Albert Mohler: The Delay of Marriage and the Decline of Church Attendance

Thursday, March 19, 2009

W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia has written a must-read article in the "Houses of Worship" column of The Wall Street Journal. Wilcox, whose research and analysis is consistently top-notch and relevant, considers the impact of the expansion of the government sector in American society. As the "welfare state" expands, the church recedes as the source of needed charity and social services. Thus, as Wilcox notes, the expansion of the state is, in effect, a driving force behind the secularization of the society.

In "God Will Provide -- Unless the Government Gets There First," Wilcox offers reflections on the recent release of the American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS] which indicated that the number of secular Americans has increased from 2% in 1962 and 8% in 1990 to fully 15% in 2008.

His argument, put simply, is that the expansion of the government sector to offer cradle-to-grave social services contributes to the secularization of the society. the rest