In Boys Adrift, I also presented evidence that schools bear some of the blame for the disengagement of boys from education. American schools, with a few exceptions, have become unfriendly to boys. Boys doing things that boys have always done—such as pointing fingers at each other saying “bang bang you’re dead”, or doodling a sketch of a sword—now often get into trouble at school. But reprimanding an elementary-school boy for chewing his pastry into the shape of a gun does not change that boy into a flower child who wants to talk about his feelings. 

There is a growing gender gap in higher education. According to the latest figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center: as of spring 2021, women accounted for 59.5% of students attending colleges and universities nationwide. Among four-year private colleges, women now account for 61% of all students. Both figures represent new records. Douglas Shapiro, executive director of research at the National Student Clearinghouse, told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that if current trends continue, within a few years there will be two women graduating from college for every one man.
Well, so what? In 1970, men accounted for 58% of students attending colleges and universities, and there was no great outcry back then about the gender imbalance. Why should we be concerned now that the pendulum has swung in the other direction?
I think there are good reasons for concern, which can be summed up in three words: “educational assortative mating.” Educational assortative mating means that if a woman has earned a four-year degree and she is looking for a husband, she will usually choose a man whose educational achievement is equal to or greater than her own. Fifty years ago, if a man earned a four-year degree and was looking for a woman to marry, he might have many qualifications in mind for his future wife; but educational attainment was not one of them. In that era, college-educated men were happy to marry women who had never attended college. In our era, college-educated women are hoping to marry college-educated men. And there are not enough college-educated men to go around.
This problem is not confined to the college educated. I am a family doctor. A young woman in my own practice, let’s call her Linda, has two small children. She has never been married. She has never attended college. I bumped into the father of her two children. He told me how much he loves Linda. He told me that he has proposed marriage, twice, and both times Linda turned him down. I asked Linda, as gently as I could, why she did not want to marry the father of her two children. She answered: “Dr. Sax, I already have two babies at home. I don’t need a third!”
At every level, not just among the college-educated, young women seeking a man to marry are looking for men who are at least as competent and hard-working as they are. But ever since the 1980s, boys’ academic achievement in high school has declined relative to girls, not primarily because girls are doing better but because boys are doing worse.
Marriage rates in the United States peaked at 16.4 per 1,000 per year in 1946. As recently as 1990, marriage rates were still 9.8 per 1,000. Right now, the marriage rate is 6.1 per 1,000: that’s the lowest on record, going back to the 1880s. Although many factors have contributed to the decline in marriage, scholars agree that one major factor driving the decline is the reality that many women want their husbands to earn more than they do. American women have always tended to prefer husbands who can earn more than they do, but the growing phenomenon of underachieving young men means that there are not enough successful men to go around.
Nevertheless, many women still want to have children.
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Our response to distressing times should be found in the fact that God does not change. His promises are true. As the culture around us continues to change and head in a direction opposed to the heart of God and the clear teachings of Scripture, we can look to God for our hope. Though everything changes around us, He does not change. God remains the same. His being, perfections, purposes, and promises will never fail us.

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.
– Psalm 102:25-27
In 2019, Gallup released an article citing the “10 Major Social Changes in the 50 Years Since Woodstock.” I found the article fascinating not only because of its content but also in light of the changes we’ve seen since 2019. Who could have fathomed all that has occurred since the start of the pandemic, much less Woodstock? How should Christians respond to all the social change?
You’re likely familiar with Woodstock. It was a music festival held in Bethel, New York in August 1969. It was a gathering of thousands of people to promote music, sex, drugs, love, and peace. According to the Gallup article, the young people who assembled at the festival “epitomized the countercultural movements and changes occurring in U.S. society at the time.”
The article also claims “the “open” display of activities at Woodstock was a direct challenge to the relatively conservative views of the time.” Woodstock was a clear signal that change was coming.
The article discusses ten major changes, I’ll mention four here which I believe are of particular interest to the Christian worldview.
1. Religious Attachment Has Waned
It’ll likely come as no surprise, but religious attachment has declined since the days of Woodstock. A decade before the festival, 75% of people described religion as “very important” to them. In 2019, only 49% made such a claim. Additionally, during that same span of time, people who attended a religious service weekly fell from 46% to 35%.
2. Majority Now Think First-Trimester Abortions Should Be Legal
In 1969, a few years before the historic Roe v. Wade decision, 40% of Americans favored making it legal for women to have an abortion at any point during the first trimester. In 2018, 60% were in favor. The assault on human life through abortion continues to rise.
3. Americans Now Prefer Smaller Family Size
By and large, family is no longer valued and children are no longer considered a blessing, but rather, a curse. It has become common to hear people claim children are an obstacle that keep them from attaining their goals and dreams. One recent article cites an increase in vasectomies by childless men in Australia. The reason many are signing up for the surgery is because “children would get in the way of their lives, and their plans for crafting the life they want.”
4. Premarital Sex No Longer Taboo
In 2019, 70% of Americans believed nothing was wrong with having sex before marriage. Gallup didn’t start polling on the issue until 1973, likely because the expectation of not having sex until married was entrenched in U.S. social norms prior to that time. The article says, even in 1973, “less than half of Americans (43%) supported premarital sex.” Premarital sex is anything but taboo in today’s rapidly changing world.
The Times They Are Still A-Changin’
A few years before Woodstock, Bob Dylan prophetically sung about the changing times. His words are no less true today.
As Christians, what are we to do? As the culture around us changes and heads in a direction opposed to the clear teachings of Scripture, how should we respond? I believe Psalm 102 provides the answer.
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The officers in Christ’s Church are alone given the right to steward the mysteries of God. Children, unordained men or women, are not to be serving the Lord’s people the elements of the Table. The Scriptures are clear that order is to be observed in the worship of God’s House.

Last week we looked at Baptism and one of the things we noted about it is that it is to be understood as a public initiation of sorts into the Kingdom of God. As 1 Cor. 7 shows us the infant (or adult for that matter) is covenantally holy internally by the work of the Holy Spirit before the actual applying of the water onto the head of  the recipient. However, there is still a need for the Church to testify to this existing reality. There are benefits both to the world and to the people of God to see and be reminded of the Lord’s promises to His children. The same could be said about the next sacrament we are going to look at: The Lord’s Supper. However, unlike Baptism, this Holy gift is for professed believers alone. It is not, despite what John Wesley taught, an ordinance open to everyone regardless of ecclesiastical status. Only those approved by the Church through the oversight of the Elders may partake.
This is true primarily because the bread and the cup is an exercise of grace and praise, in which those who have been found in the fruit of the Spirit are gathered together to be nourished at the breast of peace. It confirms our present faith in Jesus Christ and our resting in His bloody sacrifice for sin. Unbelievers cannot do that and it is folly (or worse) to tell them they can. In fact the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 11 explicitly warns against it for a physical as well as a spiritual penalty comes towards those who eat and drink unworthily.
That which the ancients declaimed as cannibalism we profess as a blessed feasting on the Savior of souls. We do what we do in the congregation of the faithful so that we might not only grow in strength by our spiritual union with the Lord in the act, but so that all may know that we as a people have no other hope in this life but the assurance offered in Christ Jesus our High Priest, slain for our benefit.
It’s such a beautiful and wonderful work which we take seriously for what it represents and what it does for us by the Triune God.
Here are the Catechism questions for this week:
Q. 96. What is the Lord’s supper?
A. The Lord’s supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giv­ing and receiving bread and wine according to Christ’s ap­pointment, his death is shewed forth; and the worthy re­ceivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his bene­fits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.
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