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Sitting next to my father in the pew on Sunday mornings as a little boy, I remember his warm hands on my knees during the quiet moments of the liturgy.
After that, he put us in the family van and we all went out for donuts at the only Tim Hortons Open in South Florida. As he entered the house, I ran in with him jumping with excitement. My choice has always been the same – delicious Boston Cream.
It turns out now that these warm childhood memories with my father may have affected my adult Christian faith far more than I had previously thought.
The fleeing of resident fathers from their homes over the past 60 years may be the best explanation for the fall of Christianity in the United States. (St. Petersburg)
As you can see, the last 60 years have seen an escape from home as a resident father. Communio National Faith Survey “Relationships” may best explain the breakdown of Christianity in the United States over the past 40 years. The study concludes that religious independence is unlikely to stabilize until 25 to 30 years after marriage and stable fatherhood.
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This means that evangelists interested in regeneration must become effective in promoting healthy, Christ-centered marriages in order for revival to take root.
The conclusion was drawn from the results of a national survey of 19,000 Sunday church attendees during services in 112 evangelical, Protestant and Catholic congregations in 13 different states. Overall, the study found that 80% of all Sunday church-goers in the United States grew up in households where his biological parents were continuously married, but this is becoming increasingly rare. bottom.
This trend was seen across age groups, from the oldest Gen Z to the youngest baby boomers.
It is well known that the current increase in non-religious people started sometime between 1986 and 1991, about 25-30 years after the start of the sexual revolution. In the 1960s, out-of-wedlock births and divorces began to explode. This had the effect of reducing the number of children growing up with their father at home.
Much has been written about the detrimental effects on children when fathers are not home, from poverty to mental health to poor academic performance. It was also found to have a significant impact on the likelihood of experiencing faith.
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In fact, a growing body of research on religion shows that a child’s relationship with their father is important to their faith practice. A 40-year longitudinal study that followed 350 families and more than 3,000 people across multiple generations to understand the reasons for effective religious transmission, published by Oxford University Press, found:
![Photo of a person removing a ring](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2020/12/640/320/iStock-1173666112.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
In the 1960s, out-of-wedlock births and divorces began to explode. (St. Petersburg)
“…that the close bond with the father is more important than the close bond with the mother in religious traditions. Clearly, the quality of the relationship between the child and the father is a function of the parent’s internalization of religious traditions. important to”, beliefs and practices. “
The researchers go on to conclude that:
“Father intimacy is more important than mother intimacy in the transmission of religion. Among evangelical fathers, there is a 25-point difference in paternal intimacy.” [the professed faith] similarity [between parent-child] For children who feel emotionally closer to their father compared to children who are less close. For evangelical mothers, the difference is only one percentage point. A similar pattern exists for mainstream and Catholics. “
A study by Paul Vitz, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at New York University, sheds more light here. Witz shows that a child’s failure to form a healthy attachment to his father often manifests later as a loss of faith, an interest in New Age spirituality, or agnosticism or atheism. increase.
Unmarried fathers can also be effective fathers, but on average, being an unmarried father contributes to a parenting style that is conducive to both human prosperity and the modeling and formation of appropriate beliefs. does not produce.
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All of this largely explains why both unmarried and married adults who grew up in continuously married households make up the majority of Sunday church attendance.
Our family of origin is still an exogenous factor, so it is understandably impossible for a religious person to choose to grow up in a continuously married home. An adult’s decision to attend church is inevitably influenced by his or her childhood circumstances.
Not all adults who stop attending church do so because of their parents’ failed marriage or relationship with their father. Conversely, a failed parental marriage does not necessarily mean that adults will stop attending church. For example, the study found that 1 in 5 people who attended church on Sundays grew up in families that didn’t stay married throughout their childhood.
However, the preponderance of data on the family origins of churchgoers has led Christian leaders to believe that the environment created by a healthy and faithful marriage is of vital importance, and that Christian faith is practiced on a societal scale. You will come to believe that it is not a sufficient standard to communicate effectively.
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In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus tells the parable of the sower. In it, when the sower threw his seeds, some seeds fell on the road and the birds ate them. Other seeds fell on rocky soil, but were scorched by the sun. Other seeds fell into thorns and suffocated as they grew. Finally, “Other seeds fell on good soil, some yielding 100 times more grain, some 60 times more, some 30 times more.”
In the 21st century West, adults raised by married parents most often seem to be the sound soil for the seeds of faith to thrive.
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