Gallup just released an interesting survey showing a rapid reversal in attitudes toward out of wedlock childbearing. Here’s the key chart:
In just 14 years the percentage of people in America who think it’s very important for people who have kids together to marry has declined from 49% in 2006 to only 29% in 2019. Meanwhile, we are up to 40% who believe it’s either not important at all or not too important.
I was particularly struck by the fact that only 45% of people who attend church weekly believe that it’s important that people who have kids together get married, down 20 points.
As I wrote in Masc #47, sometimes it’s easier for us to suffer for our beliefs than it is to let other people suffer for theirs.
It’s a free country and people can live however they want. But if people choose to unrepentantly live an un-Christian lifestyle, is it really the responsibility of the church to bail them out of any negative consequences?
Regardless of where you come down on this question, these changes in societal attitudes are going to have profound consequences at both the individual and the national level. And most of those consequences aren’t going to be good.
