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Patrick F. Fagan

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Patrick F. Fagan, PhD, is Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data. A native of Ireland, Dr. Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in sociology and social administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) as well as a PhD from University College Dublin.

In 1984, Dr. Fagan moved from the clinical world into the public policy arena, to work on family issues at the Free Congress Foundation. After that, he worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush, before spending the next 13 years at the Heritage Foundation, where he was a senior fellow.

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The Gift That Christian Marriage is to Western Civilization

Dr. Pat Fagan, the Director of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute, explained how, from a sociological viewpoint, the married intact heterosexual family that worships God weekly has the most positive effect on children and society.

He encouraged the students to live chaste, virtuous, and loving lives. Like the early Christians who lived amongst dark pagan times, the witness of strong loving families will save our culture, he told them.

At the Family Research Council (FRC), Dr. Pat Fagan directs the work of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute (MARRI), a branch of the Council that focuses on studying the effects of the relationship between marriage and religion on society. Fagan has worked for the Free Congress Foundation, assisted Indiana Senator Dan Coats, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under George H. W. Bush, and was a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation for thirteen years before joining the FRC.

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The family is the answer, patrick f. fagan, phd.

Patrick F. Fagan, PhD, is Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America’s social problems, as illustrated in the social science data. A native of Ireland, Dr. Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in sociology and social administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) as well as a PhD from University College Dublin.

In 1984, Dr. Fagan moved from the clinical world into the public policy arena, to work on family issues at the Free Congress Foundation. After that, he worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush, before spending the next 13 years at the Heritage Foundation, where he was a senior fellow.

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The Benefits from Marriage and Religion in the United States: A Comparative Analysis

America is a religious nation. The vast majority of Americans, when asked, profess a belief in God and affirm that religion is at least “fairly important” in their lives ( Myers 2000 : 285); about 60 percent of the population report membership in a religious organization and 45 percent state that they attend religious services at least monthly ( Sherkat and Ellison 1999 ). Most American adults are currently married and almost all will marry at some time in their lives. About two-thirds of children live with their married (biological or adoptive) parents ( U.S. Census Bureau 2001 ). And marriage and a happy family life are almost universal goals for young adults.

This commentary presents a socioeconomic and demographic view of the research literature on the benefits of marriage and religious participation in the United States. We compare religion and marriage as social institutions, both clearly on everyone’s short list of “most important institutions.” Marriage is an either–or status. But marital unions differ in a multitude of ways, including the characteristics, such as education, earnings, religion, and cultural background, of each of the partners, and the homogamy of their match on these characteristics. Similarly, religion has multiple aspects. These include religious affiliation, a particular set of theological beliefs and practices, and religiosity. Religiosity may be manifested in various levels and forms of religious participation (attendance at religious services within a congregation, family observance, individual devotion) and in terms of the salience of religion, that is, the importance of religious beliefs as a guide for one’s life. Our focus here is on broad comparisons between marriage (being married versus not) and religiosity (having some involvement in religious activities versus not). We argue that both marriage and religiosity generally have far-reaching, positive effects; that they influence similar domains of life; and that there are important parallels in the pathways through which each achieves these outcomes. Where applicable, we refer to other dimensions of marriage and religion, including the quality of the marital relationship and the type of religious affiliation.

We begin with a comparison of the effects associated with marriage and involvement in religious activities, based on a literature review, followed by a comparison of the major channels through which each operates. We then discuss qualifications and important exceptions to the general conclusion that marriage and religious involvement have beneficial effects. We conclude with a consideration of the intersection between marriage and religion and suggestions for future research.

The effects of marriage and religious involvement

Marriage and religion influence various dimensions of life, including physical health and longevity, mental health and happiness, economic well-being, and the raising of children. Recent research has also examined connections to sex and domestic violence.

Physical health and longevity

One of the strongest, most consistent benefits of marriage is better physical health and its consequence, longer life. Married people are less likely than unmarried people to suffer from long-term illness or disability ( Murphy et al. 1997 ), and they have better survival rates for some illnesses ( Goodwin et al. 1987 ). They have fewer physical problems and a lower risk of death from various causes, especially those with a behavioral component; the health benefits are generally larger for men ( Ross et al. 1990 ). A longitudinal analysis based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a large national sample, documents a significantly lower mortality rate for married individuals ( Lillard and Waite 1995 ). For example, simulations based on this research show that, other factors held constant, nine out of ten married women alive at age 48 would still be alive at age 65; by contrast, eight out of ten never-married women would survive to age 65. The corresponding comparison for men reveals a more pronounced difference: nine out of ten for the married group versus only six out of ten for those who were never married ( Waite and Gallagher 2000 ).

Similarly, although there are exceptions and the matter remains controversial ( Sloan et al. 1999 ), a growing body of research documents an association between religious involvement and better outcomes on a variety of physical health measures, including problems related to heart disease, stroke, hypertension, cancer, gastrointestinal disease, as well as overall health status and life expectancy. This research also points to differences by religious affiliation, with members of stricter denominations displaying an advantage ( Levin 1994 ). Many of the early studies in this literature suffer from methodological shortcomings, including small, unrepresentative samples, lack of adequate statistical controls, and a cross-sectional design that confounds the direction of causality. Yet the conclusion of a generally positive effect of religious involvement on physical health and longevity also emerges from a new generation of studies that have addressed many of these methodological problems ( Ellison and Levin 1998 ). In one of the most rigorous analyses to date, Hummer et al. (1999) use longitudinal data from a nationwide survey, the 1987 Cancer Risk Factor Supplement–Epidemiology Study, linked to the Multiple Cause of Death file. Their results show that the gap in life expectancy at age 20 between those who attend religious services more than once a week and those who never attend is more than seven years—comparable to the male–female and white–black differentials in the United States. Additional multivariate analyses of these data reveal a strong association between religious participation and the risk of death, holding constant socioeconomic and demographic variables, as well as initial health status. Other recent longitudinal studies also report a protective effect of religious involvement against disability among the elderly ( Idler and Kasl 1992 ), as well as a positive influence on self-rated health ( Musick 1996 ) and longevity ( Strawbridge et al. 1997 ).

To the extent that marriage and religious involvement are selective of people with unobserved characteristics that are conducive to better health, their causal effects on health and longevity would be smaller than suggested by some of the estimates in this literature.

Mental health and happiness

Recent studies based on longitudinal data have found that getting married (and staying married to the same person) is associated with better mental health outcomes. Horwitz et al. (1996) , Marks and Lambert (1998) , and Simon (2002) present evidence of improvements in emotional well-being following marriage, and declines following the end of a union. Marks and Lambert (1998) report that marital gain affects men and women in the same way, but marital loss is generally more depressing for women. Analyses that control for the selection of the psychologically healthy into marriage, and also include a wider range of measures of mental well-being, find that although there are differences by sex in the types of emotional responses to marital transitions, the psychological benefits associated with marriage apply equally to men and women ( Horwitz et al. 1996 ; Simon 2002 ).

Marriage is also associated with greater overall happiness. Analysis of data from the General Social Surveys of 1972–96 shows that, other factors held constant, the likelihood that a respondent would report being happy with life in general is substantially higher among those who are currently married than among those who have never been married or have been previously married; the magnitude of the gap has remained fairly stable over the past 35 years and is similar for men and women ( Waite 2000 ).

The connection between religion and mental health has been the subject of much controversy over the years, and many psychologists and psychiatrists remain skeptical, in part because most of the research has been based on cross-sectional analyses of small samples. The studies to date are suggestive of an association between religious involvement and better mental health outcomes, including greater self-esteem, better adaptation to bereavement, a lower incidence of depression and anxiety, a lower likelihood of alcohol and drug abuse, and greater life satisfaction and happiness in general ( Koenig et al. 2001 ). Recent longitudinal analyses of subgroups of the population provide additional evidence in support of this relationship ( Zuckerman et al. 1984 ; Levin et al. 1996 ).

Economic well-being

A large body of literature documents that married men earn higher wages than their single counterparts. This differential, known as the “marriage premium,” is sizable. A rigorous and thorough statistical analysis by Korenman and Neumark (1991) reports that married white men in America earn 11 percent more than their never-married counterparts, controlling for all the standard human capital variables. Between 50 and 80 percent of the effect remains, depending on the specification, after correcting for selectivity into marriage based on fixed unobservable characteristics. Other research shows that married people have higher family income than the nonmarried, with the gap between the family income of married and single women being wider than that between married and single men ( Hahn 1993 ). In addition, married people on average have higher levels of wealth and assets ( Lupton and Smith 2003 ). The magnitude of the difference depends on the precise measure used, but in all cases is far more than twice that of other household types, suggesting that this result is not merely due to the aggregation of two persons’ wealth.

To the best of our knowledge, the effects of religious involvement on earnings and wealth have not been systematically analyzed. However, as we discuss below, an emerging literature shows a positive effect of religiosity on educational attainment, a key determinant of success in the labor market. These studies suggest a potentially important link between religious involvement during childhood and adolescence and subsequent economic well-being as an adult. Preliminary results from a new line of inquiry at the macro level are consistent with this hypothesis. Using a cross-country panel that includes information on religious and economic variables, Barro and McLeary (2002) find that enhanced religious beliefs affect economic growth positively, although growth responds negatively to increased church attendance. The authors interpret their findings as reflecting a positive association between “productivity” in the religion sector and macroeconomic performance. 1

Children raised by their own married parents do better, on average, across a range of outcomes than children who grow up in other living arrangements. There is evidence that the former are less likely to die as infants ( Bennett et al. 1994 ) and have better health during childhood ( Angel and Worobey 1988 ) and even in old age ( Tucker et al. 1997 ). They are less likely to drop out of high school, they complete more years of schooling, they are less likely to be idle as young adults, and they are less likely to have a child as an unmarried teenager ( McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ).

Children who grow up in intact two-parent families also tend to have better mental health than their counterparts who have experienced a parental divorce. Using 17-year longitudinal data from two generations, Amato and Sobolewski (2001) find that the weaker parent–child bonds that result from marital discord mediate most of the association between divorce and the subsequent mental health outcomes of children. Cherlin et al. (1998) find that children whose parents would later divorce already showed evidence of more emotional problems prior to the divorce, suggesting that marriage dissolution tends to occur in families that are troubled to begin with. However, the authors also find that the gap continues to widen following the divorce, suggestive of a causal effect of family breakup on mental health. Summing up his assessment of the studies in this field, Cherlin (1999) concludes that growing up in a nonintact family can be associated with short- and long-term problems, partly attributable to the effects of family structure on the child’s mental health, and partly attributable to inherited characteristics and their interaction with the environment.

Several studies have documented an association between religion and children’s well-being. Recent research on differences in parenting styles by religious affiliation reveals that conservative Protestants display distinctive patterns: they place a greater emphasis on obedience and tend to view corporal punishment as an acceptable form of child discipline; at the same time, they are more likely to avoid yelling at children and are more prone to frequent praising and warm displays of affection ( Bartowski et al. 2000 ). As to other dimensions of religion, Pearce and Axinn (1998) find that family religious involvement promotes stronger ties among family members and has a positive impact on mothers’ and children’s reports of the quality of their relationship.

A number of studies document the effects of children’s own religious participation, showing that young people who grow up having some religious involvement tend to display better outcomes in a range of areas. Such involvement has been linked to a lower probability of substance abuse and juvenile delinquency ( Donahue and Benson 1995 ), a lower incidence of depression among some groups ( Harker 2001 ), delayed sexual debut ( Bearman and Bruckner 2001 ), more positive attitudes toward marriage and having children, and more negative attitudes toward unmarried sex and premarital childbearing ( Marchena and Waite 2001 ).

Religious participation has also been associated with better educational outcomes. Freeman (1986) finds a positive effect of churchgoing on school attendance in a sample of inner-city black youth. Regnerus (2000) reports that participation in religious activities is related to better test scores and heightened educational expectations among tenth-grade public school students. In the most comprehensive study to date, using data on adolescents from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, Muller and Ellison (2001) find positive effects of various measures of religious involvement on the students’ locus of control (a measure of self-concept), educational expectations, time spent on homework, advanced mathematics credits earned, and the probability of obtaining a high school diploma. Other research documents differences in educational attainment by religious affiliation ( Chiswick, B. 1988 ; Darnell and Sherkat 1997 ; Lehrer 1999 ; Sherkat and Darnell 1999 ) and suggests that the effects of religious participation on secular achievements may vary across denominations ( Chiswick, C. 1999 ; Lehrer 2003a ).

Studies of the influence of religiosity on schooling have raised the possibility that the estimated coefficients may overstate the positive causal effect of religious involvement on educational outcomes. This would be the case if religiosity is correlated with unobserved factors that encourage good behaviors in general: for example, the religiously more observant parents, who encourage their children to attend services as well, are also supportive of activities that are conducive to success in the secular arena. Freeman (1986) has emphasized this type of bias.

