It appears that in the 1970’s and early 80’s, marriage before children remained pretty much the expected norm among working-class couples, at least when men were well employed; by the 2000’s, that norm no longer held. Marriage has become irrelevant to lower middle-class women’s decisions about childbearing. The most disturbing part of this is that even in the lower middle class, children growing up with married parents are more likely to go to college and earn a high income at age 25—that is, to be upwardly mobile. For that to happen—and to see inequality and immobility decline across all classes—children will need something more than higher household spending. “Reversing the decline in married-parent families for children,” as Kearney concludes, “will likely require both economic and social changes.”  

In 2004, the late Sara McLanahan published a landmark article called “Diverging Destinies: How Children Are Faring Under the Second Demographic Transition.” The paper was the first scholarly attempt to propose that the decline of the two-parent family in the United States since the 1960’s was intensifying the already unequal life chances for poor and more advantaged children. The insight encompasses an irony that continues to perplex social policy debates: post 1960’s changes in the family which promised people—especially women—greater personal freedom and liberation from traditional constraints was making inequality worse.
Armed with another 20 years of data, Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland, has now revisited the subject in “The ‘College Gap’ in Marriage and Children’s Family Structure,” a working paper recently published in NBER. Her primary findings won’t surprise anyone keeping track of the scholarship on families and children, but she is able to expand and refine our understanding of the trends that McLanahan saw were creating a dangerous disparity in national well-being—disparities that since then have grown and hardened into a seemingly intractable socio-economic reality.
McLanahan’s article, based on surveys from 1960 to 1990, showed that while most college-educated women continued to raise their children in two-parent homes, that was no longer the case for the least-educated women. A sharp rise in single motherhood among that latter group during those decades was limiting the future of children who were already at a social-economic disadvantage. A third group of what, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call lower middle-class women (those with a high school degree and perhaps a year or two of college) had a modest shift towards single motherhood but for the most part continued to marry and establish traditional two-parent families. Since that time, as Kearney demonstrates in her new paper, the lower middle-class family has all but collapsed. While the children of the least and highest-educated mothers continue to live in the same general family arrangements as they did in 1990, the percentage of their working-class peers growing up in two-parent families fell from 83% to 60 percent. They now resemble their poorer and least-advantaged sisters more than they do their college-educated peers. In this respect, Kearney’s paper adds to the considerable literature on the “hollowing of the middle class;” the middle class is dwindling while the ranks of the lower skilled and affluent grow further apart.
Taking advantage of a growing body of disaggregated data since “Diverging Destinies” was published—as well as a mounting interest in racial gaps—Kearney also delves into family differences between identity groups. At one end of the spectrum, a strong majority (77%) of white children and an even larger share of Asian children (88%) live with their married parents. In the middle are the 62% of Hispanic children living with their married parents and at the low end are 38% of black children (all 2019 numbers). The “college gap,” as the author calls it, holds for all four of the largest racial and ethnic groups, though there are notable differences between them. Black children are by far the least likely of the four groups to live with married parents, but they have a substantially better chance of doing so if their mother has a college degree: 60% of black children with college-educated mothers have both parents in the house compared to a mere 30% for both the other black education groups. Like the population as a whole, children of the lower middle class in all identity groups saw the biggest decline in two-parent households between 1980 and 2019. This pattern holds for Asians as well, but mothers of all education levels are far more likely to be married than mothers of other racial groups.
Read More
Related Posts:

The devil is busy in the details, providing reasonable explanations for this or that, assuring us there is nothing of our heavenly Father to see here. And one of the strategies employed to keep us in a world without a personal God is to give us names for his created wonders. If we have a name to explain something, we can demystify it, taking something wonderful and making it dumb.

Perhaps you’ve had unbelieving friends or neighbors tell you they will believe when they see God writing his message in the clouds. I can tell you firsthand, this is untrue.
The cloudy letters began to appear one by one while we were on a family trip to a crowded theme park. As if scribed ex nihilo, they read,
PRAISE JESUS
And then minutes later,
JESUS GIVES. . . . ASK NOW
Here they were, letters drawn in the sky by an unseen hand, exalting the Son of God and calling us to ask and receive from Christ’s goodness. Yet they incited little more than hurried glances. No one tore his garments in repentance or fell to his knees to worship Christ or cried aloud in gratefulness. Some already toting cross necklaces stopped to take pictures, but the masses continued unmoved, unmindful.
Seeing is Not Believing
Moses tells us that God wrote the Ten Commandments himself, with his finger (Exodus 31:18). No one believed that these messages in the sky were written the same way. A man in a plane gave immediate causation.
But how did they know? The plane was nearly invisible to the naked eye. If you squinted hard enough, for long enough, you could catch the tiniest flash from the plane as he traced the letters.
Yet the masses did not stand staring at the clouds. The masses — some of whom believed in the existence of aliens and Bigfoot, or that men could become women — knew, without requiring a second glance, that this message could not be from God. Most did not see the plane — most did not need to see the plane. They already knew a human must have done it. If God granted their request and wrote the message himself, they would “know” in the exact same way.
All this to illustrate that seeing is not believing, as C.S. Lewis observes,
I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination. In other words, seeing is not believing. This is the first thing to get clear in talking about miracles. Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural. (C.S. Lewis Essay Collection and Other Short Stories, 107)
The crowds could not be bothered to stop at the spectacle because all of life up to that moment told them that God, if God there be, would not do such a thing. He would not trifle in their daily affairs. The “god” of many who check the box is too often the distant god of good morals and clean living, not the God with inescapable actuality, breaking into our world without permission to write on tablets or with clouds.
Christian Naturalist
I thought these things as we continued walking when, like lightning, the realization struck me. Was I all that different? Their unbelief was clear to me — was mine? How had I received this message?
“Praise Jesus.” “Jesus gives. . . . Ask now.”
I knew that my God rules over all things. I knew that “The [the pilot’s] heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). I knew that my God made possible the weather conditions for that day — along with a million other factors that brought my family and me to that exact spot at that exact time to witness that exact message.
Read More
Related Posts:

