OPINION
As Holy Week begins in 2026, the condition of the American family remains deeply sobering. Decades of radical individualism, no-fault divorce laws shattering lifelong covenants, welfare policies disincentivizing marriage, feminist ideology branding biblical masculinity as toxic, and Big Tech algorithms replacing human connection with screens, pornography, and isolation have severely weakened the family unit.
A structure once serving as the bedrock of American society.
The latest U.S. Census Bureau data released in December 2025 shows that married-couple households now constitute only 47% of all U.S. households — a sharp decline from 66% 50 years earlier.
Single-person households have risen to 29%.
One in four American children, approximately 19 million, lives in a single-parent home, most often without a father.
Research from the Institute for Family Studies highlights the powerful "two-parent advantage": children raised in stable married households face poverty rates around 9% percent compared to 32% in single-parent homes.
They also achieve significantly higher educational outcomes and far lower rates of involvement in the criminal justice system.
Chronic loneliness now affects more than half of American adults.
Yet amid this decline, a promising countertrend has emerged among the rising generation, particularly young men.
Fresh 2025 data from the Barna Group reveals that Gen Z is now the most church-attending generation in the United States.
For the first time in decades, men now outpace women in weekly church attendance — 43 % versus 36 %.
Gen Z men are showing up at even higher rates than their female peers.
In the United Kingdom, monthly church attendance among men aged 18-24 has quadrupled since 2018.
Orthodox parishes have seen a 78% surge in converts since before the pandemic, with young men leading the way and now comprising more than 60% of many congregations.
These young men tire of feel-good therapy sessions, watered-down Christianity, and egalitarian compromises diluting male primacy.
They're embracing historic orthodoxy because it offers structure, discipline, purpose, and a clear vision of godly manhood: to be provider, protector, and sacrificial leader of the household.
Thus, they recognize that fatherhood is the gateway to true manhood, and they are hungry for the church to disciple them in responsibility, fidelity, and covenant-keeping.
Pew Research Center data shows that 74% of high school senior boys now say they are likely to marry someday — higher than their female peers for the first time in recent memory.
Across Gen Z, roughly three-quarters express hope of marrying and building a family, seeing covenant commitment as a source of stability in an unstable world.
Scripture has always placed the family at the center of God's design.
The early church itself functioned as an extended household of faith.
The empty tomb declares that sin's divisions, cultural fragmentation, and personal isolation don't have the final word.
The same power that raised Christ from the dead is able to heal marriages, strengthen fathers, rebuild homes, and restore nations.
This resurrection power renews the covenantal order God established from the beginning, equipping men to lead their households biblically.
America's Founders understood this.
John Adams declared that "the foundations of national morality must be laid in private families." Alexis de Tocqueville observed that strong families produced the habits of virtue required for a free society.
When the nuclear family thrives, every sphere of society is strengthened: churches filled with faithful families, civil society where virtue is modeled, economies built on responsible citizens, and government that serves self-governing people rather than dependents.
The family is not merely one interest group among many.
It's the foundational institution upon which church, culture, economy, and constitutional liberty all rest.
This awakening among young men offers genuine hope for renewal.
Churches must shoulder this moment by mentoring and discipling these young men in biblical manhood.
Pastors and older men should follow the Titus 2 model, training the next generation in self-control, sacrificial leadership, and covenant fidelity.
Policymakers can support this awakening through tax reforms that eliminate marriage penalties and reward child-rearing, strong school choice policies upholding parental authority, and laws protecting biblical marriage.
The family crisis in America is real, well-documented, and costly.
But the data on young men shows that a spiritual and cultural renewal is already underway.
This Easter, we are reminded that the power that raised Christ from the dead is greater than the forces that have fractured our homes. The empty tomb offers hope that marriages can be healed, fathers restored, and families rebuilt.
A rising generation is showing the way forward: the strength of our republic begins in the home. The question for the church and our nation is whether we will have the courage to join them.
Troy Miller, is president and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters.
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