Biases operating in the opposite direction have also been identified ( Lehrer 2003a ). Although this issue has not been studied systematically, there is some evidence that religious participation is especially beneficial for those who are more vulnerable, for reasons that might include poor health, unfavorable family circumstances, and adverse economic conditions ( Hummer et al. 2002 ). To the extent that those who are vulnerable respond by embracing religion as a coping mechanism, the more religious homes would disproportionately have unobserved characteristics that affect educational outcomes adversely. If so, the estimated coefficients would understate the true effect of religiosity on educational attainment. 2

Little attention has been given to the question of how marriage is related to the chances that people will have active, satisfying sex lives. Cross-tabulations based on data from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey show that levels of emotional and physical satisfaction with sex are highest for married people and lowest for noncohabiting singles, with cohabitors falling in between ( Laumann et al. 1994 ). Additional evidence for the importance of commitment as a determinant of sexual satisfaction is provided by more recent multivariate analyses of these data ( Waite and Joyner 2001 ). To date, these relationships have not been quantified using longitudinal data.

Our knowledge about the relationship between religion and sex is also limited. Cross-tabulations by religious denomination show that those with no affiliation (i.e., no involvement in religious activities) are least likely to report being extremely satisfied with sex either physically or emotionally ( Laumann et al. 1994 ). Waite and Joyner (2001) find that emotional satisfaction and physical pleasure related to sex are higher for frequent attenders of religious services, holding other characteristics of the individual constant. Along similar lines, Greeley (1991) reports that couples who pray together say they have more “ecstasy” in their sex lives; he also finds that religious imagery and devotion is positively associated with sexual satisfaction. The small amount of evidence available is only suggestive of a connection between religious participation and the quality of people’s sex lives.

Domestic violence

Using data from the 1987–88 National Surveys of Families and Households, Stets (1991) finds a large difference between married people and cohabitors in the prevalence of domestic violence: 14 percent of people who have cohabiting arrangements say that they or their spouse hit, shoved, or threw things at their partner during the past year, compared to 5 percent of those who are formally married. The difference declines when age, education, and race are held constant. Additional analyses of these data show that engaged cohabiting couples display lower levels of physical violence than uncommitted cohabitors ( Waite 2000 ).

Ellison et al. (1999) explore the relationship between religion and domestic violence in America, comparing reports of abuse for men and women by religious denomination, religious participation, and religious homogamy. They find that the likelihood of violence by males increases when the male is substantially more conservative (in beliefs about the inerrancy and authority of the Bible) than his female partner. Their results also show that the likelihood of reporting violence is lower for those who attend religious services more frequently. Additional confirmation for the hypothesis that religious participation is inversely associated with the perpetration of domestic violence is provided by a more recent analysis that uses information not only on self-reported domestic violence but also on abuse reported by the partner ( Ellison and Anderson 2001 ).

As Ellison et al. (1999) note, it seems likely that part of the measured relationship between religiosity and domestic violence is due to selectivity: the more religious may well be disproportionately less prone to act violently; the same argument applies to the relationship between marriage and domestic violence.

Pathways of causality

Developing themes proposed by Durkheim ([1897]1951) , we argue that both marriage and religion lead to positive outcomes by providing social support and integration and by encouraging healthy behaviors and lifestyles. In addition, there is a mechanism that is unique to marriage, namely, the economic gains that result when two people make a commitment to become lifetime partners. There is also a pathway that is unique to religion: the positive emotions and spiritual richness that can come from personal faith and religious observance. In each case, although the various channels we discuss are conceptually distinct, they are not mutually exclusive.

Social integration and support

The argument for benefits from marriage stemming from its integrative influence runs as follows. Marriage implies love, intimacy, and friendship. The social integration and support it thus provides is a key channel through which it leads to improved mental and physical health. Being married means having someone who can provide emotional support on a regular basis, thereby decreasing depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems, and improving overall mental health. In turn, better emotional well-being contributes to enhanced physical wellness. Support from the spouse can also improve physical health directly, by aiding early detection and treatment and by promoting speedier recovery from illness ( Ross et al. 1990 ). From the perspective of children, the mutual help that parents give to each other is part of the setting that provides advantages to youths who grow up in married-couple households. In addition to close support from the spouse, marriage connects people to other individuals, other social groups (e.g., in-laws), and other social institutions ( Stolzenberg et al. 1995 ; Waite 1995 ), and this integration into a wider social network has additional positive effects on both spouses and on their children ( McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ).

The long-term commitment implied by marriage (as opposed to cohabitation) encourages the partners to invest in the relationship. Married couples indeed report higher levels of relationship quality than uncommitted cohabitors ( Brown and Booth 1996 ) and better emotional well-being ( Brown 2000 ). This pathway most likely explains the higher emotional satisfaction with sex generally reported by married individuals ( Waite and Joyner 2001 ). Evidence of the impact of marriage on relationship quality comes also from studies on domestic violence: the stronger commitment implied by marriage (or even the promise of marriage in the form of engagement) inhibits aggression ( Stets 1991 ; Waite 2000 ).

Like marriage, the institution of religion is an integrative force. Religious congregations offer regular opportunities to socialize and interact with friends who share similar values; they offer assistance to members in need; they foster a sense of community through which participants help one another. Ellison and George (1994) find that people who frequently attend religious services not only have larger social networks, but also hold more positive perceptions of the quality of their social relationships. The positive association between religious involvement and longevity is accounted for in part by this channel ( Strawbridge et al. 1997 ; Hummer et al. 1999 ).

Recent research has emphasized that religion can play a pivotal role in the socialization of youth by contributing to the development of social capital. Religious congregations often sponsor family activities, stimulating the cultivation of closer parent–child relations; they also bring children together with grandparents and other supportive adults (parents of peers, Sunday-school teachers) in an environment of trust. This broad base of social ties can be a rich source of positive role models, confidants, useful information, and reinforcement of values that promote educational achievement. The positive impact of religious involvement on various measures of educational outcomes has been attributed largely to this pathway ( Regnerus 2000 ; Muller and Ellison 2001 ; Lehrer 2003a ).

At the other end of the age spectrum, the social ties provided by religious institutions are of special value to the elderly, helping them deal with the many difficult challenges that tend to accompany old age: illness, dependency, loss, and loneliness ( Levin 1994 ).

Healthy behaviors and lifestyles

Beyond its integrative function, emphasized above, marriage also has a regulative function. Married individuals, especially men, are more likely than their single counterparts to have someone who closely monitors their health-related conduct; marriage also contributes to self-regulation and the internalization of norms for healthful behavior ( Umberson 1987 ). Positive and negative externalities within marriage also play a role: when an individual behaves in a way that is conducive to good health, the benefits spill over to the spouse; similarly, unhealthy behaviors inflict damage not only on the individual but also on the partner. In this way, marriage promotes healthy conduct. In addition, the enhanced sense of meaning and purpose provided by marriage inhibits self-destructive activities ( Gove 1973 ). Consistent with this channel of causality, married individuals have lower rates of mortality for virtually all causes of death in which the person’s psychological condition and behavior play a major role, including suicide and cirrhosis of the liver ( Gove 1973 ). Lillard and Waite (1995) find that for men (but not for women) there is a substantial decline in the risk of death immediately after marriage, which suggests that the regulation of health behaviors is a key mechanism linking marriage to physical health benefits in the case of men.

Religion also serves a regulative function. Most faiths have teachings that encourage healthy behaviors and discourage conduct that is self-destructive; they also provide moral guidance about sexuality. Some religions have specific regulations limiting or prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and potentially harmful foods. Several studies show that religious involvement is generally associated with health-promoting behaviors ( Koenig et al. 2001 ) and that such behaviors explain in part the connection between religion and longevity ( Strawbridge et al. 1997 ; Hummer et al. 1999 ).

Economic benefits from marriage

Marriage leads to increases in economic well-being for several reasons, including the pooling of risks (e.g., one spouse may increase the level of work in the labor force if the other becomes unemployed), economies of scale (e.g., renting a large apartment costs less than renting two small apartments), and public goods (e.g., a husband and wife can both enjoy all of the beauty of the pictures hanging on the wall). Division of labor and specialization are particularly important sources of gains from marriage, permitting the partners to produce and consume substantially more than twice the amount each could produce individually ( Becker 1991 ). The long-term horizon implied by marriage gives each of the spouses the ability to neglect some skills and focus on the development of others. Gains from such specialization are responsible, in part, for the “marriage premium.” Married men can specialize in labor market activities more than single men, thereby gaining a productivity advantage. Specialization also encourages women to make human capital investments that advance their husbands’ careers ( Grossbard-Shechtman 1993 ).

For all of these reasons, marriage promotes higher levels of economic well-being. This factor accounts to a large extent for the advantages that accrue to children raised by two parents ( McLanahan and Sandefur 1994 ). From an economic perspective, a two-parent household is also the optimal institutional arrangement for raising children for another reason: there is a tendency for the level of expenditures on children to be inefficiently low when the father is not present. Inadequate provision of the couple’s collective good—child expenditures—occurs because of the father’s lack of control over the allocation of resources by the mother ( Weiss and Willis 1985 ).

The very substantial increase in economic resources that marriage implies for women may lead to better health directly, by improving general standards of living and access to medical resources, as well as indirectly by reducing levels of stress ( Hahn 1993 ). Consistent with this research, Lillard and Waite (1995) find that the greater financial resources available in married-couple households account for most of the positive effect of marriage on longevity for women, but not for men.

Spiritual benefits from religion

Some facets of religion lead to spiritual benefits that are unique to religious experiences. Idler and Kasl (1992) underscore the importance of religious rituals, such as the annual observance of religious holidays, noting that the periodicity of these celebrations reminds members of their shared past and their connection to preceding generations. Religious belief can also serve as a coping mechanism that helps individuals deal with conflict and difficult life-cycle stages, such as the assertion of independence by adolescent children ( Pearce and Axinn 1998 ), as well as bereavement and major health problems ( Pargament et al. 1990 ). In addition, personal faith can provide a sense of meaning that tends to reduce helplessness and heighten optimism. As Koenig (1994) notes, the religious prescription to love and forgive others can also have positive consequences for emotional well-being. The intangible nature of these effects defies easy quantification.

Overall, there is evidence of a strong association between stable marriages and a wide range of positive outcomes for children and adults, and the same is true in the case of religious involvement. However, the benefits are by no means uniform for all individuals, and significant exceptions may be cited. In addition, issues of selection bias deserve special attention.

Variations across individuals and exceptions

The benefits of religious involvement vary across individuals, as do the costs. The costs are higher for those with a more secular orientation, and to the extent that religious involvement is a time-intensive activity, costs are also higher for those with a higher wage rate and opportunity cost of time. As to the benefits, the spiritual gains associated with religious activity increase with the stock of religious capital: those who have made greater investments in religion stand to benefit more from religious participation ( Iannaccone 1990 ). Regnerus and Elder (2001) find support for the hypothesis that by providing functional communities amidst dysfunction, religious institutions are especially valuable in enhancing social capital for disadvantaged youths. The elderly and those with serious physical health problems also appear to derive substantial benefits from religious involvement ( Koenig 1994 ; Musick 1996 ).

Membership in some religious groups may reduce rather than enhance economic well-being. For example, the religious beliefs of conservative Protestants can discourage intellectual inquiry and have been linked with lower educational attainment ( Darnell and Sherkat 1997 ; Sherkat and Darnell 1999 ; Lehrer 1999 , 2003a ), implying negative consequences for earnings. There is also evidence that certain forms of religious beliefs and practices may not be beneficial for mental and physical health. Pargament et al. (1998) examine the role of religion as a coping tool, making a distinction between positive and negative religious coping. The former includes methods that reflect a secure relationship with God and a sense of spiritual connectedness with others. The latter is based on a pessimistic world view, a tenuous relationship with God, and a perception that God can inflict punishment. While the positive religious coping methods are associated with higher levels of mental well-being, the opposite is true of the negative methods—an indication that religion has the capacity to cause distress and make things worse. Some religious teachings also promote the avoidance of medical services and can lead to serious adverse consequences for health (e.g., see Asser and Swan 1998 ).

The benefits of marriage are also far from uniform. While the economic gains stemming from the joint consumption of public goods and from economies of scale are likely to vary only weakly with the quality of the union, most of the benefits from marriage vary closely with marital quality. For example, Gray and Vanderhart (2000) find that the marriage premium increases with marital stability: when the marriage is perceived to be solid, a woman is much more likely to make investments that enhance her husband’s career. The mental and physical health benefits of marriage have also been found to vary with the quality of the relationship ( Horwitz et al. 1996 ; Wickrama et al. 1997 ). In the extreme case of very poor marital quality, the consequences for health and well-being are clearly negative. For instance, Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1993) show that serious conflict within a marriage can lead to adverse immunological changes, increasing the risk of illness. When marital quality becomes very low, so that one or both partners conclude that the benefits from remaining married have come to be smaller than the costs, the result may well be divorce. Lehrer (2003b) reviews the characteristics and behaviors of individuals and couples that make this scenario most likely.

