Scientific research is valuable insofar as it can reinforce the truths of the Bible and principles of natural law; namely, that when we observe the way the world works (and does not work), it becomes abundantly clear that marriage matters for human flourishing almost more than anything else.

Humanly speaking, there is nothing more important for personal well-being, positive social behavior, and general success in life than being raised by one’s biological parents committed to each other in a stable marriage. Over the past forty years, a vast body of research has demonstrated conclusively that children are deeply affected by family structure and that married parents are best for children. Any efforts — whether governmental, educational, or ecclesiastical — that mean to encourage human flourishing must take this reality into account as both an explanation for many societal ills and as a means to the end of hoped-for societal health and vitality.
Not a Myth
Family life in America has changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. In 1960, 73% of children lived with two parents in their first marriage. By 2014, less than half (46%) of children were living in this type of family. Conversely, the percentage of children living with a single parent rose from 9% in 1960 to 26% in 2014. An additional 7% of children now live with cohabiting parents. Moreover, the increase in non-traditional family arrangements has coincided with the decoupling of marriage and childbearing. In 1960, just 5% of all births occurred outside of marriage. By 2000, around 40% of all births occurred outside of marriage (a percentage that has held steady over the last twenty years). As of 2014, 29% of births to white women, 53% of births to Hispanic women, and 71% of births to black women were out-of-wedlock. In the span of only 60 years, what were once considered exceptional family circumstances have become the norm.[1]
Given the changing portrait of the American family, it is not surprising that many people believe — or, given the uncomfortable prospect of implicitly judging others, feel compelled to say they believe — that there is no difference between one parent or two parents when it comes to raising children. According to one online survey, “more than 70% of participants believed that a single parent can do just as good a job as two parents.” Further, 60% of women “agreed that children do best with multiple adults invested and helping, but that two married parents are not necessary.”[2] Christina Cross, writing in the New York Times, went so far as to decry “The Myth of the Two-Parent Home,” citing evidence that black children in two-parent families still fare worse than white children in two-parent families.[3] But Cross’s argument fails to take into account how much better all children do in two-parent families compared to one-parent families of the same race. The percentage of white children living in poverty goes from 31% in families with only a mother, to 17% in families with only a father, all the way down to 5% in families with a married couple. The same percentages for black children go from 45% (mother-only), to 36% (father-only), to 12% (married couple). We can lament that black children in two-parent families are still 2.4 times more likely to be in poverty than white children (12% v. 5%), but we should also observe that white children raised by only a mother are 2.6 times as likely to be in poverty as black children raised by two parents (31% v. 12%). While there are still advantages to being white in this country, he much bigger advantage is being raised by two parents. It is better in America to be a black child raised by two parents than to be a white child in a one-parent home. The breakdown of the family is not a black problem; it is a problem wherever two-parent families decline and single-parent households become normalized.[4]
Family Structure and Child Well-Being
The conclusion that children raised by their biological, married parents do better, by almost every measure,  has been proven in hundreds of studies over the last several decades.[5]
One of the best and most concise summaries of the academic literature comes from a policy brief published in 2003 by the Center for Law and Social Policy.[6] Citing a 1994 study by Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, the 2003 brief notes that children who do not live with both biological parents were roughly twice as likely to be poor, to have birth outside of marriage, to have behavioral and psychological problems, and to not graduate from high school.[7] Another study found that children in single-parent homes were more likely to experience health problems, such as accidents, injuries, and poisonings.[8] Other research found that children living with single mothers were five times as likely to be poor.[9]
Importantly, not all types of single-parent households fare the same. Children of widowed parents, for example, do better than children in families with divorced or cohabiting parents.[10] Children of divorce are two-and-a-half times as likely to have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems as children from intact families.[11] Likewise, children in cohabiting families are at a higher risk of poor outcomes in a host of economic and emotional categories. Critically, these poor outcomes are not erased when the single-parent family is better off financially.[12] Marriage is the issue, not economics. In short,
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Written by Dean C. Curry |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Indeed, there are many prudential reasons for Christians as Citizens to support Israel.  Among them, Israel is the only free, democratic nation in the Middle East.  Also, Israel is a close ally of the United States, sharing a similar cultural heritage, values, and interests.  Lastly is the moral imperative.  The meaning of Israel is powerfully captured at Yad Vashem – the Jewish holocaust memorial – located in the hills of West Jerusalem. The existence of Israel is a symbol of a people’s survival of tyranny and their quest for freedom.  The United States, therefore, has a moral obligation to ensure that Israel survives into the future.

A few days ago, a Facebook friend posted in all caps, “A MUST SEE!!”  The focus of my friend’s enthusiasm was a YouTube video of a prominent evangelical dispensationalist explaining “what’s next” in Israel’s war against Hamas.  My friend concluded his post repeating the video presenter’s closing Bible verse from Psalm 121:4: “He who watches over Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps.”
George Marsden, the premier historian of American evangelicalism, has written extensively about the important role that dispensationalism played in shaping American Protestant fundamentalism, the precursor of contemporary American evangelicalism.  Central to dispensational theology is the belief that the 20th century return of Jews to Palestine, and the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948, was a key prophetic marker pointing to the Second Coming of Christ.
