ANALYSIS
People are falling away from faith at alarming rates.
One example is evident in a recent Gallup study, which stated, “The percentage of adults who report regularly attending religious services remains low. Three in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom or 31% never attend.”
Church decline over the last 40 years in the United States has prompted numerous explanations advanced by experts, pastors and church leaders, most of which are either wrong or, at best, incomplete.
The faith crisis facing churches and denominations nationwide was fueled by the collapse of the family at home.
Let me explain the severity of the problem. Research from The Marriage and Religion Research Initiative shows that most adults under 35 today were not raised in a household with married parents. In contrast, the 1970 U.S. Census shows 40 percent of U.S. households were married with children under 18 living in the home. As of 2023, that number dropped to 17.9%.
This tragic collapse in marital love fuels a legion of other social ills – from shorter life spans to generational poverty to increased mental illness and the epidemic of
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