You can’t fix faith without fixing marriage
Conn Carroll
Is marriage in the United States declining because fewer people are going to church? Or are fewer people going to church because marriage is declining?
Many may assume that it is a loss of faith that is driving the decline of marriage, but a new report by the Christian nonprofit organization Communio showed it is the decline of marriage that is driving the decline in faith.
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Births outside of marriage first began rising in the 1960s, the report noted, climbing from 5% of all births in 1960 to 10% of all births in 1970 to 20% in 1980 to 30% by 1990.
The trend away from church attendance, however, didn’t start until the mid-1980s, almost a generation after marriage began to collapse. In 1980, those with no religion made up just 7% of the population, but by 1990, that had doubled to 14%, and by 2020, nones had risen to 22%.
So timing-wise, it seems clear that the decline in marriage happened before the decline in faith. But Communio also commissioned a poll finding that 80% of all Sunday churchgoers today also grew up in a continuously married home with both biological parents. It is those former believers who either experienced divorce, or whose parents never married, who are most likely to have lost faith and left the church. “Religious non affiliation is unlikely to stabilize until 25-30 years after married fatherhood stabilizes,” the report surmised.
In other words, as long as marriage keeps declining, we should expect religious faith to keep declining, too.
To combat these trends, the report recommended churches create and normalize marriage ministries. “Research has shown that as little as 8 hours of relationship skills education practiced during a 12-month period leads to lower divorce rates and better relationship satisfaction,” the report said.
Communio also recommended that churches encourage young adults to embrace getting married in their 20s instead of waiting until their 30s. “Churches must become serious and effective in discouraging the many existing marriage competitors (such as cohabitation) and sexual alternative to marriage (premarital sex and pornography),” the report concluded.
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This is all excellent advice that churches should follow, but there is more lawmakers can do as well. Marriage did not start falling apart in this country until the federal government started forcing working-class mothers to choose between government benefits and marriage. As the number of these programs has grown, including Medicaid and even private health insurance subsidies, the penalty the federal government inflicts on marriage has only grown.
If we are going to save faith in the U.S., we need to tackle federal marriage penalties first.