrote a letter of confession to his church and resigned as their leader.  He cited Titus 1:6 as evidence of his unworthiness to continue in the ministry.

The verse he quoted is a portion of the apostle Paul's statement of qualifications for church leadership.  Paul said a bishop must be "the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient."

You may draw your own conclusions from this scripture, but I believe it refers to much younger children than the pastor's son.  This young man was twenty-one years of age and had gone away to college.  He was no longer a child!

Remember, also, that males and females were considered grown much earlier in Paul's day.  They often married at fourteen or sixteen years of age.  Thus, when Paul referred to a man having his children in proper subjection, I believe he was talking about children.  He intended to disqualify men who had chaotic families and those who were unable to discipline or manage their young sons and daughters.  That is a far cry from holding a man responsible for the rebellious behavior of his grown offspring, or in this instance, for a single sinful event.  They are beyond his control. 

The pastor who wrote to me might take solace from reading again the book of Genesis.  It would appear that God, Himself would not qualify for Church leadership according to the pastor's interpretation of Titus 1:6, because His wayward "children," Adam and Eve, fell into sin.  Obviously, in my view, something is wrong with this interpretation of the Scriptures.

Ezekiel 18 is also helpful to us in assessing blame for the sinful behavior of grown children.  God's way of looking at that situation is abundantly clear:

The word of the Lord came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:  The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"?

As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel.  For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son--both alike belong to me.  The soul who sins is the one who will die (Ezekiel 18:1-4).

Then in verse 20 he concludes: "The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.  The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

These words from the Lord should end the controversy once and for all. Each adult is responsible for his own behavior, and that of no one else.

From Dr. Dobson’s book Parenting Isn’t For Cowards.

Request your copy today HERE.