The Reformed view of the Christian life is one of Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude: Guilt (Pedagogical: first use of the law), Grace (Gospel), and Gratitude (the Christian life: third use of the law). When we fail (guilt), the same order always follows. It is the gospel—our union with Christ—that brings us to life and provides us with the fuel and desire to live a life of gratitude.

In today’s world, numerous things are going haywire. Headlines flicker hourly across our social media feeds with the latest abuse of power, breaches in trust, shootings, riots, and protests. The spirit of anarchy is alive and well in our world. How is it possible for depraved individuals to even recognize evil? Why do we care about injustice? It is because we all have the Law of God written in our hearts (Romans 2:14-15). When we observe countless atrocities occurring on a daily basis, it is human nature to want justice to prevail.
In Christianity, there have always been disputes on how Christians should use the law of God and its role in our lives. Antinomians teach that the law has no place in a Christian’s life. Neonomians desire to make a new law from the gospel demanding faith and obedience for salvation. Understanding the proper distinction between the law and the gospel and being on the same page regarding the three uses of the law can help to provide us with greater harmony amongst Reformed Christians. It can also present us with a solid blueprint of how we can live our lives for the glory of God.
Law and Gospel
What does it mean to properly distinguish between law and gospel? In brief, the law commands and the gospel promises. The law is what we do and the gospel is what Christ has done for us. The law in its first sense reveals God’s requirement for eternal life—perfection (Galatians 3:10; James 2:10). The gospel shares the wonderful promise that Christ is our righteousness received through faith alone (Galatians 3:13-14).
Both the law and the gospel are God given and necessary in a Christian’s life. The law is good because it is an expression of God’s being. The gospel is good because it informs us of the work of Christ on our behalf. However, mixing them—glawspel—is bad. This leads to neonomianism and the error of the Judaizers.
As Herman Bavinck wrote, Reformed Christians perceive “the sharp contrast between law and gospel” and realize this is what restores “the peculiar character of the Christian religion as a religion of grace.” Conversely, “The law demands that humans work out their own righteousness, and the gospel invites them to renounce all self-righteousness and to accept the righteousness of Christ.”[1]
The Three Uses of the Law
With the proper distinction between the law and the gospel in place, the question is: What is the relationship of a regenerate believer to the law of God? In Reformed theology, we distinguish between the three uses of the law. We make these distinctions because we observe the law being utilized this way in scripture.
The three uses of the law are:

Pedagogical (school master)
Civil/Moral (society)
Normative (the Christian life)

