I have been reviewing some pertinent facts about family life and the influence of practising one’s faith. Here are a few examples from a very long list, and for every statement there is documentation that I can refer any enquirer to.

The studies were all done in the United States or by US workers.

1. Boys raised outside of an intact nuclear family are more than twice as likely as other boys to end up in prison, even controlling for a range of social and economic factors (Harper and McLanahan 1998).

2. Children who grew up in a single parent home are twice as likely to get divorced than children who grew up in a two parent biological family (Bumpass and Sweet 1995).

3. Children raised in a single-parent family are twice as likely to drop out of high school, and girls raised in such a family are more than twice as likely to have a child out-of-wedlock as a teenager compared to children who grow up with their biological parents (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994).

4. Individuals who cohabit before they marry face a significantly higher chance of getting divorced than those who do not cohabit. Married couples where both spouses have cohabited are between 33% (Cherlin 1992) and 50% (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels 1994) more likely to divorce than married couples where neither spouse has cohabited.

5. Because cohabitation does not provide institutionalized norms or a long-term horizon of relationship commitment, cohabiting couples place a much greater stress on equality and freedom in their relationships. “This freedom, however, comes with the loss of incentives to invest jointly in the relationship and of clear cultural guidelines for how partners might conduct themselves once they set up a household. Equality is a costly principle to maintain, in part because it requires frequent monitoring of each partner’s holdings.”

As a consequence, long-term cohabiting couples are much more likely to break up than married couples (Brines and Joyner 1999).

6.  Single women under the age of 35 who never attend church are almost twice as likely to cohabit as those who attend church (Protestant or Catholic) on a weekly basis (Bumpass and Sweet 1995).

7.  Men who attend church once a week or more are significantly less likely to physically abuse their wives.

“The odds of committing partner violence are lower by more than half among men who attend services regularly at least once a week than among those who attend once a year or less” (Ellison, Bartkowski, and Anderson 1999: 98).

Whether our own individual or family experience mirrors these findings or not, and indeed they may not do so, I believe that the statistical data are important in processing suggestions that the churches are not sufficiently involved in solving social problems.

The statistics as a whole strongly suggest that if anybody does not find himself in active church life he is far more likely to be a social problem than those who are in active church life. Also the findings suggest that the husband-wife married ideal that Christ taught and that has always been the Church’s model for active sexuality is indeed the one structure that is designed for making sure that children’s needs are met. The statistics further point to the absolute folly of churches who desert what the Church is mandated to teach.

We need Christ the King in His role as our Head. We cannot be what we ought to be if we do not know Him in His Kingly role and authority over us and providing for us. In Daniel chapter 7 He is shown being given dominion by God, the Ancient of Days. In Revelation chapter 1 verse 6 He is shown, having loved us and loosed us from our sins by His own Blood, as making us a Kingdom. This means that we are called to be no less than priests to His God and Father.

The positive statistics that may be outlined are an aspect of the effect of submitting to Him in repentance and being moved to live out that kingship and that priesthood. There is no way of living that can be better than this.

Before Pontius Pilate, John 18 verse 37 shows Jesus, already betrayed and ill-treated by His own, explaining His Kingship as a Kingdom of truth. That is still the nature of the Kingdom of Christ, and in today’s world of meaning-reconstruction, we must on no account slip away from that. We are to be the truth-tellers, even in a world of spin. If we are not of the truth, we have deserted Christ’s Kingdom.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org