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Many religious families suffer disappointment when their adult children stop practicing their faith. It turns out that the single most important predictor of a child's future religious observance may be whether his own father attends church. Touchstone magazine refers to a remarkable Swiss study in 1994:
"If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all.
If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.
If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshipers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church."
The most extraordinary finding of this study is what happens when the father attends church regularly but the mother is irregular or non-practicing: 38 percent of grown children attend church regularly when the mother is irregular, and 44 percent when the mother is non-practicing - "as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility."
Well, we attend almost every Sunday. Now, if my wife and I want to take the odd Sunday off, my three teenagers get annoyed with us. So I kind of believe that study's findings.
Things like boring sermons, molesting priests and clergy, outdated theology, loss of relevance to modern lives, uncomfortable pews, busy schedules, becoming an atheist and a thousand other reasons for not going to church don't count? It just depends on Father being in church.
Right.
The reasons for declining church attendance are many and varied. Another article written with a skew towards the author's agenda. I'm not impressed.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 09-28-2012 at 11:05 AM..
Many religious families suffer disappointment when their adult children stop practicing their faith. It turns out that the single most important predictor of a child's future religious observance may be whether his own father attends church. Touchstone magazine refers to a remarkable Swiss study in 1994:
"If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all.
If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.
If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshipers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church."
The most extraordinary finding of this study is what happens when the father attends church regularly but the mother is irregular or non-practicing: 38 percent of grown children attend church regularly when the mother is irregular, and 44 percent when the mother is non-practicing - "as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility."
Thank you for the stats. I find it interesting. I actually know a couple that sends the kids to our church's Sunday School, but they don't bother coming themselves. The kids go home after Sunday School. I find it sad the message that they are sending to the kids.
Thank you for the stats. I find it interesting. I actually know a couple that sends the kids to our church's Sunday School, but they don't bother coming themselves. The kids go home after Sunday School. I find it sad the message that they are sending to the kids.
Indeed. Children value what their parents value as a general rule. And, it seems, what their fathers value specifically is of paramount importance.
I don't know. My father was a devout Christian and a churchgoer all of his life, as is my mother. I am one of seven children, six still living. I am the only one of us who goes to church, and I don't go to the one in which I was raised. And I did not go to church at all for many years in my adult life. Most of my siblings are atheists. One of my sisters still has some belief, I think, but she is an alcoholic and does not attend church, either. She occasionally reads her bible, I know. The oldest sister meditates and follows astrology. The youngest sister is atheist, as are my two living brothers. The dead one was an atheist who, though never Catholic, took communion from a Catholic priest who happened to be at the hospital the night before he died. I believe he did that for the comfort of his daughter, who is Catholic, and that it was not a death-bed conversion.
Dad being a Christian in this case, as well as dedicated to the church as an elder and a leader amongst the men did not influence his children that way. He never said whether it bothered him that his children all fell away from the church--he was a private, quiet man who lived his faith. My mother is still a churchgoer in her 80s.
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