For millions of children across the U.S., this Sunday will not be a cause for celebration. Because of dramatic increases in divorce and nonmarital childbearing, about 28% of our nation’s children — more than 20 million kids — now live in a household without their father, up from 10 million kids (14%) in 1970, according to a recent Census Bureau report. Moreover, because most of these boys and girls see their dads infrequently (once a month or less), Father’s Day will offer cold comfort to many of these children.
Our nation’s epidemic of fatherlessness is just the most salient indicator of what University of Chicago theologian Don Browning has called the “male problematic” — the tendency of men to live apart from their children and to invest less emotionally and practically in their families than women do.
This situation has not gone unnoticed in America’s houses of worship.
He writes,
[blockquote]
“Religious Americans are also less likely to divorce. Specifically, Americans who attend religious services regularly are about 35% less likely to divorce than are their married peers who rarely or never attend services. Once again, couples who attend together are especially unlikely to split.
Religion is also linked to lower rates of nonmarital childbearing. Only 25% of mothers who attended church weekly had a child outside of wedlock, compared with 34% of mothers who attended monthly or less.”[/blockquote]
I wonder how that breaks down by denomination?
‘I wonder how that breaks down by denomination?’
Reminds me of the old saying: ‘a list of members, broken down by age and sex’
I just realized why that headline bothers me. It is very bad grammar. The word ‘thy’ is the second person informal (archaic). It is always singular, unlike the second person formal (you/yours) which may be either singular or plural.
I guess that early childhood combination of 1928 prayer book services with readings from the King James Bible weren’t a total waste. 🙂
I doth have a blog thingy