Dispensationalism played no role in the actual creation of the modern nation of Israel. In fact, in 1948 American fundamentalists were cloistered in their era of cultural and political exile that followed battles with theological liberalism earlier in the twentieth century.  Nevertheless, fundamentalists and their evangelical heirs welcomed the birth of Israel as confirmation of biblical prophecy.  For their part, Israel officials have certainly welcomed evangelical support, as evidenced, for example, by Benjamin Netanyahu’s embrace of dispensationalist John Hagee.  Israel’s relationship with American evangelicals is strategic in nature and not rooted in any theological affinities. Relatedly, most American dispensationalists are likely ignorant – or at least unaware – of the secular roots and nature of the Zionist nationalist movement. As far as the Israeli Jewish population is concerned, only 20% of Israelis have a positive view of evangelicals while 75% have no opinion or are neutral in their perspective towards evangelicals.  However, it is worth noting that as Orthodox Jews become more influential in Israeli public life Israel may in the future become less hospitable to evangelicals.
While historian Daniel Hummel has recently pointed to the demise of dispensationalism among evangelical theologians, dispensationalism continues to influence the vast majority of evangelicals and profoundly shapes their attitudes towards Israel.  A 2022 Pew survey reveals that 86% of white evangelicals have warm views towards Israel, compared to 66% of Americans generally.  And 70% of white evangelicals believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people.
It is not surprising, therefore, that many evangelicals are relying on their dispensational theology to decipher current events in Israel.  This reality points to an important component of evangelical engagement of public life; namely, the importance of responding in a “Christian” way.  Dispensationalism provides a ready-made Christian framework for such a response for many, if not most, evangelicals.  However, it is not the only framework.  Tracking social media and listening to my evangelical friends, I read and hear other “Christian” responses. For example, some evangelicals seem reluctant to express outright support for Israel fearing that such support will betray the Christian mandate to “love mercy” which presumably includes even Hamas.  While some dispensationalist-anchored evangelicals embrace this perspective, it is especially evident among younger evangelicals who, according to most surveys, are much more sympathetic to Palestinians and less supportive of Israel than older evangelical cohorts.  There are also evangelicals who assert that since the Christians primary allegiance is to God, any response to the events in Israel and Gaza based on our national identification as Americans is inappropriate.
Finally, in assessing evangelical attitudes towards Israel and the current Israeli-Hamas war, we need to remember that while dispensationalism continues to cast a wide net of influence over evangelical thinking about Israel, not all evangelicals are dispensational.  This is especially true among many – though not all – in Reformed and Anglican traditions. I am not aware of polling of among these group, but I suspect that the majority – like their dispensational sisters and brothers – strongly support Israel, but with an important difference.  Their support is not grounded in a putatively biblical framework, but rather in prudential considerations.  Indeed, there are many prudential reasons for Christians as Citizens to support Israel.  Among them, Israel is the only free, democratic nation in the Middle East.  Also, Israel is a close ally of the United States, sharing a similar cultural heritage, values, and interests.  Lastly is the moral imperative.  The meaning of Israel is powerfully captured at Yad Vashem – the Jewish holocaust memorial – located in the hills of West Jerusalem. The existence of Israel is a symbol of a people’s survival of tyranny and their quest for freedom.  The United States, therefore, has a moral obligation to ensure that Israel survives into the future.
Dean C. Curry lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and has spent many years teaching and writing on subjects related to international relations, foreign policy, and religion and public life. This article is used with permission.
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The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not include any direct reference to God at all.
Many have found this fact about the book of Esther troubling—it’s like reading an autobiography of Winston Churchill with no mention of Churchill. What are we to make of the fact that God is “missing in action” from Esther? Some thinkers have convincingly argued that the author’s intent is to deliver a message through the overt silence with regard to God. The omission is glaring—too glaring to understand it as a literary mistake; rather, the omission is the message. The author portrays God’s presence by not mentioning the presence of God at all.1 In other words, it’s the silence that proves His presence; the lack of theology is in fact the theology. In this way, the book of Esther teaches an important lesson for Christians today. In fact, rather than being a neglected book, Esther should be a significant part of our biblical diet.
The reason for this has to do with how our experience relates to biblical narratives. Our everyday lives coalesce with the Esther narrative more than with the Exodus, Joshua, or Kings narratives. Not many of us have witnessed miraculous deliverance (Ex. 7–12) or attesting signs (Ex. 4:1–9). We’ve never witnessed manna falling from the clouds (Ex. 16) or the walls of a fortress collapse upon God’s enemies (Josh. 6). We’ve never gazed on a vast body of water dividing at the seafloor (Ex. 14) or witnessed a three-year drought miraculously ended following a soaking-wet altar being consumed by fire (1 Kings 18:20–40). No, the ebb and flow of our lives is more akin to that of life in Persia during the time of Esther—daily activities, coincidences, mundane events, misfortunes, mistakes—normal, everyday life where the overt presence of God is all but undetectable. We, like the exiled Jews who remained after King Cyrus’ decree (Ezra 1:1–4), sojourn through life with the silent presence of God—entirely dependent on His written Word for guidance (see Neh. 7–10, 13).
Sovereignty and Providence
Among other things, the change in the means by which God exercises His sovereignty can be accounted for by the distinction between sovereignty and providence—an important distinction to maintain. Sovereignty describes the attribute of God wherein He is in authority over all things. Providence describes the way in which God works out His will in history. To put it simply, sovereignty refers to His attribute—something He is—while providence refers to His action—something He does. Providence, then, stems from His sovereignty; only the Sovereign can exercise providence. The Westminster Shorter Catechism identifies God’s works of providence as “His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures, and all their actions” (WSC 11). He governs all—His creatures and their actions. Nothing is outside His rule, and nothing happens without His governance.
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