We know how to meet this need, and we should work hard to do so.
Writing in the Spring, 2019 issue of City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz argues that “Americans are suffering from a bad case of loneliness” (“Alone”). She explains that the breakdown of the family – nuclear and extended – has left a growing number of people without meaningful relationships, and has diminished the value of engaging in such relationships on the part of younger Americans.
She writes, “Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of ‘deaths of despair’ suggest a profound, collective discontent. It’s worth mapping out one major cause that is simultaneously so obvious and so uncomfortable that loneliness observers tend to mention it only in passing. I’m talking, of course, about family breakdown.” This has been happening since the middle of the 20th century, and the progress has been so slow as to be unnoticeable until now. “In 1950, 20 percent of marriages ended in divorce; today, it’s approximately 40 percent. Four in ten American children are now born to unmarried mothers, up from about 5 percent in 1960. In 1970, 84 percent of U.S. children spent their entire childhoods living with both bio-parents. Today, only half can expect to do the same.” She provides additional supportive evidence of the breakdown of the family from various sources.
This situation is accompanied by a growing sense of discontent on the part of many Americans, who struggle to find anything meaningful to live for. Some people merely shrug off this situation, but Christians cannot and must not. We live in the midst of an opportunity to show the love of Jesus to countless people who have never known any real love. “The challenge is to find ways to communicate that need [for meaningful roots] to coming generations before they make decisions that will further fragment their lives and communities. So far, that’s not happening.” Here is a clear challenge to believers all across the land.
