Search Publications
Search through our comprehensive archive of publications on marriage, family, and civil society
Found 44 results
Fathers Matter, Especially After Divorce
Not only do fathers matter, but fathers could play the most definitive role in shaping the future faith of their children, especially divorced fathers. When we support the faith lives of the fathers in our religious communities, especially those who are divorced, the fruits of that investment are bo...
Faith and Children of Divorce – with Chuck Stokes
Amy Ziettlow discusses faith and children of divorce with Charles E. Stokes, Professor at Samford University and co-author of "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith? Challenging Churches to Confront Family Change."
Does getting a divorce change your kids' view on religion?
Elizabeth Marquardt discusses the impact divorcing parents have on their children's religious views.
The Science of Divorce
But, every once in a while something or somebody comes along in the church and points to actual research that most clearly indicates the ongoing challenge to the direction of American culture and marriage/divorce/cohabitation values. But there is a lot going on in the behavior sciences research wor...
How Divorce Affects Faith
A new paper entitled "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?" from the Center for Marriage and Families looks at the spiritual life of children of divorce as adults. It found that those whose parents split are less likely to feel religious or act religiously as adults than those whose parents staye...
Divorce breeds spiritual disconnect
A recent study concludes children whose parents divorce when they are young are less likely to be religious later in life. According to the study, two-thirds of young adults who grew up in a home with married parents are more religious than young adults who grew up in families with divorced parents....
Churches Should Focus on Children of 'Good Divorce,' Study Suggests
The report, titled "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?", is comprised of papers from family and religious studies experts who together declare "that today's grown children of divorce form a 'broken leading edge' of the trend of more Americans considering themselves 'spiritual but not religious'...
Divorce's Toll
The Marquardt/Zietlow report begins with a question: "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith? Challenging the Churches to Confront the Impact of Family Change." The language of the report is not whiny or scolding, but, armed with statistics and ethnographic scripts and personal testimonies the docum...
Facets of Faith for Jan. 19, 2013
Does divorce affect the religion of children, and if so, how much? The Institute for American Values explores the issue in "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?" a report released Wednesday... In the report's summary, the authors say, "We have learned that when children of divorce reach adulthood...
Study: Children of Divorce Less Likely to Practice Religion
On Wednesday the Institute for American Values published the findings of a group of scholars in a report titled "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?: Challenging the Churches to Confront the Impact of Family Change." Every year about a million children in the United States experience the divorce...
The Spiritual Impacts of Divorce on Children: Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?
Yesterday, the Institute for American Values released a new report titled "Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?" The report, written by Elizabeth Marquardt, Amy Ziettlow, and Charles E. Stokes, represents a call to action for churches in regards to ministering to children of divorce... It is an e...
Faith and Family (After Divorce)
A new report from the Institute for American Values explores the complicated ways in which a child's family structure, particularly the experience of parents' divorce, can affect his or her religious practices as an adult. Coauthors Elizabeth Marquardt, Amy Ziettlow, and Charles E. Stokes emphasize ...
Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith? Challenging the Churches to Confront the Impact of Family Change
Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith? represents a major effort to examine and understand the religious and spiritual lives of young adults who experienced parental divorce. In addition to highlighting the most recent scholarly work on the subject, this report offers extended reflections from a ma...
'Families Shape Faith': How divorce affects young adults' religiosity
Marquardt, who directs the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values and is the principal investigator for the Families Shape Faith project, said the report is a call to churches to recognize and respond to the impact divorce has had and will have on religion. More than 2...
Researchers: Even amicable divorces take toll on children and their religious attendance
Researchers, who plan to unveil their findings Wednesday at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, say they hope the unprecedented project will awaken pastors to a common oversight contributing to the decline in mainline Christian denominations and religious affiliation in general... Marquardt, who a...
American Girl of Divorce
My first thought was that there must be some strong Gen X children of divorce in research and development at American Girl. They were Julie’s age in 1974 when they saw either their parent’s marriage or their friend’s parent’s marriages dissolve, and this doll marks that seminal ...
Nasty Divorces' Silver Lining?
The finding was included in a working paper released last month by the late Norval Glenn, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values, which sought to assess just how "go...
The Baggage Adult Children of Divorce Carry
[Elizabeth] Marquardt, based at the Institute for American Values in New York City, is largely responsible for breaking the silence on divorce. Marquardt brought to light its most basic problem: the sense of "homelessness" that divorce generates in the child. At the conference Marguardt and fellow r...