An understanding of the circumstances under which marriage is or is not beneficial can shed some light on the current policy debate in the United States regarding the promotion of marriage. One of the goals of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing and to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. 3 More recently, the Bush administration has proposed spending more than $1 billion over five years on programs to promote “healthy marriages” ( Carlson et al. 2001 ; McLanahan et al. 2001 ). Under the proposed plan, states may be eligible for federal funds if they develop programs to promote marriage. Such programs might include premarital counseling, marriage workshops, programs to enhance mental well-being, and additional welfare benefits for couples who enter formal marriage. Our review of the literature suggests that initiatives that enhance relationship skills may be helpful, as such skills are important to a stable marriage and young adults who grew up in non-intact homes may well be weak in this area ( Amato 1996 ). Complementary programs to address problems of depression and drug use may also help, on this as well as other fronts ( Lehrer et al. 2002a , 2002b ). On the other hand, financial incentives or negative economic pressures to enter formal marriage are likely to do more harm than good, by encouraging unions of poor marital quality. 4

Issues of selection bias

As we indicated earlier in this commentary, problems of selection bias affect many of the studies in both bodies of literature. The better outcomes observed for individuals in stable marriages may result in part from the greater likelihood that healthy, happy, and wealthy people marry and stay married. Results from analyses of marriage that have addressed the issue of selection biases suggest that they are indeed sizable in magnitude (e.g., Korenman and Neumark 1991 ; Lillard and Panis 1996 ; Horwitz et al. 1996 ; Simon 2002 ). The biases, however, do not always operate in the direction suggested by conventional wisdom. 5 An important item in the agenda for future research is to do more along the lines of the studies cited above, in an effort to better sort out the associational and causal relationships between marriage and well-being. Of particular value would be studies that specifically model the processes through which some individuals select or are selected into stable marriages and others are not. The corresponding gaps in our knowledge are even more pronounced in the case of the literature on religion.

The intersection of religion and marriage

In thinking about the role of religion in the lives of married people, a good point of departure is the concept that religion is a complementary trait within marriage. Religion affects many activities that husband and wife engage in as a couple beyond the purely religious sphere ( Becker 1991 ). Religion influences the education and upbringing of children, the allocation of time and money, the cultivation of social relationships, and often even the place of residence. Thus there is a greater efficiency and less conflict in a household if the spouses share the same religious beliefs. Furthermore, as Pearce and Axinn (1998) emphasize, just as religion is an integrative force in society, so it can have this effect also within the family: shared religious experiences can increase cohesion among family members.

The other side of this argument is that a difference in religion between partners may be a destabilizing force within a marriage. Empirical analyses have found that religious heterogamy increases the risk of marital conflict and instability ( Michael 1979 ; Lehrer 1996 ). A more detailed analysis that examines different types of interfaith unions shows that intermarriage comes in various forms and shades. Some interfaith marriages, such as those involving members of different ecumenical Protestant denominations, are quite stable. In contrast, the probability of divorce is high among unions in which the partners have very different religious beliefs or are members of religious groups that have sharply defined boundaries. Additional analyses for Catholics and Protestants reveal that unions that achieve homogamy through conversion are at least as stable as those involving partners who were raised in the same faith ( Lehrer and Chiswick 1993 ).

The hypothesis that religious involvement may enhance marital happiness and stability has also received considerable attention in the literature. A large number of studies report a positive relationship between measures of religiosity and indicators of marital satisfaction and stability (e.g., Glenn and Supancic 1984 ; Heaton and Pratt 1990 ). However, the cross-sectional design of these analyses, with both key variables measured at the same point in time, implies that the estimates confound the direction of causality. Two recent studies have addressed this shortcoming. Using data from waves 1 and 2 of the National Surveys of Families and Households, Call and Heaton (1997) find that higher levels of husband’s and wife’s church attendance as found at the initial interview reduce the likelihood that the union will have been dissolved by the second wave, about five years later; differences between the spouses in attendance levels are found to be destabilizing. In contrast, in their analysis of a 12-year longitudinal sample, Booth et al. (1995) find that although an increase in religious activity over time reduces the chance of considering divorce, it does not increase marital happiness or decrease marital conflict.

The studies in this literature, however, are subject to a critical limitation: none of them has modeled the effects of religious participation on marital satisfaction or stability in a way that allows the relationship to vary depending on the religious composition of the union. Theoretically, if a marriage is homogamous, more religious involvement by one of the spouses, and especially by both spouses, should be a positive force within the union. The opposite would be expected if the marriage is heterogamous, involving two faiths that are quite different. Thus a clear understanding of how religious participation influences marital harmony must await analyses that are conducted separately for these two very different groups. Improving our knowledge about these relationships, especially as they pertain to children growing up in inter-faith homes, should have high priority in the agenda for future research.

Our comparative analysis of religion and marriage in the United States reveals remarkable similarities in the benefits that are associated with these two social institutions, and also in the pathways through which they operate. Being married and being involved in religious activities are generally associated with positive effects in several areas, including physical and mental health, economic outcomes, and the process of raising children. For some of these influences, such as the effect of religion and marriage on longevity, substantial evidence has been accumulated. For other relationships, such as the effect of religious involvement on mental health, the evidence is not as strong. A large body of research points to social integration and the regulation of health behaviors as key pathways through which both institutions exert an influence. In addition, there is evidence of substantial economic gains from marriage, while religious experiences can significantly improve and enrich people’s spiritual lives.

Marriage and religion work independently as integrative forces. They also seem to work together as integrative forces. At present, married adults and the children living with them may be greater beneficiaries of the integration and social support from religious organizations; having children of school age seems to move married couples toward stronger ties with their church, synagogue, or mosque. But adults and children in other types of families seem to move away from religious participation ( Stolzenberg et al. 1995 ). In a recent article, Wilcox (2000) points out that although mainline Protestant denominations talk a great deal about acceptance of single-parent or other alternative family forms, and about the needs of single adults, almost all of their formal activities are aimed at married-couple families. Lacking the social ties provided by marriage, single individuals, especially those who are raising children, could potentially derive important benefits from the support that religious institutions can provide.

There is much that we do not know about the intersection between religion and marriage, and about inter-faith couples in particular. Such couples often face a choice between raising their children in a home without religion and raising them in the faith of one of the parents. The research to date suggests that some religious involvement is generally beneficial for young people. At the same time, religious heterogamy is known to be a destabilizing force in a marriage, and it seems likely that active participation in religious activities by only one parent and the children would accentuate the differences. Estimates of the magnitudes of these effects would be of value in guiding the choices of interfaith couples.

Religiosity has many dimensions, including attendance at religious services, private devotion, and the salience of religion in the individual’s life. The literature contains conflicting findings regarding which of these aspects is most important, and the effects associated with the various dimensions are not always consistent. Research seeking to clarify these differences and to identify patterns among the discrepant results would be desirable.

With regard to marriage, most of the studies to date have focused on comparing outcomes for those who are currently married with those who have never married or are widowed or divorced. We know much less about the implications of formal marriage versus informal cohabiting arrangements, especially from the perspective of the children growing up in these two types of households. A substantial amount of research in progress seeks to fill this gap (e.g., Duncan et al. 2003 ; Kiernan 2003 ; Lerman 2003 ; Manning and Brown 2003 ).

As we continue to advance our knowledge in each of these fields, it will be helpful to integrate them to a much larger extent than has been done to date. At a minimum, it would be useful if researchers who are focusing on issues pertaining to marriage would include a richer set of controls for religion, and vice versa. Additional research seeking to improve our understanding of the complex relationships between religion and marriage would be especially valuable.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Institute on Aging through Grant No. P-01 AG18911 and through the Alfred P. Sloan Center for Parents, Children and Work at the University of Chicago. A previous version was presented at a workshop on Ties That Bind: Religion and Family in Contemporary America, 17–18 May 2001, Princeton University. We are indebted to Barry Chiswick and participants in the Microeconomics and Human Resources Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago for many helpful comments on earlier drafts. Sarinda Taengnoi provided skillful research assistance.

1 The “religion sector” encompasses all aspects of religion in a given country, including denominational composition and the nature and extent of religiousness.

2 Another way of stating this argument is to note that inputs that may improve health and well-being, such as religion, are most likely to be “purchased” by those individuals who need their protection the most; see Lillard and Panis (1996) for a parallel argument in the marriage literature.

3 See Gennetian and Knox (2003) for a preliminary examination of the effects of the Act in the area of union formation and dissolution.

4 A firestorm of public debate surrounds these various efforts by the current US administration to strengthen marriage. Proponents argue that marriage is good (for all the reasons outlined here) and therefore should be encouraged by the government. Opponents argue that government intervention in this area is inappropriate. Many view these initiatives as inconsistent with equality for women ( Stacey 1993 ) and as a waste of money that could be used for job training or programs to prevent domestic violence. Support for marriage (as opposed to families) seems to some to discriminate against single mothers, those who choose to remain single or want to marry but have been unable to do so, gay and lesbian individuals and couples, cohabitors, the poor, and minorities. (See “Young feminists take on the family,” part of a special issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online , www.barnard.edu/sfonline ). For additional discussion of this issue, see Carlson et al. 2001 ; Seiler 2002 ; and Amato 2003 . Similarly, the faith-based initiatives advanced by President Bush early in his presidency were highly controversial.

5 For example, in their simultaneous-equations model of marital transitions, health, and mortality, Lillard and Panis (1996) find empirical support for the argument that unhealthy men have a particularly strong incentive to seek out the health protection offered by marriage. Their results show adverse selection into marriage based on self-perceived general health. At the same time, they also find evidence of positive selection into marriage based on unobserved characteristics, such as preferences for risk and adventure and for social contact.

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Table of Contents

1.1 shaping citizens, 1.2 contributions of married couples, 1.3 retreat from marriage, 2. chastity impacts marriage, 3. religion impacts chastity, 4. marriage, religion, and chastity impact sexual enjoyment, marriage and religious faithfulness.

The well-being of the United States is strongly related to marriage , 1) which is a choice about how individuals channel their sexuality . The implications of sexual choices are apparent when comparing family structures across societal measures, such as education and employment , as well as personal measures, like sexual satisfaction . Frequency of religious worship is pivotal in shaping these sexual choices. 2) In all cases, federal government data show that the intact married family that worships God weekly produces the most profitable and sexually satisfied citizens.

Simply put:

• Marriage impacts the economy , 3)
• Chastity impacts marriage,
• And worship impacts chastity . 4)

Decisions about sexual conduct—and how this plays out in marriage and family life—shape or misshape the ability of American society to function in its major tasks.

1. Marriage Impacts the Economy

One significant way by which marriage impacts the economy is its influence on the future workforce—its children .

According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 5) American children raised in intact, married families have higher GPA’s 6) than those born into non-intact families . These children are more likely to get further in their education, 7) and to perform more diligently in school. 8)

When religion is factored in, children perform even better. This is especially true for children raised in low-income communities . According to Dr. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin, weekly religious worship delivers educational benefits that are equivalent to moving the poorer children into middle class neighborhoods. 9) Nothing in public policy yields returns like these in education.

Therefore, it is no surprise that children raised in intact married families that attend religious services weekly are most likely to receive A’s in school. 10)

Common sense and myriad social science studies indicate that the better an individual does in school, the more that individual will earn later when he/ she joins the workforce . 11)

In addition to forming productive workforce participants, married couples also play an important role in sustaining the economy . Controlling for all relevant factors, men’s productivity increases about 26 percent when they marry. 12) Similarly, the most productive segment of the workforce is married men 13) with three or more children.

Marriage is especially necessary to fund the government . 14) The below chart of preliminary, unpublished data by Dr. Henry Potrykus should catch the eye of every politician: Married couples contribute at least 20 percent more to the tax pool than do their non-married male and female counterparts, controlling for related factors.

Despite the inherent value in marriage, adults have steadily retreated from marriage over the last several decades (see red trendline in graph below). 15) This decline in marriages, combined with the impact of marriage on tax contributions, means that the government has lost significant revenues from marriageable adults that remain single.

The role of marriage in shaping personal and societal outcomes clarifies the plight of the Black Family. 16) Black males who forego marriage are less likely to hold a steady job , are more likely to engage in risky behavior , and are less likely to contribute society than Black males who do marry. The retreat from marriage across all four different levels of education (high school dropout; high school graduation; college education; and even professional graduate education) among black men has undermined many of the gains made by the civil rights movement under Dr. Martin Luther King.

Marriage trends are driven by sexual decisions —chastity and monogamy, or their opposite, polyamory. The below chart, perhaps one of the most important in the social sciences, informs all other data in research related to marriage and the family.

