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Church attendance linked to sex?
The truth is out: People go to church for the sex.
This is according to an Arizona State University study that analyzed questionnaires from 22,000 mainly Christian Americans. The study found that sex-related factors – marital status, number of children, preferred family size, views on adultery and contraception – showed the strongest links to churchgoing. Moral views on sex were more strongly linked to church attendance than moral views on other issues.
In the researchers’ view, “A central function of religious attendance in the contemporary United States is to support a high-fertility, monogamous mating strategy. “ If you’re going to have a lot of kids, you want a partner who will help you take care of them. The NewScientist.com quotes study author James Weeden: “You surround yourself with people who strongly believe that one of the worst things you can do is to abandon your spouse or sleep around.”
It seems dubious to completely reduce church-going to sexual factors (the study doesn’t seem to ask about little things like belief in God), but is it actually true that church attendance supports a “high-fertility, monogamous mating strategy”?
When it comes to a high-fertility mating strategy, a Gallup poll last year found that Americans who attend church weekly or almost weekly are actually divided on the ideal family size. Some 47% said two or fewer children is ideal, and 41% favored a family size of three or more. Among those who attend church less often, a solid majority favored a family size of zero to two.
When it comes to marriage and divorce, the Barna Group recently found that 84% of “born-again Christians” get married – a higher percentage than atheists, agnostics, and those who adhere to non-Christian faiths. Evangelicals (26%) were among the born-again Christians least likely to have been divorced, but born-again Christians as a whole were just as likely (32%) to have been divorced than non-born again Christians (33%).
But these statistics look at religious belief, not church attendance. According to sociologist Brad Wilcox in Christianity Today, “This idea that Christians are just as likely to divorce as secular folks is not correct if we factor church attendance into our thinking. Churchgoing evangelical Protestants, churchgoing Catholics, and churchgoing mainline Protestants are all significantly less likely to divorce.”
back to top30 Comments to “Church attendance linked to sex?”
so let me see, going to church weekly appears to increase acceptance of larger famiilies by perhaps 16% – 20%?
Seems like the case is reasonably strong to me.
Bible belt residents divorce more often, but typically marry younger, have higher rates of poverty, and lower education.
And you really want to present this material to refute the Arizona State University study? Have you thought through the image you are presenting?
If you look at the Pew survey and compare it to the material you have presented, one starts creating an interesting model of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity!
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How do you factor in the situation where a born-again Christian was born again sometime after their divorce? Seems to me, many come to Christ after they discover by experience the world’s view on marriage doesn’t work.
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To a degree we see this in the way in which evangelical churches classify never-married singles. These folks (unless they are over 40) are lumped into this amorphous category called the “College/Career” group.
I have a friend who is 35 and is a successful lawyer and has never married. At his PCA church, the session has placed him into a fellowship group that consists largely of 18- to 22-year-old college kids. What does he have in common with these kids? They’re all single, and are presumably not having sex.
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So musing on Kiyoshhi’s comments, I located the following:
http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/married+couple
So the marriage rate in the U.S. appears to be perhaps 43%. Further marriage is being delayed, but often preceeded by a period of cohabitation.
I do sense a serious contrast between what certain portions of ht econservative religious right consider as appropriate and what is now considered the norm in our society.
It does seem to reflect on the leadin to this topic and perhaps the relevancy of conservative fundamentalist Christianity to mainstream America.
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Musing –
Hmm.. I didn’t consider this article to refute the ASU study or try to present any kind of image. The study actually seems to make some sense (although I’m pretty sure sexual factors can’t completely explain religiosity). I was just asking the question, IF people think going to church supports a “high-fertility monogamous mating strategy,” are their perceptions correct? Do church attenders want more kids and do they have more stable marriages? The data seems mixed and as you said, it’s influenced by geography, income, extent of church involvement, etc.
Awstar – the Barna research said it didn’t look at whether they became a born again Christian before or after they got divorced. But previous research indicates that two out of ten people who become a born-again Christian do so after their first marriage.
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Alisa Harison post 4,
my apologies, when you inserted the “IF” I made what seemed a reasonalble assumptioon that you disagreed.
However, since we seem to be in violent agreement on this point, it does open the next two questions:
1) what model does this then present of conservative fundamentalist Christianity?