First Use of the Law
The first use of the Law is to destroy the spiritual narcissist lurking within all of us. Calvin writes:
“First, by exhibiting the righteousness of God—in other words, the righteousness which alone is acceptable to God—it admonishes every one of his own unrighteousness, certiorates, convicts, and finally condemns him.”[2]
The law in this sense destroys our self-righteousness and arrogance. It puts the old Adam to death. In it, we realize that God does not accept us “just as we.” Outside of Christ, we do not stand a chance on Judgment Day. God’s Law requires perfect obedience and no fallen son or daughter of Adam can attain this. In and of ourselves, we are without hope. We cannot stand before the judgment seat of God and plead our good works since “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10). This first use of the law serves as a schoolmaster to drive us out of ourselves and to Christ.
Second Use of the Law
The second use of the Law is intended to protect our society from evil people who would cause us harm. Calvin says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion:
“The second office of the Law is, by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, to curb those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice.”[3]
The commandments such as “do not murder”, “do not steal”, and “do not commit adultery” are also examples of natural law. These aspects of the law are written in all human hearts (Rom 2:14-15). It is intended to restrain evil and promote a harmonious existence in our world. “The moral law is of use to all men, to inform them of the holy nature and will of God, and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly” (Westminster Larger Catechism, Q.95)
Our society can function only because we innately realize right from wrong. This aspect of the law promotes civil order and protects citizens from those who would cause harm. Hence, the second use of the law is a guide for morality and it equally applies to both believers and unbelievers.
Third Use of the Law
The third use of the law is only for regenerate believers. It does not apply to unbelievers. Calvin remarks:
“The third use of the Law has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns.”[4]
This use of the law is also known as the “normative” use.  When we state that something is “normed”, we mean that it is “patterned” after something. This aspect of the law reveals God’s righteous will for our lives: We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10). When we state that a believer is not under law, we mean that he is not under the law as a covenant of works—as a means of salvation. However, as Christians, we do not lay the law aside because of our faith, but we seek to uphold the law (Romans 3:31).
We strive to uphold the law, not as a means of salvation, but because it reflects who we are as new creations: children of God.
We maintain the law and strive to do good work because of our love and gratitude toward God for saving us. The third use of the law serves as a blueprint for how an already regenerate believer can live a life that pleases Him (Heidelberg Catechism, Q.86 and Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 97).
Louis Berkhof wrote that the third use of the law is “a rule of life for believers, reminding them of their duties and leading them in the way of life and salvation. This third use of the law is denied by the Antinomians.”[5] If someone denies the third use of the law, then they are an antinomian. This is not good! Antinomianism perverts the grace of God into a license to sin (Jude 4).
Paul anticipated that some would interpret the gospel message as doing away with the law. He asks the rhetorical question: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” He emphatically states: “By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:31). This is the third use of the law.
A good example of Jesus practicing the third use of the Law is found in Matthew 28:20—“teaching them [new disciples] to observe all that I have commanded you.” He meant that Christians should be taught all that he commanded. They were taught this in the third sense of the law because they were already believers. The first use of the law had completed its work. It is God’s desire that Christians “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work” (Colossians 1:10). The third use of the law is the “Law of Christ.” It shows us how to live a life of gratitude.
The Difference between the Lutheran and Reformed View of the Third Use
Confessionally, both Lutherans and Reformed acknowledge the third use of the law. The early Lutherans articulated it well in The Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article 6:
“People who truly believe in Christ and are genuinely converted to God have been liberated and set free from the curse and compulsion of the law through Christ, they indeed are not for that reason without the law. Instead, they have been redeemed by the Son of God so that they may practice the law day and night.”
This is a good definition and is compatible with Reformed theology. However, since Reformation times, it is difficult to find a Lutheran theologian who consistently articulates the third use in this way. I recently reviewed the Lutheran classic, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel by CFW Walther (1897). I was disappointed the third use of the law was not affirmed and appeared to be repudiated (Thesis 23).
Lutheran theologian David Scaer, Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, believes Walther’s theses on the law and the gospel do not lend themselves to a developed doctrine of the third use of the law. He also points out that Gerhard Forde rejected the third use of the law as outlined in the Formula of Concord and thought it had no place in Lutheran theology.[6]
It’s noteworthy that Scaer believes this denial of the third use of the law was a significant factor in the decline in American Lutheran theology.
With these Lutheran views, it is not surprising that Bavinck (a contemporary of Walther) wrote:
“Lutherans do speak of a threefold use of the law, not only of a…civil use for the purpose of restraining sin, and of a pedagogical use to arouse the knowledge of sin, but also of a didactic use of the law to be a rule of life for believers. This last use, however, is solely necessary since…believers still continue to be sinners and have to be restrained by the law and led to a continuing knowledge of sin.”[7]
It is unknown which Lutheran theologian Bavinck had in mind (Walther?). However, it needs to be pointed out:
A “third use of the law” defined as merely a version of the first use is neither a confessionally Lutheran or a confessionally Reformed position.
Unfortunately, the non-confessional Lutheran view of the law (pedagogical only) seems to be the popular version on Twitter and social media. It is often passed off as the standard Lutheran view. Reformed Christians would do well by not integrating it with Reformed theology.
Concluding thoughts
It is critical to properly distinguish between the law and the gospel, but it is equally important to properly distinguish and affirm the three uses of God’s law. It is also important to remember that even the holiest people in this life have only a small beginning of obedience, yet they will have a sincere resolution (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 114). We should never base our justification on our sanctification.
Our obedience is motivated by our gratitude. This is the epitome of the third use of law.
The Reformed view of the Christian life is one of Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude: Guilt (Pedagogical: first use of the law), Grace (Gospel), and Gratitude (the Christian life: third use of the law). When we fail (guilt), the same order always follows. It is the gospel—our union with Christ—that brings us to life and provides us with the fuel and desire to live a life of gratitude.
Anthony Charles lives in Los Angeles, California and recently transitioned from the PCA to the United Reformed Church in America (URCNA). He is married and has two adult sons.  His Bachelor’s degree is in Theology from The Master’s University and he is a descendant of the French Huguenots.  Tony also hosts the @ReformedTwitt3r account. You can read more about him here. This article is used with permission.

[1] Bavinck, H. Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation (Vol. 4, p. 453)
[2] Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Institutes 2.7.6
[3] Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Institutes 2.7.10
[4] Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Institutes 2.7.11
[5] Berkhof, L. (1938). Systematic theology (p. 615)
[6] Scaer, David. Walther, the Third Use of the Law, and Contemporary Issues. Concordia Theological Quarterly Volume: 75 Number: 3 in 2011, p. 329.
[7] Bavinck, H. Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation (Vol. 4, p. 455)
Related Posts: