Marriage: The Faith Connection
Posted October 26th, 2009 at 12.29pm in Family and Religion.
You should talk about money before jumping into it, a story in The New York Times says. You can spice it up by doing more housework, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. And this just in: Your strong commitment to it is a sign you’re trying to practice what you regularly hear preached.
“It,” of course, is marriage. Marriage and its connection to religious involvement will be one of the themes highlighted Thursday during “Religious Practice and the Family,” a conference sponsored by The Heritage Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
Contributing researcher and University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox has written numerous books about love and marriage, including the provocatively titled “Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands.”
But you don’t have to be a sociologist to notice that marriage and parenting often serve as an impetus, specifically for men, to get more involved with church. In a new research paper to be presented at Thursday’s conference, Wilcox examines the data and makes a further claim.
His study provides substantial evidence for the idea that “the fortunes of American religion rise and fall, at least in part, with the fortunes of the intact, married family,” Wilcox says. So if the nation’s retreat from marriage continues, his work suggests, American churches will be weakened.
Using data from the General Social Survey, Wilcox concludes that unmarried parents are 23 percent less likely to attend church on a weekly basis than are adults who don’t have children. However, men and women who are married and have children are 62 percent more likely to attend church than unmarried peers who are childless.
“Clearly,” Wilcox says, “adults who combine marriage and parenthood in a conventional manner are most likely to attend religious services.”
Join Heritage and our research partners, Child Trends and Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, to find out more about the connection between religious practice and family life. The conference is open at no charge to anyone interested in the intersection of faith with life in the here and now. For details, and to register, go here.
Ken McIntyre contributed to this post.
- Author: Jessica Prol
- Interact: Sphere
- Share This
October 26, 2009 Leon, Durango, CO writes:
Let’s face it, the American Family has to be taken out (as much as possible) for the Obamafacists to get complete Pleadean control. People with families are much less likely to be victimized by government programs. The Dems took out Faith, Hope and Charity, actually usurped religion with it. So, then with family you have unwanted government interference in your lives, much of it destructive (however well intended).
Under a burgeoning Communist takeover, American Families have come under perpetual attack. From its core values to its beliefs, from its economics to its personal private matters. We have the history of the Soviet Union to help us out. These fools are doing the exact same thing to us. Schools have usurped family, Social Services has usurped family, Child Protective Services has usurped family, Gangs, the defacto slave economy has usurped family. The government destroyed Dad’s authority with no spank, “dumb dad” all over the television. Get the picture?
The American Family has Cold War damage. The Commies took over the schools, so free public education is under threat (this is after refusing all Voucher legislation attempts.) The government, serving Plutocrats was not what our Founding Fathers had in mind. The Lunatic Fringe knew all about the vast left wing conspiracy, the government didn’t believe it, officially. The Damage continues with the Drug War (Let the drugs run rampant is the result, nobody knows what the dosages are.) American kids are inundated with the worst drugs, and no common sense distinctions between relatively harmless drugs and deadly ones.
The Drug War is where vast lawless areas are created, and police cannot be friends. The War On Alcoholics is where thought-up crime possibilities are punished like real crimes. The War On Gangs runs like a double cross, gangs are actively created in prison, that’s where our gang problems were created. I don’t think the government has the designated power to make War on its own People. The American Family is in the crosshairs, and in the crossfire. We don’t like what the Communist/Socialist/Plutocrat/Progressive Liberals have done to our families