Conservative Christians have known it all along: Neighborhoods with a greater percentage of traditional two-parent households have less crime. That’s likely why the traditional family has been under direct assault by what can only be called satanic forces for many decades. As goes the traditional nuclear family, so goes Western civilization.
The proof is plain as day. A report Tuesday by the Institute for Family Studies concluded that neighborhoods with strong families are safer. Safer neighborhoods mean safer cities and towns. Safer cities and towns mean safer counties and states. A safer country leads to prosperity and stability for all.
Why, then, would progressives promote same-sex marriage and LGBT ideology, abortion, the sexualization of youth, and career over family and children?
In religious terms, it must be a hatred of the God. In sociological terms, it is a hatred of Western civilization.
The IFS study will fuel the hatred that is the essence of the progressive left.
Theories about the cause of crime generally focus on “social structural factors,” according to a Washington Examiner article on the IFS study. These factors include poverty, the presence of law enforcement and unemployment.
The IFS study determined that “core social institutions” such as churches, schools and — most importantly — the family significantly impact crime rates in communities.
The institute analyzed data from more than 600 cities focusing on crime, violent crime and homicide. It found that “family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictors of … urban violence across cities in the United States.”
According to the IFS, in cities with higher levels of single-parent households, “the national violent crime rates are 118% higher, and homicide rates are 255% higher in cities with prominent levels of single-parent households.”
It said the conclusion holds even when “factors such as race, education, and poverty” are taken into consideration.
In Chicago, the study found, “neighborhoods with higher levels of single parents had 226% higher violent crime rates and 436% higher homicide rates than neighborhoods with more intact families. Overall, crime in single-parent neighborhoods was 137% higher.”
The IFS study also found that in cities with “households above the median share of single-parent families, overall crime is 48% higher than in cities with more two-parent households.”
You don’t have to be a sociologist or a statistician to see the positive impact traditional families have on society. It only takes common sense. The benefits of a traditional two-parent household can not be overstated.
University of Virginia sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox, co-author of the IFS study, concluded, “This new research indicates that our city streets are safer when families are more stable. Given this, policymakers should be aiming to strengthen families by taking steps — like teaching the ‘success sequence’ and eliminating marriage penalties in our means-tested programs — that shore up the cultural and economic foundations of family life.”
Churches and schools are under attack by forces that seek to demonize traditional values by conflating them with bigotry and oppression. Progressive teachers and church leaders promote LGBT ideologies that, left unchecked, would destroy the traditional family — the foundation of Western civilization.
Mark 10:6-9 is clear, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Contained within that short verse is the nucleus of Western civilization, which germinated in Judaism and blossomed in Christian Europe. The progressive left seeks to destroy the vine of Western civilization by destroying its root, the family.
IFS Families by The Western Journal
While the IFS study made clear that single-parent households are “not the only predictor because poverty and race also affect crime levels,” the resounding fact is that the traditional family is a key factor in lower crime rates.
A lot of it has to do with having a father in the house. The study indicated that family structure relates to crime in that criminal behavior “is likely a byproduct of some mix of the heightened risk of family instability in the socialization of young children and the role that father absence plays in providing less guidance and oversight for adolescent and young adult males.”
Boys, especially, need their fathers. Without a dad, a boy is much more likely to wander and get lost. According to the study, fathers are “essential role models for their children, particularly their sons.” Fathers model “male responsibility and achievement, how to be suitably assertive and independent, and how to relate acceptably to the opposite sex.”
Put all of this together and a good father instills self-control, compassion and empathy in his son, “all of which deter criminal behavior.” No surprise here.
Christian wisdom and common sense go hand in hand. Get rid of one, and the other follows. When that happens, all that will be left is darkness and “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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