Parenting

Parental warmth is the most significant factor in the successful transmission of religious beliefs to children, according to Dr. Vern L. Bengston, author of Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down Across Generations. Moreover, the relationship a father has with his children has more influence on their religiosity than does the mother’s relationship.[i]

When Vern Bengston began teaching at the University of Southern California in 1969, he initiated a study of 350 families to investigate why religion is successfully passed from one generation to the next in some families and why it is not in others. He conducted interviews with families of various faiths—Jews, Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, and Mormons—regularly until 2008, and in some instances, interviewed four generations. His respondents were born between 1878 and 1989.

As a young professor, Bengston initiated this study as an academic endeavor to be published in scholarly journals. By the time he wrote the book, however, he felt the value of his discoveries would be helpful to parents, religious leaders, and those working with families.

From the findings of his 35 years of research, his 2013 book, written in collaboration with Morella M. Putney and Susan Harris, focused on the questions of to what degree religiosity has been transmitted from one generation to the next and what factors contribute to whether parents successfully pass on their faith.

Bengston expected to find that “the religious influence of parents on their children has weakened over the past four decades . . . given the many social and historical changes that occurred over this period. For example, it was a surprise that so many of the young adults had a religious affiliation in the same faith tradition as their parents. These results suggest that family influences on the religiosity of the younger generation have not weakened to the degree that has been widely reported.”

Religiosity, as defined, includes affiliation; participation; intensity; biblical beliefs; and civic religiosity (values). While many recent surveys conclude that religion has taken a steep nose dive among Americans, especially among young adults, Bengston says, “Most of the evidence that had led to this interpretation is from surveys consisting of one-time interviews with one individual; such surveys often ask about only one or two aspects of religiosity, usually religious affiliation . . . and participation. However, religious affiliation today appears less central to core aspects of religiosity than, say, an individual’s feeling of the importance of religion or spirituality to his or her personal life. . . . For a surprisingly large number of families in our study, similarity between parents and children in their religious tradition across generations remains relatively high…”

But Bengtson’s definition of religiosity is broad, confirming that many young people today identify themselves as “nones,” those who are “spiritual but not religious.” In Bengston’s words: “Religious affiliation today appears less central to core aspects of religiosity than, say, an individual’s feeling of the importance of religion or spirituality to his or her personal life.”

The pivotal factor in successful transmission of religious values and practice is warm, affirming parents. Parents who have a close relationship with their children will likely have children who model their religiosity: “The quality of the parent-child relationship directly affects how much influence mothers and fathers have on their children’s religious orientations in adulthood and on religious continuity or discontinuity across generations. The young adults in our study who felt particularly close to one or both parents were most likely to have inherited that parent’s religious orientation.”

Parents who were “unconditionally supportive, who provided consistent role modeling of religious practices, and who did not force their beliefs or practices on their children” in this study were most successful in transmitting their religiosity. Frequent family interaction and placing value on our family were characteristics that helped in religious transmission as did attending church regularly, participating in church activities, and encouraging faith development at home through prayers, scripture reading and religious stories. Of immense significance to children is the consistency between parental belief and practice. In contrast, children who perceive their parents as cold, emotionally distant, authoritarian, distracted, or hypocritical are much less likely to follow religious traditions.

Surprisingly, Bengston found that fathers have much more influence than mothers on a child’s religious proclivities: “For religious transmission, having a close bond with one’s father matters even more than a close relationship with the mother. . . . Emotional closeness with mothers remains important for religious inheritance but not to the same degree as it is for fathers.” He claims that no amount of religious fervor compensates for “a distant dad.”

Bengston learned that grandparents (and great-grandparents) play an important role in their posterity’s religious lives. With increased life expectancy and through the use of technologies to communicate, grandparents generally have more time to spend with their grandchildren. They often were a stabilizing influence to reinforce religious values or a substitution for parents not religiously inclined.

Of interest to Meridian readers is Bengston’s conclusion that high-boundary religious groups—Mormons, Evangelicals, and Jews—which have well-defined beliefs and practices that make them distinctive have high transmission rates from generation to generation. Not only do the strictness of religious requirements contribute to successful transmission, so do the “strong and intentional bonds between family and church or synagogue, in which religious activities are built around family activities with high family involvement in religious education.”

In particular, he says: “We see a very high rate of parent-child similarity in religious affiliation among Mormons in our sample compared to the other religious traditions. . . . The most successful programs fostering intergenerational connections and the nurturing of families have been instituted by Mormons, of which a prime example is their Family Home Evening on Monday nights. The LDS parents and bishops we spoke with attributed the success of their faith in religious transmission to activities such as this that integrate family and faith and emphasize family growth and development.”