This chart shows the status of American marriages five years into the marriage. Among both men and women who have never had any sexual partner other than their spouse (ie. they were totally monogamous), 97 percent of women and 99 percent of men were still married. For women who had one extra sexual partner (for most, before marriage) only 64 percent were still married—a drop of 33 percent, which is twice the rate of men. For those women who had two sexual partners outside of marriage, only 55 percent were still married five years down the road.

Clearly, the more sexual partners an individual has, the less he/ she is capable to sustain marriage. This is especially true for women, who experience a steeper and more significant reduction in marital security with each additional non-marital or extra-marital partner.

Given the negative impact of divorce on income , productivity , and savings , 17) and especially on the education of children , 18) it is clear that chastity is the foundation of an industrious society and flourishing economy.

Chastity is best preserved by religious worship . As shown below, frequency of religious attendance is positively correlated with the percentage of individuals who had sexual intercourse with a “pick up” in the previous year. 19) Individuals who attended religious service weekly or more were far less likely to have had a pick-up sexual partner. More than seven times as many people who never attend religious worship had a one night stand than weekly church-goers.

Religious worship also protects American teenagers from initiating sexual intercourse at a young age. The more teens worship, the more likely they are to abstain from sex during their adolescent years. 20) At age 17, nineteen percent fewer youth who attend church weekly are having sexual intercourse than adolescent who never attend.

Age at first intercourse sets the foundation for a lifetime of sexual mores. According to the National Survey of Family Growth, the earlier an adolescent initiates intercourse, the more sexual partners the adolescent will have. Children who engage in sexual intercourse at age 12 have seven times more partners that young adults who initiate intercourse at ages 21-22.

This, in turn, impacts the proportion of out-of-wedlock births in an area. The same survey showed that girls who initiate sexual intercourse at age 12 have over three times the probability of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy as girls who first have intercourse at ages 21-22.

Religious worship also helps establish sexual control. Testosterone levels influence the age of first sexual intercourse for most boys; however, frequency of worship of God also significantly influences sexual initiation. 21) As shown below, religious practice lessens the influence of high testosterone and lack of worship unleashes the influence of high testosterone. Worship of God and sexual conduct work in tandem.

When marriage is factored in, the religious benefits are further intensified. As shown below, adolescents who were raised in intact married families that worshiped God weekly were almost six times as likely to have had only one sexual partner during their lifetime as those who were raised in a non-intact family that did not worship. 22)

The extent to which an individual has remained chaste—the number of sexual partners he/ she has had—sets the pattern for future sexual conduct.

These data taken together show that adolescents raised in intact married families that worship God weekly have the most sexually fulfilling lives. As shown below, 65 percent of adults who were raised in such families report that they are “very happily married”—the highest percent compared to those in non-intact families that did not worship, intact families that did not worship, and non-intact families that did worship. 23)

This helps explain one of the great counterfactuals of the sexual revolution: those in intact families that worship God weekly have the most frequent sexual relations.

Not only do people in intact marriages who attend religious services engage in frequent sexual relations, but they also enjoy the most gratifying sexual experiences . As shown below, this is the group most likely to feel satisfied, 24) loved, 25) wanted/ needed, 26) taken care of, 27) and thrilled/ excited 28) during intercourse.

Given that marriage impacts society, chastity impacts marriage, and religion impacts chastity, it is no surprise that the intact married family that worships God weekly produces the most numerous and significant benefits. A thriving society needs a culture of chastity—joyful chastity if it is to be a happy society, repressive chastity if it is to be a repressive society, and no chastity if it is to be a dysfunctional society. Religious faithfulness is the foundation of this all. Those who worship God frequently are more likely to lead chaste lives; those who lead chaste lives are more likely to have secure and sexually satisfying marriages; and stable marriages are more likely to shape a strong, flourishing nation.

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Adults in religiously mixed marriages are, by and large, less religious than their counterparts who are married to spouses who share their faith. They attend religious services less often, pray less frequently, tend to be less likely to believe in God with absolute certainty and are less inclined to say religion is very important in their lives.

People in religiously mixed marriages also discuss religious matters with their spouses less frequently than those who are in religiously matched marriages. Religion does not, however, appear to be the source of much strife in mixed relationships; while those in mixed marriages report somewhat higher levels of disagreement about religion, majorities nonetheless say religious disagreements are not common in their marriages.

When asked about what kinds of things are important for a successful marriage, 44% of adults say shared religious beliefs are “very important.” By this metric, shared religion is seen as more important for a good marriage than shared political attitudes, but substantially less important than shared interests, good sex and a fair division of household labor. There are, however, significant subsets of the population who place a higher priority on religion within marriage; most people who are highly religious themselves say shared religious faith is critical to a good marriage, and women are much more likely than men to say the religion of a prospective spouse is likely to factor prominently in a decision about whether to get married.

The data also show that when parents attend religious services, they mostly do so with their children – especially if they are in a religiously matched marriage. Religiously affiliated parents married to spouses who share their faith also are more likely than intermarried parents to pray or read scripture with their children.

The remainder of this chapter explores attitudes about and experiences with religion in family life.

Religiously intermarried people are generally less religious than those married to spouse with same religion

Religiously affiliated people in mixed marriages tend to be less religious than those who are married to spouses who share their religious identity. Among Catholics married to other Catholics, for instance, seven-in-ten are highly religious, according to an index of key measures used to determine levels of religious observance in the Religious Landscape Study (including frequency of worship attendance, frequency of prayer, belief in God and self-described importance of religion in one’s own life). By comparison, only about half of Catholics married to non-Catholics are highly religious.

Of course, it is impossible to know for sure the direction of the causal arrow in the relationship between religious observance and religious intermarriage. Marrying someone from a different faith might serve to make people less religious. Alternatively, it could be that people who are not particularly religious to begin with are more likely to marry a spouse with a different religion. Or it could be some combination of both factors.

In any case, while intermarriage is linked with lower rates of religious observance among those who are affiliated with a religion, there is little evidence that the relationship goes in the opposite direction for those who are religiously unaffiliated. That is, being married to a religiously affiliated spouse seems to have little impact on the religiosity of religious “nones.” Just 13% of religious “nones” married to a religiously affiliated spouse are highly religious, which is only modestly higher than the 9% of “nones” married to fellow “nones” who are highly religious.

For a successful marriage, shared religious beliefs prized about as much as adequate income, less than sex and shared interests

Overall, 44% of U.S. adults say shared religious beliefs are “very important” for a successful marriage. By that metric, religion is seen as about as important for a successful marriage as is having an adequate income or having children, and it is considered less important than having shared interests, a satisfying sexual relationship or an equitable distribution of housework.

Among married people, the survey finds big differences in the perceived importance of religion depending on the nature of one’s marriage. Nearly two-thirds of religiously affiliated respondents with spouses who share their faith (64%) say shared religious beliefs are key to a successful marriage. Far fewer married people in interfaith relationships see shared religious beliefs as central to a successful marriage.

The data also show that among those who are highly religious – including both married and unmarried respondents – shared religious beliefs are prized in marriage almost as much as shared interests and about as much as a satisfying sex life and sharing household chores. Far smaller shares of those who are not highly religious see shared religious beliefs as essential for a good marriage. Having children also is seen as critical for a good marriage by more of those who are highly religious than those who are not.

While nearly half of married people say shared religious faith is crucial for a successful marriage, just 27% of married adults say their spouse’s religion was, in fact, a “very important” factor in deciding whether to marry them specifically. Roughly a third of religiously affiliated adults who are married to someone of the same faith (36%) say their spouse’s religion factored prominently in their decision to marry, while far fewer intermarried adults – and just one-in-twenty religious “nones” married to fellow “nones” – say the same.

Among those who are not currently married, the survey finds the religion of a potential spouse is more important to women than it is to men. Nearly four-in-ten women say their potential spouse’s religion would be a “very important” factor if they were considering marriage, while just 26% of single men say the same.

Not surprisingly, the data also show that the religion of a potential spouse would be far more important to highly religious people than to single people who are not highly religious. Still, even among the highly religious, roughly a quarter say the religion of their prospective spouse would be only “somewhat important” to their decision, and one-in-five say it would be “not too” or “not at all” important.

Among both men and women, more say women are the more religious half in marriage

Roughly six-in-ten married people say they and their spouses are about equally religious. This includes about three-quarters of “nones” married to spouses who are also religiously unaffiliated and nearly two-thirds of religiously affiliated adults married to a spouse from the same religion. Only about half of religiously affiliated adults married to someone from a different religion (46%) say they and their spouse are equally religious, and just 36% of those in a marriage combining one religiously affiliated spouse and one religious “none” say both spouses are equally religious.

Among those in this latter type of relationship, it is typically the religiously affiliated spouse who is described as more religiously observant than the unaffiliated spouse. The data also show that in marriages in which one spouse is more religious than the other, wives generally are seen as more religious than husbands. About one-third of married women say they are more religious than their husbands, while a similar share of husbands say their wives are more religious than them. By contrast, just 8% of women and 10% of men say the husband is more religious in their marriage.

Most religiously affiliated people with spouses who share their religion say they attend religious services with their spouse. Attending services at a house of worship together is far less common among people married to a spouse from a different religion. And among married “nones” whose spouses are also religiously unaffiliated, most say they rarely or never attend religious services at all.

Religious disagreement relatively uncommon, even in intermarriages

Within marriages, religious discussion is most common among religiously affiliated adults who have spouses affiliated with the same religion. Nearly eight-in-ten (78%) in this group say they talk about religion “a lot” or “some” with their spouse; religious discussions are less common among those married to a spouse with a different religion (or no religion) and among religious “nones” married to fellow “nones.”

Religious disagreement is most common in religiously mixed marriages; for example, one-third of those in marriages pairing a religious “none” with a religiously affiliated spouse have at least some disagreements about religion. Still, in all kinds of marital combinations, religious discord is the exception rather than the rule; majorities in all types of pairings say they disagree with their spouse about religion “not much” or “not at all.”

Intermarried parents participate in fewer religious activities with their children

Most parents attend worship services at least a few times a year, and their children typically attend with them. About two-thirds of all parents of children currently under 18 (65%) usually attend worship services with their kids, including roughly eight-in-ten evangelical (83%) and Catholic (78%) parents and two-thirds of mainline Protestant parents (67%). Religiously unaffiliated parents are less likely to attend religious services at all; roughly seven-in-ten (69%) say they seldom or never attend church (or did not answer the question about attendance).

Among married parents, those who share their spouse’s religious affiliation are among the most likely to attend worship services with their children (83%). Intermarried parents and “nones” married to other “nones” are less likely to attend religious services, but when they do, they also mostly say they take their kids with them.

Religiously affiliated parents married to spouses who share their faith are most likely to pray or read scripture with their children and to send them to religious education programs. They also are more likely than others to say they do volunteer work with their children, though the gaps between religiously affiliated parents married to a spouse of the same faith and other kinds of couples are relatively modest on this question.

• The survey did not ask married people whether their spouse is a man or a woman; this analysis assumes that male respondents are married to female spouses and vice versa. While it is possible that some respondents are in same-sex marriages , these marriages are estimated to make up a small percentage of all U.S. marriages and thus would likely have minimal effect on these figures. ↩

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July 6, 2017

Faith and marriage: better together.

• Religious couples are significantly more likely to enjoy wedded bliss than are their secular peers. Tweet This
• The old slogan—“the family that prays together, stays together”—still holds in 2017. Tweet This

Editor’s Note: This essay was first published in Principles , a publication of Christendom College. It is reprinted here with permission.

Over the next decade, count on the press, academics, and pop culture icons to take a more negative view of religion in American life. This opposition has been driven by a variety of factors, such as the rise of the “new atheism” and conservative Christian alliances with the Republican Party and with President Donald Trump. In particular, orthodox religious opposition to today’s new morality—on matters ranging from abortion to LGBTQ rights—has made religion a target of scorn, skepticism, or outright hostility on the part of many of the nation’s cultural elites. This negative view of religion extends to religion’s influence on family life.

Take, for instance, the media’s coverage of a recent University of Chicago study purporting to show that children raised by religious parents were less altruistic than children raised by secular parents. The study’s author, psychologist Jean Decety, claimed that his research showed “how religion negatively influences children’s altruism” and that it challenged “the view that religiosity facilitates prosocial behavior,” calling into question “whether religion is vital for moral development—suggesting the secularization of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness. In fact, it does just the opposite.”

The study had numerous methodological problems and limitations—it was based upon a non-random and non-representative sample of children watching cartoons and sharing stickers in a few cities around the globe—but received glowing, credulous coverage from numerous media outlets. As I noted in the Washington Post , a Daily Beast headline proclaimed “ Religious Kids are Jerks ,” and the Guardian reported “ Religious Children Are Meaner than Their Secular Counterparts ,” while Slate weighed in to say that “religious children are more selfish.” This was clearly a story that some in the media were more than happy to run with.

