Brad Alles

This month’s blogs continue to focus on a biblical understanding of God’s design of societal institutions like the family, church and state.

The same God who designed the whole creation designed societal institutions as well. Therefore, problems arise in society when we live in opposition to God’s design. Take the institution of marriage as just one example.

The US Census Bureau data shows that there has been a decline in marriage rates from 1960-2010. In the past fifty years, the marriage rate of whites has dropped from 68%-54%, and the marriage rates for blacks has dropped from 60%-33%. With the drop in marriage comes an increase in single parenting, and being a single mother is the biggest poverty indicator in the United States.

According to the US Census Bureau, the poverty rate goes up dramatically when you compare married and single parents of all groups. For example the poverty rate among married whites is 3%, but it rises to 22% for single parent whites. The same growth is seen among blacks; the poverty rate among married blacks is 12%, but it rises to 38% for single parent blacks.

With poverty come other social problems—drugs, violence, gangs, and poor education to name just a few. Even though not every poor family will experience all of these problems, the chances increase greatly when we abandon God’s design and do not get married when we have children. The best plan is God’s plan and we’ll focus on recent research that confirms this in the next blog entry.