2) and how does it speak to relevance to modern day realities?
Personally it is my perception that conservative fundamentalist Christianity offers far more than a model of faith based on sexual preferences, but you would appear, when I overlay your material with the Pew survey materials, to be arguing otherwise. Is that your intent?
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The problem with these studies is they provide no new data yet serve as a platform for ridiculing religion.
No one would dispute that churchgoers tend to be family oriented. The Bible compels us. But how does a set of questions about family values establish that a central function of religious attendance in America is sexual?
A better conclusion would be that faith in our Creator leads us to live as He intended.
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xion post 7,
but as I look at the materials which we can reasonably say are, based on critical study, plausibly attributed to Jesus, precious little discusses sexual matters.
And yet sexual issues, as noted ion this study, seem to statistically have a high impact on why certain segments of the populatioon attend certain churches.
Interestingly, as posed the data does not appear to apply to all Christians, but rather to certain fudamentalist Christians, particularly when we remeber that 70+% of Ameircan are Christina according ot the Pew survey.
I suggest, however, an alternatvie view here: given the areas with poverty and low education levels, perhaps fundamentalist Christianity provides something an antidote to certain social challenges. And when combined with the 2 out of 10 born again Christians do so after their first marriage statement, we may perhaps gain a different perspective on the data.
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If I understand the results correctly, they are saying that sexual issues more strongly dictate churchgoing than any other issue including faith and worship.
But does sexual preference dictate faith or vice versa? The answer is obvious to anyone but these blind scholars.
People do choose particular churches where they can be comfortable with other like-minded people. You will tend to find big families in churches where that is preached. But that is not the primary reason they go to church at all.
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xion post 9,
your line:
“People do choose particular churches where they can be comfortable with other like-minded people.”
I suggest says it all.
But as posed, you also appear to have positied the choice of church as a social decision, and indeed, I suggest you have hit a key point here.
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Yes, Musing, it is sad, but true. For some people, church is indeed nothing more than a social club.
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As one of the “high fertility, monogamous mates” referred to in the study, I must say that my faith informs my lifestyle, and my choice in churches, not the other way around. I believe that children are a gift from God, and that we are selfish (generally–I’m addressing the greater trend rather than individual situations like medical problems, etc) to put our physical standard of living above a large family. We’ve only had 5 children, in large (ha) part because we came to this understanding when I was about 29 or 30. We appear to be done with bearing children, but we are considering adoption at some point. We had 5 kids in 8 years–difficult, sacrificial, but SO worth it! I wish we could have more!
The Muslim faith, BTW, is growing primarily by birth rates, rather than conversions. I read somewhere that Muslim women bear an average of about 6 children. We are losing ground based on our distain of large families as a society. Ideas do have consequences.
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Church going for the sex?
Well, if you’re going to be a Darwinist about it, pretty much everything we do is for the sex (oh, excuse me, “the passing on of the genes”). Even writing this post, hard to see as it is.
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Harris, are you saying that you blog primarily for sexual reasons? Not sure how that works …
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The study might have the cause and effect backwards. One doesn’t choose to go to church to support one’s high fertility. strong monogamy outlook. Rather, one gets one’s high fertility. strong monogamy outlook from church.
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KRM, I’m sure some get the high fertility, strong monogamy outlook from church, but I believe it’s a heart change from God as real as salvation. Not to say that everyone who is saved will of necessity believe the same way–it isn’t a “first order” issue, but it is supported from Genesis on, and is only unusual now because feminism has convinced so many women that “being a baby factory” is a waste of their minds and bodies. So much better to have a career.
I guess I’m wondering if you think couples are being brainwashed at church to have large families, or if you think that teaching Scripture leads to this conviction legitimately. I could read your response either way.
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Moral views on sex were more strongly linked to church attendance than moral views on other issues.
Which is not surprising considering how obsessed some Christians are with sex lives — their own and other people’s.
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How can one be a “non-born again Christian”?
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SteveG,
There’s two kinds of people; those who are obsessed with sex, and those that lie about it…
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Yeah, somebody’s obsessed.
Article on Drudge recently mentioned some visitors to Cape Cod being surprised to find a group of about 30 naked guys engaging in oral and anal sex in the dunes.