There is only one problem with this new, negative view of religion and family life: it misses the mark. In the United States, at least, religion is generally a positive force in the family. My own research, which has focused extensively on the connection between faith and family life, indicates that religion generally fosters more happiness, greater stability, and a deeper sense of meaning in American family life, provided that family members—especially spouses—share a common faith. In simple terms, the old slogan—“the family that prays together, stays together”—still holds in 2017.

Wedded Bliss

Consider Roberto, 37, and Marcia Flores, 35, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico when they were children. This Catholic couple are representative of some of the unique challenges and opportunities facing Latino couples. These San Diego residents met in their early twenties, lived together for a number of years and had their daughter prior to getting married. In 1997, they wed and had a son shortly thereafter. For most of the early years of their relationship, Roberto struggled with drugs and alcohol, and spent many a weekend focused on soccer and friends rather than his family. “Before, I used to be in the world (‘del mundo’); I used a lot of drugs, I drank a lot, I didn’t care for my family, not my wife, my brothers, mother and father, I didn’t care about them,” he said, also noting, “when the weekend came, I left my wife and I would go play soccer with friends . . . and then go drinking, and that was my whole weekend.”

He also says he took a “macho” approach to family life, leaving domestic responsibilities to Marcia. “You come home and you boss people around,” he said, describing his macho ethic. “You force your wife and your kids to do things for you. And the woman had to take care of all the house one way or another, the man did nothing.” If he had kept up this approach to family life, an approach characterized by intoxication and machismo, Roberto thinks his family would have fallen apart: “I’m sure my wife would have left me. I wouldn’t have my wife or kids anymore if I had stayed in that path.”

In 2000, Roberto took a detour. Some friends suggested that he and Marcia attend a retreat for couples at a local Catholic church, and, after some prodding from her, he decided to go. Much to his surprise, Roberto was overcome at the retreat, filled with remorse over his failings as a husband and father. What happened next was powerful: “That’s when I met God,” he said, adding, “I cried before God, which was something I never did. I never cry. But a lot of things I never did before I did on that day.” Besides crying at the retreat, Roberto felt “all the presence of God” and decided to give up drugs and alcohol and to stop treating his family so poorly.

In the wake of the retreat, Roberto and Marcia have seen a marked improvement in the quality of their marriage. “I started going to church and they taught me that the family is important and you have to care for it,” he said. “I never knew that before; I really didn’t think I had to put family first before.” At church, he has learned that God “has a plan for marriage,” that he must live “unity in all aspects” of his marriage. In practice, this meant temperance, and coming to embrace the notion that “you need a lot of love to raise a good family.”

This has translated into big changes in their marriage and family life. Roberto stopped abusing drugs and alcohol, curtailed his involvement with friends and soccer on the weekends, and took a more engaged approach to “helping in the house.” A religious perspective and religious rituals became more common for Marcia and Roberto. Now, Roberto says, “time with my family is something spiritual to me,” and he and Marcia pray with their kids on the weekends. The changes he has experienced in his marriage and family, in turn, have further deepened Roberto’s faith: “That’s why I know there’s a God.”

Religious communities can provide important resources for a healthy marriage.

The Flores’ experience is suggestive of how a shared faith can help a couple dealing with male misbehavior or other challenges. Their Catholic faith enabled Roberto to experience powerful, life-changing religious rituals, and to become integrated into a religious community that embraces a positive, family-oriented ethos. Their faith—especially Roberto’s—has given the couple a sense of hope. It has helped them make the changes needed to strengthen their marriage and family life. As suggested in Elizabeth Brisco’s The Reformation of Machismo , men’s religious faith can counter some of the misogynistic attitudes associated with machismo in the Latino community; in this case, Roberto has jettisoned his expectation that he could devote all his free time to friends, soccer, and drinking, and leave Marcia with full responsibility for the caretaking and housework that are part and parcel of family life.

Although the Flores’ particular story of faith and family life is emblematic of many of the challenges and opportunities facing Latino couples, my research suggests that the benefits of shared church attendance extend to American couples across racial and ethnic lines. Specifically, my work with Nicholas Wolfinger in Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos indicates that couples are substantially more likely to report being happy in their relationship when both partners attend church regularly than when neither partner does. This result holds equally for whites, blacks, and Latinos, as the figure below indicates.

Clearly, white, black, and Latino spouses who attend church together are about 9 percentage points more likely to say they are “very happy” or “extremely happy” than husbands and wives who do not. This may not seem like a huge boost to marital happiness, but in practical terms, it means that almost everyone in a jointly religious marriage is at least “very happy,” which is striking given the ups and downs of contemporary married life. In other words, religious couples are significantly more likely to enjoy wedded bliss than are their secular peers.

The Power of Prayer & Peers

Why does shared religious attendance lead to happiness? Part of the reason faith matters is that it fosters norms—such as a commitment to marital permanence and fidelity—that strengthen marriages. My research indicates that two other mechanisms, one social and one devotional, also help explain the power of joint church attendance. First, almost half of jointly attending couples form the majority of their friendships with fellow parishioners. Attending religious services with friends accounts for more than half of the association between church attendance and relationship quality, which means that couples who have many shared friends at their church are happier than other couples. Attending church with one’s friends appears to provide many role models of happy, healthy relationships. These friends can also offer support when an intimate relationship hits the inevitable speed bump, and such friends may encourage each other, by example or the threat of stigma, to resist the temptation of an affair. The figure below illustrates the link between shared religious friendships and relationship happiness.

Second, couples in which both members attend church are more likely to say that they often pray together, and shared prayer also helps to account for the link between church attendance and a happy relationship. Previous studies show that prayer helps couples deal with stress, enables them to focus on shared beliefs and hopes for the future, and allows them to deal constructively with challenges and problems in their relationship, and in their lives. In fact, we find that shared prayer is the most powerful religious predictor of relationship quality among black, Latino, and white couples, more powerful than denomination, religious attendance, or shared religious friendships. In simple terms, as the figure above also indicates, the couple that prays together, flourishes together.

Couples who attend religious services together are happier in their relationships than are their peers who don’t regularly attend church. This finding holds for whites, African Americans, and Latinos alike. It is true that most people are happy in their relationships irrespective of church attendance, but black, Latino, and white couples who attend together enjoy an added boost here. Part of the story here too may be due to selection (couples who are happier together may also be inclined to do many things together, including attending church). But selection probably isn’t the whole story. Our evidence for this contention is our identification of two of the mechanisms through which religious participation improves relationship quality: religious friends and shared prayer. Couples who attend church together enjoy significantly happier relationships, in large part because they socialize with friends who share their faith and especially because they pray with one another. In other words, those couples who pray together are happiest together.

Together Forever

But do higher-quality marriages founded on faith necessarily mean more stable marriages? Certainly, in the broader culture, many people think that Christians divorce just as much as their unaffiliated fellow Americans. Some would even argue that Christianity is actually bad for marital stability. Writing in The Nation , for instance, Michelle Goldberg asked: “Is Conservative Christianity Bad for Marriage?” Her affirmative answer was based on a study of red-state Protestant cultures where disapproval of premarital sex has led to earlier, less financially stable marriages. It is true that marital happiness is not perfectly correlated with freedom from divorce. Enjoying a happy marriage doesn’t eliminate your odds of divorce later on; it just reduces them. So, does faith serve as a stabilizing force in American marriages?

New research from Harvard professor Tyler VanderWeele indicates the answer to that question is "yes." In tracking a sample of thousands of middle-aged women across the United States, he found that women who regularly attended church were 47 percent less likely to divorce than women who did not regularly attend church. He also noted that other research has come to a similar conclusion, generally finding that regular church attendance is associated with a reduction in divorce of more than 30 percent.

So, what accounts for the stabilizing power of religion when it comes to American marriages? VanderWeele offered four theories to explain how faith is linked to less divorce:

• Religious teachings often indicate that marriage is something sacred—that an important bond is created in the exchange of marriage vows. Attending religious services reinforces that message.
• Religious teachings also discourage or censure divorce to varying degrees across religious traditions, which may lead to lower rates of divorce; moreover, religious traditions also often have strong teachings against adultery, which is one of the strongest predictors of divorce.
• Religious teachings often place a strong emphasis on love and on putting the needs of others above one’s own. This may also improve the quality of married life and lower the likelihood of divorce.
• Religious institutions often provide various types of family support, including a place for families to get to know one another and build relationships, programs for children, marital and pre-marital counseling, and retreats and workshops focused on building a good marriage. Religious communities can provide important resources for a healthy marriage.

Regardless of how precisely religion fosters more stable marriages, however, this new research from Harvard suggests that the couple that attends together, stays together.

So, the next time you come across an academic study or media story contending that faith plays a pernicious role in family life, be skeptical. So long as family life, and marriage in particular, are based on a common commitment to religious faith, it looks like religious faith lifts the fortunes of American families. And that’s good news in a nation where the fortunes of the family too often seem to be flagging.

W. Bradford Wilcox is the Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Family Studies. This essay is adapted, in part, from Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos , co-authored with Nicholas Wolfinger .

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In Varanasi, India, biotechnologist Anurag Chaurasia collects water samples from the River Ganges, which is sacred to Hindus. Credit: Shri Kashi Vishwanath Baba

For the past 20 years, Elaine Howard Ecklund has studied scientists’ attitudes towards religion. What she’s found, through more than 40,000 surveys and nearly 2,500 confidential interviews, is that there are more religious scientists than many people would expect. In one study, at least 30% of respondents declared a religious affiliation ( E. H. Ecklund et al. Socius https://doi.org/mvrv; 2016 ).This study surveyed scientists from eight countries and regions, including the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Turkey and the United States. Globally, around 85% of the population identifies as religious (see go.nature.com/3yatbk5 ). Ecklund’s research has also found that scientists are not always open about their faith at work or in education settings. “I think there is the perception sometimes that other scientists won’t take you seriously if you talk about your faith,” says Ecklund, a sociologist based at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Confidentiality, says Ecklund, allowed the scientists she surveyed to be more open about their faith than they might otherwise have been. “They were almost waiting to talk about it,” she says. “They feel like there’s so much silence within the scientific community about religion — it felt somewhat of a relief to talk about their own approach to religion in a safe environment.”

Ecklund has also found that many scientists are quite open to their colleagues’ beliefs. “Atheist scientists are much less negative about religion than we might be led to believe by the loudest voices, which we often think are the most numerous ones. And that’s often not the case,” she says. For example, her 2016 study found that in the United States, two-thirds of scientists do not view the science–religion relationship as one of conflict.

Serving science and the Church as the Pope’s astronomer

Ecklund has found that attitudes to faith in the workplace vary by country. For example, she says, “Indian scientists assume that there’ll be more discussion of religion within scientific contexts. So, there’s sometimes blessings over experiments. There is an assumption that staff in a lab will want to have time off for spiritual and religious holidays.”

Nature spoke to five religious scientists about how they navigate faith at work. Their experiences differ, but none felt a conflict between their beliefs and their science. Although none had experienced any direct discrimination on the basis of their religion, some did admit to being less open about their faith in particular professional contexts.

Many say that science and religion work in harmony as ways of understanding the world. Anurag Chaurasia, a biotechnologist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Varanasi, recalls how, as a graduate student, he and his classmates would follow the guiding principles of the Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita to help them find direction. When experiments went awry, for example, their professor would instruct them: “Read the first message of this book, ‘Do your duty without being attached to the fruits of your action; do your duty selflessly.’” This guidance, says Chaurasia, taught him and his colleagues perseverance and how to handle failure. Bhagavad Gita principles also shaped group yoga sessions to aid relaxation and support good mental health, and brought them together as a team.

Re-examination

Mikaela Lee, a technical instructor in biomedical sciences at Solent University in Southampton, UK, says that her strong Christian faith informs her world view. “The way I approach science, personally, is as a way to glorify God and find out more about his creation,” she adds.

Raised in California as an evangelical Christian, Lee experienced how a more conservative set of beliefs can be in conflict with science. “I grew up believing in creationism, that God created the world. Evolution was kind of like a dirty word in my church,” she says. “But I also believed that we, as human beings, had almost an obligation to study the natural world and discover things about it, especially for medical research. And as I got older, I decided that you couldn’t take bits and pieces: you either had to accept all of the science or none of it.” This led her to adjust her religious beliefs to accommodate scientific evidence.

“The evidence that I saw was quite convincing. When we studied evolution in school, it kind of clicked in my brain. And it doesn’t just make sense. It’s beautiful. It’s elegant. That was the tipping point for me.” Lee found herself re-examining many of the conservative beliefs that she’d been taught growing up. After moving to the United Kingdom for university in 2018, she joined the more liberal United Reformed Church, which, she says, has many scientist members.

Climate scientist Benjamin Grandey has been able to have conversations about his religious faith at work thanks to an open workplace culture. Credit: Benjamin Stephen Grandey

For climate scientist Benjamin Grandey, who is based in Singapore, his Christian faith informs his science: “My theology helps me to appreciate the value of why science works, because I believe in a God who has made a very ordered Universe, and that he has given us, as human beings, the ability to understand a lot about that Universe.” For example, Grandey points out that mathematics, a human construct, is “so good at providing tools to describe physical phenomena in the world beyond our minds”.

