Episode 01: Let’s Do Something

Written By Mark Ogletree

Quotes from Sister Beck:

  • “In addition to understanding the theology of the family, we all need to understand the threats to the family. If we don’t, we can’t prepare for the battle. Evidence is all around us that the family is becoming less important. Marriage rates are declining, the age of marriage is rising, and divorce rates are rising. Out-of-wedlock births are growing. Abortion is rising and becoming increasingly legal. We see lower birth rates. We see unequal relationships between men and women, and we see cultures that still practice abuse within family relationships. Many times a career gains importance over the family.”

  • “We also face the problem that we read about in Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Public policies are being made every day that are antifamily, and the definition of family is changing legally around the world. Pornography is rampant. For those who create pornography, their new target audience is young women. Parents are being portrayed as inept and out of touch. Antifamily media messages are everywhere. Youth are being desensitized about the need to form eternal families.

  • “Anti-Christ is antifamily. Any doctrine or principle our youth hear from the world that is antifamily is also anti-Christ. It’s that clear. If our youth cease to believe in the righteous traditions of their fathers as did the people described in Mosiah 26, if our youth don’t understand their part in the plan, they could be led away” (Sister Julie B. Beck, “Teaching the Doctrine of the Family,” Ensign, March 2011).

Quote from Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

  • “Satan’s most strenuous opposition is directed at whatever is most important to the Father’s plan. Satan seeks to discredit the Savior and divine authority, to nullify the effects of the Atonement, to counterfeit revelation, to lead people away from the truth, to contradict individual accountability, to confuse gender, to undermine marriage, and to discourage childbearing (especially by parents who will raise children in righteousness)” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, November 1993; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1993/10/the-great-plan-of-happiness?lang=eng).

Quote from Bishop J. Richard Clarke:

  • Why is Satan so obsessed with destroying the family?

    • “Because it [the family] stands for everything he wants and cannot have.  He cannot be a husband, a father, or a grandfather.  He cannot have posterity now or ever.  Satan cannot even keep those he has led away from God” (Bishop J. Richard Clarke, Ensign, May 1989, 60; emphasis added). 

Quotes from Elder Boyd K. Packer:

  • “The ultimate purpose of the adversary…is to disrupt, disturb, and destroy the home and the family. Like a ship without a rudder, without a compass, we drift from the family values which have anchored us in the past. Now we are caught in a current so strong that unless we correct our course, civilization as we know it will surely be wrecked to pieces” (Elder Boyd K. Packer, “The Father and the Family,” Ensign, May 1994, 19-20).

  • “I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world to compare with our present circumstances. Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which exceeds in wickedness and depravity that which surrounds us now. Words of profanity, vulgarity, and blasphemy are heard everywhere. Unspeakable wickedness and perversion were once hidden in dark places; now they are in the open, even accorded legal protection. At Sodom and Gomorrah these things were localized. Now they are spread across the world, and they are among us” (See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teaching-seminary-preservice-readings-religion-370-471-and-475/the-one-pure-defense?lang=eng).  

Quote from Bishop Victor L. Brown:

  • “Satan’s legions are many.  In their battle to enslave mankind, they use weapons such as selfishness; dishonesty; corruption; sexual impurity, be it adultery, fornication, or homosexuality; pornography; permissiveness; drugs, and many others. I believe Satan’s ultimate goal is to destroy the family, because if he would destroy the family, he will not just have won the battle; he will have won the war” (Bishop Victor L. Brown, Ensign, January 1974, 108; emphasis added).

Quotes from Dr. Bill H. Doherty:

  • “The forces pulling on families are just too strong in the modern world.  Ultimately, we must decide either to steer or to go where the river takes us” (William Doherty, The Intentional Family: How to Build Family Ties in Our Modern World [New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997], 10).

  • Family scholar, Bill Doherty explained, “Sometimes with my therapy clients, I use an analogy of the Mississippi River, which flows just a couple of miles from my office. I say that family life is like putting a canoe into that great body of water. If you enter the water at St. Paul and don’t do anything, you will head south towards New Orleans. If you want to go north, or even stay at St. Paul, you have to work hard and have a plan. In the same way, if you get married or have a child without working a plan for your family’s journey, you will likely head “south” toward less closeness, less meaning, and less joy over time. A family, like a canoe, must be steered or paddled, or it won’t take you where you want to go.  The natural drift of family life in contemporary America is towards slowly diminishing connection, meaning, and community….

  • “Only an intentional family has a fighting chance to maintain and increase its sense of connection, meaning, and community over the years.

  • “An Intentional Family is one whose members create a working plan for maintaining and building family ties, and then implement the plan as best as they can. An intentional family rows and steers its boat rather than being moved only by the winds of the current” (William Doherty, The Intentional Family: How to Build Family Ties in Our Modern World [New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997], 8).

Scriptures:

  • 2 Timothy 3:1-5; Ephesians 6:11-18

Research:

  • In 2012, only 22 percent of American households resembled the traditional 1960s family, with an employed father, and a mother home with children.[1] In fact, in 1958, almost 88 percent of children under the age of 18 lived with two married parents, compared to 65 percent in 2014.[2]

  • Fewer American’s are marrying, and if they do choose to marry, they are waiting longer to tie the knot. Presently, the median age for first marriage is 27 for women and 29 for men. In 1960, the median age for first marriages was 20 for women and 23 for men.[3] Moreover, in 1960, 68 percent of American “twenty-somethings” were married, but by 2008, that percentage had plummeted to 26 percent. Today, approximately 18 percent of adults younger than the age of 30 are married, compared to 31 percent in 1995.[4] The current marriage rate is 6.1 per 1,000, compared to 9.8 per thousand in the 1990s.[5] Today, 40 percent of American’s believe that marriage has become obsolete.[6]

  • Moreover, the percentage of Americans who have never been married is at an historic high. In 2012, about 20 percent of adults, 25 years-of-age or older have never been married, compared to 9 percent in 1960.[7] Another study reported that the proportion of women between the ages of 25 to 29 who have never been married increased from 46 percent in 2006 to 60 percent in 2016, “while the proportion of never married between the ages of 30-34 increased from 26 percent in 2006 to 36 percent in 2016.”[8]

  • If men decide to marry, it is often later in life. For example, among men between the ages of 25 to 29, 71 percent had not married, compared to 60 percent of women. In the cohort of those between the ages of 30 to 34, 46 percent of men had never married, compared to 36 percent of women.[9]

  • During the 1950s and 60s, married-couple households reached a peak of 66 percent. By 2010, the proportion of married-couple households dropped to 45 percent, and households comprised of single parents and lone individuals accounted for approximately 40 percent of American households.[10]

  • According to recent data, the divorce rates in the United States are declining. We should not assume, however, that this trend reflects improved marriages. Rather, fewer people are marrying, and many more individuals are cohabitating. For example, in 1980, the United States divorce rate for women 22.8 per 1,000 married women. By 2015, the divorce rate had dropped to 16.9 per 1,000 married women.  The current divorce rate is 2.7 per 1,000, compared to 4.0 per 1,000 in 2000.

  • From 1900 to 2010, the birthrate in America dropped approximately 60 percent, from more than 32 births per 1,000 people in the population to 13.[11] During the year 2018, there were 3,788,235 births in our Nation—down 2 percent from 2017, and the lowest number of births in 32 years.[12] With fluctuations in the economy, and more women in the workforce, birthrates have declined over time. America’s fertility rate was once the envy of the world but has now fallen lower than some European nations. The United States birth rate dropped 4 percent in 2020.[13] For every 1000 women of childbearing age (15-44), 55.8 percent gave birth in 2020, compared to almost 70 percent in 2007—a 20 percent decline.[14] Presently, the American fertility rate is well below the replacement rate of 2.1.  In 2007, the fertility rate was 2.12; however, by 2021, the rate dropped to 1.64.[15] Some European countries now have higher fertilities rates than the United States, especially in France and Great Britain.

  • Researcher Phillip Cohen wrote, “Defined as living together as a sexual or romantic couple without being married, cohabitation has rapidly become an expected stage in relationships for the majority of couples.”  The number of couples who cohabitate prior to marriage has increased drastically during the past 50 years. To put in bluntly, several decades ago, very few individuals lived together prior to marriage, and in our modern world, practically everyone does. Lauren Fox reported that cohabitation has increased nearly 900 percent over the past 50 years. We have now reached a point in our Nation’s history where more adults have cohabitated (59 percent) than have been married (50 percent). Put another way, “it’s now more common to have cohabitated than to have married.”  Among those between the ages of 18 to 24, cohabitation is more prevalent than being married.  Nine percent in this cohort cohabitate with a partner, compared to 7 percent who are married. Furthermore, in 2018, 15 percent of those between the ages of 25-34 live with an unmarried partner, which is a 12 percent increase from 10 years earlier. In fact, in 1970, only .01 percent of those between the ages of 25 to 34 cohabitated, compared to almost 15 percent in 2018.   Cohabitating rates are fairly consistent among races, where 8 percent of whites, 7 percent of blacks, 8 percent of Hispanics live with a partner. Asians lag somewhat behind at 3 percent.

  • The percentage of children living with their father and mother has markedly “shrunk” over time. In 1960, 73 percent of children lived with both of their parents, compared to 46 percent in 2014. Moreover, in 1960, only 9 percent of children lived with a single parent, compared with 26 percent in 2014.[16] In 2011, the percentage of births to unmarried women reached 41 percent,[17] compared to 28 percent in 1990.[18]

  • Undoubtedly, religious participation and affiliation has been declining in recent years in America. This trend also includes a decrease in church attendance, as well as a diminishing private religious worship, manifested in a lack of belief in God, prayer, and scripture reading.[19]  For example, of the silent generation—those born between 1928-1945—85 percent identified as Christians. However, the millennial generation—those born between 1980-1996—only 56 percent affiliate with a Christian religion in the United States.[20] Other researchers have noted “a clear decline in outward religious expression” among young adults, [21] and an overall decline in religious participation among adolescents and they move through the teenage years. The older adolescents become, the less religious they appear to be. For example, those in middle school attend religious services more than seniors in High School.[22]

  • Enter Generation Z, or the iPhone Generation, those born between 1997 and 2012. This group appears to be less religious than any previous American cohort. “Gen Z” has been categorized as the first “post-Christian” generation in our Nation, where now the percentage of teens who identify as atheist doubles that of the general population (13% of teens vs. 6% of all adults).[23] Although 58 percent of Generation Z self-identify as Christian, only 43 percent have recently attended Church, and only one in eleven “is an ‘engaged Christian,’ with beliefs and practices that put faith front-and-center in their lives. This is a significantly smaller percentage than their grandparents: 14 percent of Boomers are engaged Christians.”[24] Children are sure to follow their non-Christian parents directly out and away from the Church.

  • Another prevalent trend is that more American adults and adolescents are identifying as “nones”—a term suggesting no religious affiliation. In the early 1980s, more than 90 percent of High School seniors identified with a religious denomination. In fact, during that time, only 10 percent chose “none” as their religious affiliation. However, more recently, 31 percent of High School seniors now identify religiously as “nones.”[25] Dr. James Emery White explained:

  • The number of “nones” in the 1930s and 1940s hovered around 5 percent. By 1990, that number had risen to only 8.1 percent, a mere 3 percent rise in over half a century. Between 1990 and 2008—just eighteen years—the number of nones nearly doubled, jumping from 8.1 percent to 15 percent. Then in just four short years, it climbed to nearly 20 percent, representing one out of every five Americans. And for adults under the age of thirty, it increased to one out of every three people.[26]

  • Dr. White argues that presently, nones are the largest religious group in America, and the fastest growing. “More troubling is that of the 85 percent of American adults who were raised Christian, nearly a quarter of them no longer identify with Christianity. Former Christians now represent 19.2 percent of the US population overall.  In 2007, 78.4 percent of Americans identified as Christian; by 2014, that percentage was reduced to 70.6 percent—a decrease of 7.8 percent. Meanwhile, in 2007, those who were unaffiliated (nones) made up 16.1 percent of our population; by 2014, that percentage had risen to 22.8 percent—an increase of 6.7 percent.  Many from this contemporary generation in homes where there is “no religion whatsoever, [giving them] no experience [and no context] for religion [in their own lives].”

[1] 1960 Census and the 2012 American Community Survey, with data from IPUMS.org

[2] Data for 2008-2015: Child Trends calculations of U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement. “America's Families and Living Arrangements.” Tables C -2, C -3. Available at: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/.html. Other Data for 1960-2007: Child Trends calculations using: Living Arrangements of Children Under 18 Years Old: 1960 to Present. Tables CH-1, CH-2, CH-3, CH-4, and Ch-7. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Online. Available: http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/children.html.

[3] US Census Bureau table MS-2; http://www.census.gov/hhes/families/data/marital.html

[4] Julia Menasce Horowitz, Nikki Graf, and Gretchen Livingston, “Marriage and Cohabitation in the US,” Pew Research Center, 6 November 2019; https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/the-landscape-of-marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/195951/marriage-rate-in-the-united-states-since-1990/

[6] Pew Research Center, Marriage Becoming Obsolete, 18 November 2010

[7] Pew Research Center analysis of the 1960-2000 decennial census and 2010-2012 American Community Survey, Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IMUMS); 24 September 2014; https://pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/

[8] Yeris Mayol-Garcia, Benjamin Gurrentz, & Rose M. Kreider, “Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriage and Divorces: 2016, Current Population Reports, US Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, April 2021; https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/demo/p70-167.pdf

[9] Yeris Mayol-Garcia, Benjamin Gurrentz, & Rose M. Kreider, “Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriage and Divorces: 2016, Current Population Reports, US Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, April 2021; https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/demo/p70-167.pdf

[10] Phillip Cohen, University of Maryland, “Family Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children,” a briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, 4 September 2014.

[11] Vital Statistics of the United States, Statistical Abstracts of the United States, Current Population Surveys.

[12] Hamiliton et al., “Births: Provisional Data for 2018,” NVSS Vital Statistics Rapid Release, Report No. 007, May 2019; https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr-007-508.pdf

[13] Amanda Barroso, “With a Potential ‘Baby Bust,’ on the Horizon, Key Facts about Fertility in the U.S. Before the Pandemic, Pew Research Center, 7 May 2021; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/07/with-a-potential-baby-bust-on-the-horizon-key-facts-about-fertility-in-the-u-s-before-the-pandemic/

[14] Melissa S. Kearney & Phillip Levine, Brookings Institute, 24 May 2021; https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-births-in-the-us-rebound-probably-not/

[15] [15] Melissa S. Kearney & Phillip Levine, Brookings Institute, 24 May 2021; https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/05/24/will-births-in-the-us-rebound-probably-not/

[16] Pew Research Center, “Parenting in America: Outlook, worries, aspirations are strongly linked to financial situation,” 17 December 2015, 15.

[17] U.S. Census Bureau, 2011, J. Martin et al., 2013.

[18] Elizabeth Wildsmith, Jennifer Menlove, & Elizabeth Cook, “Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016, Child Trends, 8 August 2016; https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels

[19] The Barna Group, Gen Z: The Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the Next Generation, [The Barna Group and Impact 360 Institute, 2018], 24-25.

[20] Cooperman, A., Smith, G., & Ritchie, K. (2015). America’s changing religious landscape. Pew Research Center, 11.

[21] Uecker, J.E., Regnerus, M.D., & Vaaler, M.L. (2007). Losing my religion: The social sources of religious decline in early adulthood. Social Forces, 85(4), 1667.

[22] Smith, C., Denton, M.L., Faris, R., & Regnerus, M., (2002). Mapping American adolescent religious participation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(4), 597-612.

[23] Gen Z: The Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the Next Generation, 14.

[24] Gen Z: The Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the Next Generation, 26.

[25] Twenge, J. (2017). IGen: Why today’s super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious,more tolerant, less happy—and completely unprepared for adulthood (122-123). New York: Atria Books, page number

[26] James Emery White, Meet Generation Z, [Baker Books, 2017], 22.

Mark Ogletree
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Episodes 02: Traditions