I’m sure they were practicing safe sex, though, given the widespread knowledge of the prevalence of AIDS and the syphilis rate being sky high (and becoming antibiotic resistant) in homosexual communities. I mean, they ARE enlightened, aren’t they? Unlike us poor, ignorant, backwards Christians.
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#18
“Christian” is a word. Usually a word represents a truth or a fact. When the church in Antioch was first referred to as “Christians” they were probably for the most part all born again — as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3 what born again means.
Today, the term Christian has been diluted to mean those who are members of a non-profit organization called a Christian church. — totally different from being born again.
Hence, this is how one can be a non-born again Christian. They are a member of a non-profit organization called a Christian church, without having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them.
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Interesting how the word “christian” (note the small “c”) has become meaningless in that case…
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Make It Man post 22,
so you are arguing that christian is meaningless?
It therefore seems, as you suggest, that perhaps we need to further qualify the term christian.
Based on the Pew Survey it appears that about 1/3 of Christians are born again in the evangelical sense.
This arguably has some interesting implications if, as it is seemed to be implied, only born again Christians are true Christians (see post 21):
1) the country was not founded by born again Chrhistians (for a set of technical reasons if nothing else) and the argument that the U.S. was founded as a Christian country would now be in serious question
2) the majority of Americans (roughly 75% according to the Pew survey) are not Christians and the U.S. is today very definitely a minority Christian nation
This would then arguably bring into the debate the legitimacy of the much of the social program of the Christian right.
P.S. since Roman Catholics are about 1/3 of American Christians according to the Pew Survey AND since it is my understanding that Roman Catholics do not view the concept of born again in the same was as evangelicals do, it might be useful to hold a discussion with the Roman Catholic community and get their opinions on the matter of who is a Christian!
Oh wait, I believe the vatican has already made a pronouncement on this!
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Musing,
I believe that the word “Christian” originally meant something. One of the things it meant was what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus; “You must be born again.”
If it has ceased to mean that, then yes in this context, it has lost some of it’s original meaning.
I didn’t really mean that it was totally meaningless. Obviously if I did think so, I wouldn’t have asked my original question.
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I’m not sure I’ve ever argued that the country was a Christian nation in the sense that all the founders were indeed “born again”. At most, I think I would argue that it was “Christian” only in the sense that most of the inhabitants world views were derived from a Judaeo/Christian point of view. There was at least a loosely Christian consensus. When they spoke of inalienable rights endowed by a Creator, that tells me that they were not a bunch of atheists and agnostics or pantheists.
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Exactly, Make It Man.
Funny, some of those (like Musing) who style themselves intellectuals and think they are well above we peons, can’t understand even the simplest of arguments.
They spend all their time laughing in superiority at the rest of us, when — in fact — they are way below the majority of us in their understanding.
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make it man/trs post 25/26,
so born again in modern parlance generally, I suggest refers to theological issues which I see most often discussed regarding Baptism.
If we are working on the more general form that born again means simply a faith in Jesus, then I suggest all Christians are by definition born again with arguably John 3:16 [NIV]:
16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
being most relevant.
So I do believe I have a quandry: either all Christians are born again in which case the distinction would appear moot, or it would appear we are arguing certain relatively modern theological aspects of Christianity typically revolving around Baptism.
So which version of born again are you pursueing: the original model apparently form John 3 or the more modern theological debate?
And of course if the former, then by deifnition all Christians are born again and your argument would, as I note, appear moot.
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Being part of a local community of believers is where the adopted children of God come to part of the “family of families”.
I have been married to same woman for 30 years. My uncle who recently went to glory was married to my Aunt for 66 and 1/2 years.
I have four children.
We have a family in our church who have 8 children and are adopting more.
Psalm 127:3-5 Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.
I really think the survey should have centered around family and why people attend a local church.
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Momof5 – I was saying that it was the people’s religious worldview that drove their views on monogamy asd large families (as well as everything else) rather than the other way around.
Getting thier views ‘from church’ was a short hand way of saying ‘their religious beliefs’. I did not mean to imply any sort of ‘brainwashing’.
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Thanks, KRM–from your other posts, that’s what I would have guessed–and I completely agree!
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