Assumed atheism

Sociologist Christopher Scheitle surveyed more than 1,300 graduate students about their experiences and their attitudes to religion. He found that many religious people studying science struggle to be open about their faith, reporting a culture of ‘assumed atheism’ that often led them to conceal their religion for fear of being judged or discriminated against (see go.nature.com/4brey69 ). “I remember having several conversations with students who were very thoughtful about hiding the fact that they were religious,” says Scheitle, who is based at West Virginia University in Morgantown. One said that she purposely avoided revealing her religious beliefs until she had established herself as a scientist. “Her fear was that if people knew early in the programme, she would immediately be labelled as ‘not a serious scientist’.”

Religion and science can have a true dialogue

Their fears were understandable, because the culture of assumed atheism meant that other students and professors felt they could speak dismissively about religion, Scheitle says. “Among students who are more religious, it is a fairly common experience that they hear offhand negative or stereotypical comments about religion or religious people,” he adds, either in the classroom or in the laboratory or departmental offices.

As Scheitle notes in his 2023 book The Faithful Scientist , when people conceal a part of their identity, it can be isolating. “Research has found that this concealment itself often ends up being harmful to their own psychological well-being and to their sense of connection to others,” he writes.

Some graduate students that Scheitle spoke to have established their own communities, who meet for prayer and discussions on faith. Those who were open about their faith admitted having awkward interactions with their non-religious peers. “You can tell [that some co-workers] get uncomfortable, and they change the subject,” said one chemistry student. “It’s not something that’s deterred me from being who I am, but I hate the awkward interactions.”

Suzanne Kalka is open about her Pentecostal faith and has worked with organizations that promote harmony between science and religion in her role as a science educator based in Manchester, UK. One of these organizations is God and the Big Bang , which runs school workshops to encourage students to discuss the compatibility of science and faith. But in her previous career as a science teacher, Kalka says that she felt less free to discuss her religion. She taught mainly in secular schools, and, especially in her early career, felt a need to prove herself, deciding not to put her role at risk by singling herself out through her religious beliefs. “It’s tough, because you’re living two lives — you don’t want to risk your scientific credibility by being openly religious. I didn’t wear any kind of outward signs of any religious belief. I lived a very compartmentalized life. I wanted to be seen to be a very competent teacher of science.”

People of faith are allies to stall climate change

Towards the end of her teaching career, Kalka decided that she wanted to be more forthright about her faith. She took a role in a Church of England school and found that she could be more open. “But even there,” she added, “it was a minority of science teachers who had any religious belief at all, and it was never discussed.”

Kalka thinks that science teachers who are religious still find it difficult to be open about their beliefs. Her advice to them is to offer examples of famous scientists who combined a life of faith with their scientific achievements. She cites data showing that 75% of scientists who won a Nobel prize between 1901 and 2000 were of Judaeo-Christian faith (B. A. Shalev 100 Years of Nobel Prizes ; 2002).

An accepting culture

Faadiel Essop says that growing up in apartheid South Africa made him think more broadly about things. In the 1990s, his country rejected its history of government-sanctioned racial segregation, and he thinks that this has led to a more sensitive, tolerant society, in which he feels able to express his Muslim faith and identity. “There’s a lot of space for you to express yourself in general in society.”

A medical physiologist at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, and the director of the university’s Centre for Cardio-metabolic Research in Africa, Essop says there’s a strong culture of acceptance and a willingness to make accommodations for religious practices, both at Stellenbosch and across Africa more generally. Essop travels across the continent regularly for scientific meetings and says that he’s seen both Muslims and Christians being “quite comfortable to express their religion”.

Faadiel Essop says there’s a culture of openness in discussions of faith in South Africa. Credit: Wilma Stassen

Closer to home, his university colleagues are sure to provide him with halal foods (those permitted by Islamic law) at meetings or events, and the teaching schedule leaves gaps on Fridays for congregational prayers. This year, the head of his department came to speak to him before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to discuss the daily fasts that he would be undertaking. “There is that empathy. It’s not necessary, but it’s nice. It shows that he’s got an interest, and I can explain what I do.”

An open workplace culture has also helped Grandey to be comfortable discussing his faith at work. The climate physicist moved to Singapore after growing up and completing his studies in the United Kingdom. He has found that office environments that are culturally diverse, in which people are open to discussing their personal lives, leave room for conversations about faith, too.

“In my last workplace, the Singapore–MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, it was very international, very diverse. I remember enjoying many stimulating conversations with colleagues from other Asian countries who had not had much exposure to Christianity. They were very open to learning about what I believed as a Christian, and sharing about their own beliefs, too,” says Grandey, who is now a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University.

Risks of ruling out religion

Essop sees the often-strict divide between science and religion, especially in places where he’s lived and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a barrier to the free exploration of ideas. Discussing evolution and the origins of life, for example, in such environments could lead to stilted conversation.

“That’s where religion has been sidelined in a way, because the two, work and religion, are viewed as separate domains. Personally, I think they’re an integrated whole.”

From her studies, Ecklund thinks that accepting the existence of religion in a scientific context can help to encourage diversity. “Our studies show that people may be kept out of science to some extent because they’re religious, either that they don’t ever go into science, because they think religious people can’t be scientists, or that they feel like they have to hide that they’re religious.”

Sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund studies scientists’ attitudes towards religion. Credit: Michael Stravato

Women and people of colour — groups that the scientific community strives to attract and retain — are more likely to identify as religious. “By raising suspicion about religious people, we, as scientists, may be inadvertently keeping racial and ethnic minorities and women out of science,” she says.

Essop has devised a graduate teaching module on the philosophy of science and “influences that can shape science”. He encourages other educators and researchers to fold spiritual and philosophical elements into academic discussions, because he thinks an approach to science that considers other belief systems will nurture more-inclusive attitudes in his students.

“We’ve got to look at more-holistic training,” he says, and at other systems – such as Indigenous knowledge, which has inspired “an awakening” of interest around the world. “We’re looking at science a bit differently — that it’s not just an absolute thing, but instead we consider many facets.”

Nature 629 , 957-959 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01471-0

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South Dakota couples are among the youngest in the U.S. to get married. Why?

BROOKINGS, S.D. – While the average age for first-time marriages nationally has been steadily increasing since 2000, South Dakotans are among the youngest to tie the knot.  

The state ranks No. 6 for the lowest median age for marriages, with the average median age of 26.7, 6.5% lower than the national average. On average, women get married at 25.5 and men at 27, according to the US Census Bureau (USCB).

States on the East Coast have higher median ages for marriage compared to Midwestern and Southern states.

One reason for this difference might be the conservative beliefs that vary by state.

According to Pew Research Center , 47% of South Dakotans consider themselves conservative and are 32% moderate. Almost 59% of the population is religious, Pew found. Research shows a link between religion and early marriages.

Courtney Dykstra, 23, and Caleb Huizenga, 23, are two South Dakotans following the trend. They agree that the beliefs in South Dakota likely influence why some couples choose to get married early.

"I think South Dakota, sometimes it goes back to kind of ... (I) don't want to say stuck in the Stone Age or anything like that, but we are definitely a step behind on culture," Huizenga said. 

Why many Americans delay marriage

The upward trend of men and women getting married later in life started in the 1950s but has accelerated since the turn the century, according to the USBC .

Americans used to typically marry in their early 20's but now often wait until their late 20s or early 30s. The average age of marriage in the country is 28.4 years old for women and 30.2 years old for men, according to data from the USBC . The overall median age for marriage in 2023 was 32, which is an increase from 31 in 2022.

According to Pew , young adults are reaching several milestones later in life compared to before. In 2021, 22% of 25 year olds were married, compared to 63% in 1980, and only 17%  had a child, compared to 39% in 1980.

Several possible reasons are cited for the change.

On average, people are seeking higher eduction more than past generations and are spending their early 20s developing their careers, according to data from the National Center of Education , while earlier generations spent this time developing families.

Financial instability could be another factor for this age increase. Younger generations are waiting until they are financially stable to commit to marriage and a family, according to The Institute of Family Studies (IFS). Since starting a family can be an investment, some people are waiting until they pay off debt before they take this step in life.

Effects of this trend on the US

The increase of the average median of marriage also impacts divorce rates and birth rates in the U.S., according to IFS.

Birth rates have also been declining the over the past decades. Women who get married later in life have fewer children, and birth rates reached a record low in 2023, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

South Dakota birth rates are still higher than the national average, but the past three years have had the lowest birth rate in years, according to the South Dakota Department of Health (SDDOH).

Divorce rates are also on the decline in the U.S. According to the IFS, people who get married later in life are less likely to get divorced compared to those who get married younger.

South Dakota divorce rates in 2021 were the lowest since 1972, according to SDDOH. The divorce rate in the state is 2.3 per 1,000 population while the national is 2.4 per 1,000 population, CDC data show. 

Relationship bloomed while duck hunting

Dykstra and Huizenga met their senior and junior years in college, respectively. Two years later, the couple is planning their wedding and providing advice to others following their lead.

"We're kind of the first ones. And it's not that we're the example, but it's fun being the first ones. We're kind of testing the waters," Huizenga said. "A lot of people use our information in our planning we've done and they'll use that for their weddings. It's kind of exciting to see that coming up."

The couple met on the Hinge dating website and bonded over a shared interest in hunting. Soon after they connected, the couple went waterfowl hunting together near Brookings, and the relationship continued from there.

"So my buddies and I kind of threw her in the deep end, one of the first times we met," Huizenga said.

Not long after, Huizenga proposed and the wedding planning started.

"I mean, there's no reason to wait," he said. "It's kind of the next step into the future. I'm just really excited to get married to her and take that next step in  life."

The wedding is happening this summer in Pierre. The couple has had a busy year working out the details while still finishing school. 

"We've got little minor things to still figure out. But the wedding is basically planned,"  Dykstra said.

The couple chose Pierre because it's Huizenga's hometown and they plan to live there the next couple of years. Dykstra, who is originally from George, Iowa, decided to stay in the state after graduation and move with him to Pierre. Huizenga and Dykstra both have jobs in the capital city and bought a house together in December.

"We're trying to get college loans paid off, get the house in a better spot, stuff like that. And it's where we both have work," Huizenga said.

He attended South Dakota State University and graduated in 2023 with a degree in engineering. Dykstra graduated this year from Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls with a degree in surgical technology.

The soon-to-be husband and wife aren't the only ones in their circle of friends planning their next step into the future. Huizenga said he has seen a lot of people his age getting married in the past couple of years.

"A lot of my classmates from (high school) are now getting married," he said.

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization. Read more in-depth stories at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email every few days to get stories as soon as they're published. Contact Greta Goede at [email protected]

Queer churches in MA and nationwide offer all identities safe, sacred spaces

By Sara Youngblood Gregory for Yes! Magazine .

Broadcast version by Kathryn Carley for Commonwealth News Service reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration

In December 2023, Pope Francis announced that Catholic priests may bless same-sex unions-as long as they do not resemble marriage.

Despite headlines heralding a radical shift, the declaration notes Church doctrine "remains firm" on its definition of holy matrimony as the exclusive province of heterosexuals. One month prior, the Vatican also announced that transgender people can be baptized.

Though inclusive steps forward at first glance, both announcements sidestepped any tangible commitment to LGBTQ people. The documents were stereotypically vague: Both blessings and baptisms are permitted only if they carry no risk of public "scandal" or "disorientation" among the faithful, terms that are not defined in the documents.

In short, the Vatican's "progressive" moves perpetuate a long-standing trend within Christianity, where LGBTQ Christians are expected to be grateful for the table scraps of a well-fed faith-or at least feel sated with the rancid "hate the sin, love the sinner" ethos popular across Christian denominations.

"It's no question that religion globally has been used as a weapon, especially against LGBTQIA persons," says teaching pastor and theologian Roberto Che Espinoza , Ph.D. "But religion actually is rooted in the practice of re-connection or binding together. The Latin root for the English word religion is religio ," a noun referring to an obligation, bond, or reverence.

And there is no shortage of LGBTQ people of faith. A 2020 study by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that nearly half the country's LGBTQ population-5.3 million people-self-identified as a person of faith.

So can queer people still hungry for spiritual connection-especially those who revere Christian traditions-find religious communities that recognize queerness as a blessing, rather than a sin? An emerging group of queer and trans faith leaders, activists, on-the-ground organizers, and people who simply refuse to give up their faith are already answering that call, carving out affirming faith traditions, building tools to remediate religious harm, and proving that it's possible to build a queer church.

Sanctified Discrimination

For many LGBTQ people, disconnection is a defining element of their faith, with a third of religious LGBTQ adults reporting conflicts between their faith and identity in a 2013 Pew Research Center study . Many experience rejection for the first time via their faith communities, or at least learn that their identities are inherently dirty or impure. As of 2018, an estimated 700,000 people have undergone conversion therapy in the United States, a practice involving forcibly "changing" someone's gender or sexual identity. Though widely discredited-and illegal to subject minors to in 22 states -conversion therapy is still used in some religious settings. According to research from the Williams Institute , 81% of people who underwent conversion therapy did so at the hands of a religious leader.

Even for those who escaped the direct impacts of religious trauma, current U.S. politics are deeply intertwined with weaponized Christianity, making it nearly impossible to emerge unharmed as an LGBTQ person-personally, politically, or spiritually. The Republican party, which has long-standing ties to the Religious Right , is increasingly overt in its embrace of Christian nationalism-the belief that the U.S. should be a strictly Christian country. According to a 2023 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, more than half of self-identified Republicans currently sympathize with or explicitly adhere to Christian nationalism.

Christian nationalism goes beyond the desire to create a Christian theocracy. It's about creating a country where certain people are privileged and others-LGBTQ people, people of color, and those seeking reproductive freedom-are punished. "When we say Christian nationalism, it's white Christian nationalism," says Maureen O'Leary , director of field and organizing at Interfaith Alliance , a religious freedom and civil rights advocacy network. "It's white Protestant Christians that are being elevated."

That exclusionary ethos can be found throughout the modern Republican party, which is, not coincidentally, the beating heart behind much of the anti-LGBTQ legislation currently circulating. In 2023, more than 525 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced nationwide, more than any other year on record, according to the Human Rights Campaign . Those bills included the implementation of Florida's high-profile " Don't Say Gay " policy, which restricts classroom discussions about sexuality and gender identity in public schools. Dozens of copycat bills have emerged since the Florida Board of Education approved the initial policy in 2022.

Florida, North Dakota, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina all have restrictions on gender-affirming health care for minors, and at least five states are currently targeting gender-affirming health care for both minors and adults. Meanwhile, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a shadowy, right-wing legal organization, is using its deep pockets, allegiance to Christian nationalism, and wide reach to roll back civil rights in the courts. ADF is the legal powerhouse behind lightning-rod Supreme Court cases such as 303 Creative, Inc v. Elenis , where a self-proclaimed Christian website designer won the right to refuse to serve same-sex couples, in defiance of Colorado's nondiscrimination law, as well as the overturning of Roe v. Wade . Taken together, these attacks target the rights and dignities of queer, and especially trans, people on all fronts: restricting access to health care, public spaces like bathrooms, and education.

This discrimination is often legitimized through the guise of Christian morality and language. In practice, this frequently looks like portraying LGBTQ people, and progressive values more generally, as a threat to a Christian way of life. At the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, former president Donald Trump told the audience: "School prayer is banned, but drag shows are allowed to permeate the whole place. You can't teach the Bible, but you can teach children that America is evil and that men are able to get pregnant."

Meanwhile, Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis used the words of Jesus Christ to woo potential voters and call for a "war on woke"-or more accurately, a war on LGBTQ rights, diversity and equity initiatives, reproductive and voting rights, critical race theory, and education. While speaking to a group of roughly 10,000 evangelical college students in April 2023, DeSantis said, "Yes, the truth will set you free. Because woke represents a war on truth, we must wage a war on woke."

As these right-wing politicians demonstrate, "Christian nationalism is a political ideology," says Interfaith Alliance's O'Leary. "It's not a religious tradition." But the conflation of the two mean that many queer and trans folks feel exiled from their faith. A truly affirming church must do more than skirt extremism or offer conditional shelter for LGBTQ people. It must imagine a God, a faith, and a tradition that engages directly with justice and queerness.

Sacred and Strange

Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart, a Christian minister, movement organizer, and professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and Harvard Divinity School, reasons that a God who disregards the most vulnerable in service of the most powerful is not a God who will inspire a congregation to change a world that already reproduces cycles of dominance and dispossession. "An affirming, radically hospitable, justice-oriented congregation has to reject an idea of God that reinforces the very thing that causes exclusion and non-affirmation and injustice in our world," Rev. Naomi says. "The conceptualization of God in an affirming, justice-seeking space has to be, first of all, radically inclusive."

The Rev. M Jade Kaiser envisions God, and spiritual life more broadly, as something literally of the flesh: bodily, pleasure oriented, and inseparable from material liberation. In 2017, Rev. Kaiser and Rev. Anna Blaedel co-founded enfleshed , a spiritual community that publishes resources for collective liberation, including queer liturgies, a podcast on trans spirituality, and poems and anthologies exploring ritual, blessings, and identity.

"Our greatest gifts to the world will not come through acceptance from dominant systems or those constructions of 'God,' but in recognizing how sacred it is to be strange," says Rev. Kaiser. "There is so much God in how we create chosen family, love queerly, resist compulsory gendering, and collectively organize with pride that counters shame."

Sacred texts and traditions, too, are ripe for reconceptualization. Theologian Espinoza, for instance, believes creating radically inclusive faith practices requires more than just reconciling a faith tradition with sexuality. It also invites us to identify where these traditions are already queer via destabilized, counter-hegemonic, and counter-normative narratives. "Queerness is wild and feral," says Espinoza. "[It] is an undomesticable animal that we have not yet been able to contain or domesticate out of the tradition."

Traditions like communion, for example, have the potential for queerness, Espinoza explains. Christians all over the world consume the actual or symbolic body and blood of Christ, and in so doing, engage with the (trans)formative potential of the body. Recently, one of Espinoza's students risked their clergy credentials by serving communion in drag. "The student embodied God by feeding people bread and wine in drag," Espinoza recounts. "[It was] a wonderful reminder that we are bound by our materiality, but when we imagine another possible world, shit gets real!"

For others, revisiting religious texts also means questioning-and reimagining-what is considered sacred. For Della V. Mosley , a healing arts practitioner and counseling psychologist raised in a Black Baptist church in Illinois, exploring their connection to faith meant finding truth in alternative systems and spiritual homes. "For me, that path led to Black feminism, justice and liberation spaces, and a deep connection with nature," says Mosley. "These spiritual homes resonate more closely with who I am, the realities of the world today, and who I aspire to be." Recently, Mosley used Black feminist writings as sacred texts during a Sunday service at NorthStar Church of the Arts in Durham, North Carolina.

Some spaces imagine spirituality outside of specific religious affiliation or institutions altogether. At The Greenhouse , a grief and healing sanctuary for Black, Indigenous, and other students of color at Harvard, the point isn't to emulate or become a religious institution. Instead, co-founder Frances S. Lee , a pastor's kid who is now an ex-evangelical, says The Greenhouse fosters spiritual leadership and moral boldness for those who are barred from, or simply uninterested in, traditional religious authority.

"The Greenhouse invites us to access emotional safety, wonder, and belonging outside of religious institutions," says Lee. "At the foundational level, it is a refuge of tenderness, laughter, and meaningful silence." The community meets twice monthly and offers dinner, ritualized reflection, grounding exercises, and emotional release. Like Mosley and Espinoza, Lee makes spaces for queer and trans interpretations of Christianity, while also incorporating new sacred texts and traditions. They've taught trans spirituality and shape-shifting bodily presentations in their Christian classes and preached with Audre Lorde's 1978 essay " Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. "

Taken together, these three tools-the reconceptualization of God, the queering of sacred texts and traditions, and the incorporation of alternate practices-form a sort of holy trinity on which a queer church may thrive. And much like queerness, this church, this connection with the divine, can happen anywhere: on a subway ride, in the pews, in passionate debate with your pastor. It may happen with music, in the silence of nature, in scripture, in a glance. It can happen while reading radical trans scholarship or Black feminist poetry. Queer church might look like a dance floor, a kiss, good sex. It may be reclaiming a saint or simply imagining Jesus at a gay bar .

New Sacred Spaces

Spiritual organizer Bex Mui's queer church began on Instagram. Raised Roman Catholic by her Polish mother and introduced to Buddhist principles by her Chinese father, Mui left the church at 20, in large part due to her burgeoning queerness and growing critical eye toward religion. To manage her grief, Mui threw herself into LGBTQ activism.

"As a professional speaker and trainer, I delivered 'the Word' of gender terminology and the rituals of creating safe spaces," says Mui, who works as an LGBTQ equity consultant. But by 2020, Mui was burnt out. She knew she needed to reconnect with not only her spirituality but with other queer people as well.

Beginning in January 2021, Mui got on Instagram Live every Monday to share prayers, spells, and astrology readings and use tarot as a tool for reflection, a ritual she called Queer Church. While discussing the power of a lunar eclipse in October 2023 , Mui recontextualized interactions between Mary Magdalene and the newly risen Christ. "He's often interpreted as saying, 'Don't touch me,' a slut-shamey interpretation perpetuating the stereotype that [Magdalene] was dirty and unworthy of his love and attention," says Mui. "In reality and the truer Greek translation, he says, 'Don't cling to me.'" From Mui's perspective, in that moment, both the gospel and the eclipse were inviting people to let go of what is ready to leave.

Eventually, Queer Church expanded to become House of Our Queer , a sex-positive and people-of-color-centered community for spiritual exploration and well-being. House of Our Queer offers spaces and tools for spirituality, including workshops, rituals, and in-person community gatherings. And the community has responded. Mui says around 200 people tune in to Queer Church every week, and as many as 500 people attend the monthly Queer Magic Dance Party in Oakland, California.

The focus of both Queer Church and House of Our Queer is to support people who were raised religious, or feel curious about spirituality, and affirm that queerness isn't just part of religion but a blessing all its own. Rather than a set religious doctrine or denomination, Mui uses reclamation techniques-like adapting a Catholic prayer into a queer activist spell or honoring saints like Mary Magdalene-to affirm queerness and incorporate her religious upbringing.

"Whether I like it or not, I was raised Catholic, and that's a part of my culture. Reclaiming [my spirituality] started for me when I realized that I was actually putting a lot of effort into keeping that door shut," says Mui. "Queer Church is needed because queer people are human, and we need, just like everyone else, a place to gather for celebrations, shared ways to mark the passing of time, and places to turn to when we're in pain."

Sara Youngblood Gregory wrote this article for Yes! Magazine .

“If we cannot think alike, we may love alike”: Can the Methodist schism over queer clergy and same-sex marriage yet be healed?

Glen O’Brien

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On 3 May 2024, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) — the largest Methodist denomination in the world — removed the language of restriction on so-called “practising homosexuals” from church law. In effect, this lifts the ban on queer clergy and same-sex marriages in the UMC. The approach taken allows liberty of conscience at the local level, and is an attempt to keep progressives, centrists, and traditionalists in the same tent. It is essentially the same approach that the Uniting Church in Australia has taken.

This decision was made possible only after around a quarter of its congregations with a more traditional stance had disaffiliated. Some of these became part of a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church (GMC), which was launched in May 2022, after decades of acrimonious debate. Others joined smaller Methodist churches, such as the Free Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Church. A few simply became independent.

Learning to live together with difference has been a challenge for the church since New Testament times, and compromise solutions such as this will leave some more radical Methodists unhappy at both ends of the debate. The UMC will probably now be better equipped for its mission as a result of having resolved an internal division that has torn it apart for decades, freeing it up to direct its energies in a more outward direction.

A new century of Methodist division?

These events represent the most significant Methodist schism since the 1845 division within the Methodist Episcopal Church over slavery. Where the nineteenth century was a century of Methodist division, the twentieth century was the ecumenical century, in which Methodists made significant achievements, both in healing their own divisions and merging with other Protestant denominations to form new Uniting and United churches. The schism within the UMC runs in a contrary direction and may presage a new era of Methodist division.

The same issue has exercised Methodist, Uniting and United churches in other parts of the word — including in Australia and New Zealand, where fault lines developed that led in some cases to division and in other cases to compromise solutions. The Uniting Church in Australia (the result of a 1977 merger between Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists) found itself deeply divided over LGBTQI+ inclusion but managed to avoid a schism. At its fifteenth assembly in July 2018 , it agreed that its members held two different doctrines of marriage and allowed for a “local option” on the solemnisation of same-sex marriages.

The United Methodist schism represents the failure of twenty-first century Methodists to live out of the ideal of a “catholic spirit” enunciated by its founder, John Wesley (1703–1791), who urged Christians to set aside differences of opinion on non-essential matters and unite around a shared experience of divine grace. In elevating views on human sexuality to a church-dividing principle, the gospel as a revelation of God’s reconciling work for the world has been displaced from the centre of Methodist discourse, an action that will no doubt result in exclusionary harm for LGBTQI+ Methodists.

How Methodists “think and let think”

Methodism was birthed in the eighteenth century when attitudes to diverse sexuality were very different from today. We know that some Methodist preachers were removed for “unspeakable acts”, and it does not take much reading between the lines to conclude that some of these were same-sex offences which were judged according to the standards of the eighteenth century. It is clear that Wesley shared the abhorrence of “sodomy” — an indeterminate term that could refer to a wide range of sexual deviance. In his Word in Season: Or Advice to an Englishman , written in 1745, he included sexual deviance as among the reasons given for God having allowed the Jacobite invasion of that year.

