FAITH AND RELIGION

Family and Faith: The Roots of Prosperity, Stability, and Freedom
Patrick F. Fagan, William G. FitzGerald Fellow in Family and Cultural Issues
The Heritage Foundation
Presented at the World Family Policy Forum 2002

The challenge for America in this new century is not to improve the economy, but to strengthen the family and faith in God. One simple way to summarize the insights gleaned from the social science research of the last century is to say that children thrive within a loving family life, that family life thrives when it is built on intact marriages, and that intact marriages thrive when there is regular worship of God.

Despite the ever-growing body of evidence supporting this assertion, the rejection of fathers and mothers of each other and their children continues at unprecedented levels.
By age eighteen, only four out of every ten children remain in an intact family—that is, live in a family where their mother and father remain committed to each other and to their children. One-third of children are rejected before birth in abortion; one-third are born to an unmarried mother without a father who is committed to taking care of them. One-half of those who are born to married parents will see their parents reject each other before they reach age eighteen.

Nothing in American history rivals this assault on children and families. Despite the nation’s strengths, America is becoming one of the weakest of nations socially, when it
comes to considerations of the family. Somehow, Americans expect their children to thrive in the culture of rejection that imbues its social, political, and legal institutions. In the family, in law, in education, in the media, in the marketplace, and even in the church and synagogue—where marriages most often start and have always been most treasured—the vows a man and woman make to each other, to God, and to their community, mean less and less.

If the state turns against the married family as its most basic institution, it is also rejecting the “truths that are self evident” upon which our nation was built. We have come
perilously close to a crisis: A powerful section of our political and social elite no longer see a great place for marriage and worship in our society. Our government wants to step in and act as parent, despite having no institutional capacity to evoke love, loyalty, and commitment from children and adults. Such is the competence of the family, the church,
and the school. It is with these three institutions that rebuilding a strong society must begin.

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The Family: A Proclamation to the World
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To read “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” in other languages, please visit http://www.lds.org/languages/.