Yet Wesley also showed remarkable compassion and offered practical support to Thomas Blair who was incarcerated in the Bocardo Prison, Oxford, on charges of “sodomy”, raising concerns with the Vice Chancellor of the University about the inhumane treatment of Blair, visiting him in prison, and helping him prepare his defence at trial. It appears that, in this instance, the widely-held cultural aversion to same-sex practices was overcome by a higher value – compassion for a neighbour in need.

The intervening centuries have seen a growth in the clinical understanding of sexuality, as well as in interpretive approaches to scripture, enabling a shift in attitude toward queer Christians. The principle of love toward those who are poorly treated, modelled by Wesley toward Blair, has remained as important as ever.

According to the Wesley scholar Albert C. Outler , Wesley’s method of resolving disputes among believers was “to narrow the field of irreducible disagreement between professing, practising Christians and to transfer their concerns from arguments about faith in Christ to faith itself and to its consequences”. Wesley sought clarity on the essentials of the faith and liberty of opinion on non-essential matters, allowing that Methodists “think and let think”. The bare minimum of Christianity is identified as a belief in the existence of God, and such a saving trust in Christ as to result in a “faith filled with the energy of love”. Wesley made it very clear what his own beliefs were on certain disputed matters, but made it equally clear that he asked no other believer to share those beliefs.

The reality of queer holiness

It may well be asked, what reason can be given not to include differences of opinion about human sexuality among those non-essential beliefs over which Methodists ought to be able to “think and let think”? It is certainly the case that many LGBTQI+ Methodists believe in God and have such a trust in Christ as to result in acts of love and mercy to their neighbours, even toward those who have attempted to invalidate the quality of their love and questioned their right to exist. They meet, therefore, Wesley’s minimalist definition of a Christian.

Could the schism that resulted in the Global Methodist Church — the first major split in American Methodism for 150 years — have been prevented if traditionalist, centrist, and progressive Methodists alike had remained convinced of their own opinion, allowed others to be equally convinced of theirs, and agreed to offer only love to each other and to all people? How is it that a particular view of human sexuality has been elevated to the point that it became the legitimation for a church schism?

The current Methodist schism has privileged a particular view of human sexuality to the level of a church-dividing principle. While the traditional view has long historic precedent, it is also undergoing serious revision. The entrenching of this position at the centre of a newly formed Methodist denomination will undoubtedly result in exclusionary harm for LGBTQI+ Methodists. Just to cite the findings of a small sample of studies, LGBTIQ+ youth from religious backgrounds are more likely to self-harm than those from non-religious families. A study co-sponsored by the University of Sydney, the Black Dog Institute, and other agencies found that LGBTQI+ young people are:

twice as likely to be diagnosed with a mental health condition, six times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and five times more likely to make an attempt on their life than their heterosexual peers.

The research of Doug Ezzy and others has shown that the discriminatory policies of religious schools in Australia has negative effects on LGBTQI+ teachers.

John Wesley’s advice to eighteenth-century Methodists, “If we cannot think alike, we may love alike”, has been severely tested in American Methodism and in the global areas represented by the General Conference of the UMC. What if Methodists were to follow Wesley’s lead and transfer their focus from arguments about faith in Christ to a consideration of faith itself and its consequences?

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We might then find that queer Methodists possess the same faith as heterosexual and cisgendered Methodists, though refined by patience in the face of exclusion. In Methodist theological terms, they are recipients of the same grace of God as straight believers. They are justified and sanctified by grace. By baptism they have been incorporated into the body of Christ and by the Spirit ordained to the priesthood of all believers. Some have been set apart through the laying on of hands as ministers of Word and Sacrament. They are the children of God, heirs of God and of Christ.

Such reflections are not offered from a liberal theological stance—a justifiable position from which to engage in theology, but not one which has nurtured me—but from the deeply held evangelical conviction that Christ died for all, God’s grace is offered to all, and that all who have faith in Jesus are the children of God by adoption. The transformative work of sanctifying grace does not require the “conversion” of one’s sexual orientation, because, while sexual acts are chosen, sexuality itself is hardwired. In fact, LGBTQI+ Methodists who remain in the church are teaching Christ’s way of forgiveness to those who have shunned them. Queer holiness is real.

Do scripture and tradition need to be impediments?

Traditionalists have found it difficult to reconcile queer sexuality with the call to holiness, but the question of how same-sex intimacy is compatible with Christian virtue must be set alongside the child rape, sexual abuse, marital infidelity, skyrocketing divorce rates, and moral turpitude of much of the heterosexual Christian community. The holiness exhibited by queer Christians surely bears the marks of the holiness exhibited by all Christians of whatever sexual orientation or gender identity — the humble, patient love of God and neighbour is not restricted to any particular sexuality any more than it is restricted by race, ethnicity, age, socio-economic status, political affiliation, or any other factor.

Moving to a fully affirming space undoubtedly departs from a traditionally held position—a move the church has made many times before, beginning in the first century when the new Jewish sect of Christ followers admitted Gentiles into the church. In the ordination of women, Methodists (and others) have broken with a long and established church tradition of excluding women from the ordained ministry. Those who opposed slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries faced formidable traditional and scriptural arguments in defence of the institution as did those who confronted racial segregation laws and apartheid in the twentieth century.

Yes, there are scriptural texts that may appear particularly challenging in this debate, but they are only as challenging as “women should be silent in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) and “slaves obey your masters” (Ephesians 6:5). If we can apply those texts differently in the twenty-first century to the way our ancestors did, surely we can do so with those relevant to this discussion. The work of exegeting the so-called “clobber passages” has already been done and done well. It is time now, especially for allies, to move on from this work to another stage — that of listening to queer theologians for the particular insights they bring to the enrichment of our understanding of the gospel and hearing their ideas of what constitutes virtue in a gender diverse world.

The art of theological weaving

The Assembly of Confessing Congregations (ACC), a conservative reform movement within the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA), decided to cease its operations in April 2023 . It had long declared that The UCA was apostate because of the fifteenth assembly’s pragmatic recognition that there are two doctrines of marriage in the UCA — understood by some as a lifelong union between a man and a woman and by others as a lifelong union between two persons. The ACC accused the UCA of having promulgated “a new gospel” by allowing same-sex marriage, and appealed to the GMC as precedent in its declared intention to separate from the Uniting Church.

Surely, however, it is making sexuality determine the shape of the gospel that is the real heresy, because the gospel arises from and is grounded in the free grace of God and from free grace alone. As things eventuated, the mooted separation did not occur. Perhaps the closing of the ACC is an indication that the UCA has had a degree of success in living together with diverse views on non-essential issues, though its unity will still need to be carefully and lovingly guarded.

The question of whether it is possible to fully embrace queer Christians represents a crisis in the Christian church, but also an opportunity. The Fijian theologian James Bhagwan has pointed out that in Pasifika culture, when a new sail is woven, in much the same way as grass mats, the strands must be loose enough to pick up the wind of the Spirit but tight enough to keep the vessel seaworthy. Sometimes we have to engage in some theological weaving—drawing together scripture, reason, tradition, and experience to shape a church that will hold together, while catching the wind of the Spirit to journey to new places.

The pitting of scripture and tradition over against reason and experience has resulted in a sail too stiff to catch the wind of the Spirit and a consequent rupture in the Methodist community. John Wesley’s method of narrowing disputes among Methodists by shifting from debates about the faith to faith itself and its consequences provides a phenomenological and experiential basis for the fully affirming Methodism of the future.

Glen O’Brien is Professor of Christian Thought and History in the University of Divinity, Research Coordinator at Eva Burrows College, a member of the Methodist Roman Catholic International Commission, and a Research Fellow of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Policy .

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Commentary: Honoring the ideals of America starts with rejecting those who didn’t

• By STEPHEN J. DEREN
• May 31, 2024

Mountain View High School was recently renamed Stonewall Jackson High.

As a retired Virginia educator, it is disheartening to read about the Shenandoah County School Board’s decision to rename two of the schools within their district after certain Confederate Civil War generals. At a time when our nation needs to turn the corner on divisiveness and begin the arduous work of healing, some still strive to maintain outdated and hurtful policies that persist in dividing us.

Stephen J. Deren 

The Civil War was absolutely fought over the issue of slavery. There is no denying that fact, and that the enslavement of one human being by another is reprehensible. Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and Turner Ashby were all slave owners. These men fought to divide the United States of America; they were traitors to the U.S. Constitution by seceding and waging war. To honor individuals who fought our government to preserve the institution of slavery is the wrong message to send to our children. Surely, we can find more positive role models that everyone can be proud of.

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The slavery issue has plagued our country since its inception, and the after-effects are still present in our society today. That is why this decision to reinstate the names is so troubling, as it seeks to perpetuate disunity.

I read powerful and insightful statements from individuals attending the public hearing on May 9 arguing against the decision to reinstate the school names. Sarah Kohrs , a parent of students in the school district, said it best, “We deplore the board’s decision to regress and ‘honor’ Civil War figures that consciously betrayed the United States and were proponents of slavery and segregation. This decision seems more about vengeance, control and hatred than heritage or due process.” Another individual, Aliyah Ogle, a Black student athlete , stated that when playing other school teams, "I would have to represent a man (Stonewall Jackson) that fought for my ancestors to be slaves." The School Board appears to be deaf to the voices of the African Americans and those who support them in Shenandoah County.

The Stonewall Jackson monument sits on the street after being removed in the midst of an intense rainstorm in Richmond on July 1, 2020.

So why the turnaround from the 2020 Shenandoah County School Board’s decision to restore the school names to the Civil War generals? Apparently, this new school board felt that the 2020 decision to rename the schools was made in a “knee-jerk” reaction to the “woke movement.”

What is this phrase “the woke movement” that the School Board is rallying around? It is a movement that involves educating people about injustice, inequality and discrimination and how it’s interwoven in our society, and that all of us need to recognize our history and respect our fellow human beings no matter their color, sex or religion.

Thomas Streett, a current board member who voted in favor of the name change, stated that he praised Stonewall Jackson’s values. What values, exactly? The ability to own another human being and profit from their free labor? Not a core value that I ever taught to my students over my 22-year career teaching elementary, middle, high school and college classes.

The Shenandoah County School Board is failing to recognize that this is an issue of education. What are we teaching our students, our children, about what we value in life?

Williams: The backlash to antiracism is nothing new

As teachers, I know that we try to teach students to help each other, help each other to learn, help each other to be safe. We teach them that they need to learn how to get along, consider different points of view and be respectful. We teach them that listening is important. We teach them to be kind, and that bullying is wrong. We also teach our students how to do research and find reliable information and sources. We teach them how to cross-reference their sources for validity and fact-check. We teach our students to tell the truth, even if they did something wrong, because it is better to be truthful, to own up, to admit mistakes and learn from them, and then to move on stronger and wiser than you were before. We teach them the dangers of lying and how if someone tells a lie loud enough and long enough, people start to believe it is true.

We need to be listening to one another, being empathetic toward one another, and choosing to change centuries of hate-filled status quo. There is no trying to explain it away by saying a school board decision was forced through without proper thought, or that we need to honor our ancestors. The ancestors were wrong. They were brought up in a society that condoned slavery for well over 200 years. It was an accepted way of life, but it was still wrong.

You cannot own another human being, and we should not honor anyone who believed that you could. This is the time in our history where we make the change, we decide to do the right thing, and move our country forward. It’s just common sense.

Confederate monuments are removed in Richmond

The pedestal of the J.E.B. Stuart monument was partially removed this week.

The pedestal of the J.E.B. Stuart monument is partially removed Wednesday, February 2, 2022.

The pedestal of the J.E.B. Stuart monument is partially removed Wednesday, February 2, 2022. St John's United Church Christ is on right.

The pedestal of the monument to Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was partially removed on Wednesday.

Workers remove the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in downtown Richmond on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH

Workers remove the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in downtown Richmond on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. Here, tar, a waterproofing agent, can be seen along the inside of the pedestal. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH

Workers remove the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in downtown Richmond on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. Here, Michael Spence, construction superintendent with Team Henry Enterprises, holds a locking pin, a structural element and 1 of approximately 16 that helped to hold the pedestal together. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH

Workers remove the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in downtown Richmond on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. Here, names believed to be of brick masons can be seen etched into the mortar. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH

An employee of Team Henry Enterprises worked on Monument Avenue in Richmond on Tuesday to remove the pedestal and final pieces of the monument to naval commander Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Workers remove the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in Richmond, Va., on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022.

Workers on Tuesday removed the pedestal that used to hold the Matthew F. Maury monument on Monument Avenue in Richmond.

A worker removes the pedestal of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument on Monument Ave. in Richmond, Va., on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022.

Stephen J. Deren is a retired special education teacher and reading specialist who has taught in New Jersey and Surry County Public Schools in Virginia. Contact Deren at [email protected] .

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