How does fatherlessness in America affect their spiritual receptivity?

Podcast:

Fatherlessness and Receptivity to Spirituality in American Society

Question: How does fatherlessness in American society affect receptivity to spirituality?

Answer: It’s a complex issue. To understand its spiritual ramifications, we first need to grasp the magnitude of fatherlessness and its far-reaching social consequences.

Currently, one in four children in America grow up in fatherless families. This figure is significantly higher among Black families, where it reaches approximately 65%.

Why has this phenomenon become so widespread? While a deep historical dive isn’t necessary here, several factors have contributed. Government welfare policies, in some interpretations, inadvertently reduced the incentive for marriage. Historically, societal pressure, a man’s sense of honor, and especially the young woman’s father, would often ensure a man took responsibility and married if he fathered a child. However, the widespread legalization of abortion, increased government support for single mothers, and a prevailing culture of sexual accessibility (often termed “sexual freedom”) have collectively decreased the motivation for marriage among men. Consequently, when women have children, despite birth control or other factors, there are often few fathers present to provide support.

The result is significant. Human beings are inherently designed to benefit from both maternal and paternal influences for proper development. When a paternal authority or guiding figure is absent, children often seek destructive surrogates. For example, children from fatherless homes are significantly more likely to join gangs and violent groups.

Furthermore, there’s a strong correlation between fatherlessness and atheism. A social scientist, whose work is often cited as “The Psychology of Atheism: The Fury of the Fatherless,” highlights how many prominent atheists came from disturbed or disruptive families with absentee parents. Similarly, prominent leaders of extremist groups, whether on the far-left (like extreme factions of Antifa or BLM) or the far-right (such as white nationalists or white supremacists), frequently emerge from dysfunctional family backgrounds. The digital communities they form online, or the “chosen families” they adopt, provide a sense of belonging and community. This belonging can then be channeled towards causes that seem noble or valuable to them. The alt-right, for instance, might believe they are “saving the country,” while the alt-left might feel they are “saving minorities from discrimination.” (It’s worth noting that the alt-right also perceives discrimination against white individuals in the name of social justice.) In either case, the underlying “fury” is often directed at existing authority figures, through which they believe they are joining a noble cause to create a better world. Generally, individuals from such backgrounds often find traditional authority figures unbearable.

The conventional Western narrative often attributes secularization to scientific advancement, suggesting that as humanity became more scientifically enlightened, belief in religion and God was revealed as pre-scientific or unscientific. However, if this were universally true, the correlation between scientific advancement and atheism would be consistently linear. This is not the case. A significant number of scientifically educated people, and even a small but notable contingent of prominent scientists, believe in a higher power, some even a personal one. Their scientific pursuits have not led them to atheism.

Instead, the decline in religious faith and spiritual orientation is often linked to the disruption of societal systems that traditionally transmitted religious and spiritual culture. The primary among these structures is the family. In single-parent families (most commonly single-mother households), the sheer overwhelming amount of work involved for the mother, who might be juggling one or two jobs, leaves little time for activities like taking children to church or temple. While many single mothers perform this incredibly difficult work admirably, the overall disruption of the traditional family model has consequences. Children might then gravitate towards engagements where religious and uplifting influences are often absent. This disruption of the family unit directly impacts the intergenerational transmission of religious faith and spiritual impressions.

While this phenomenon has not been as pronounced in India, where the family unit remains significantly more stable, it is a major factor in the West’s increasingly dysfunctional family structures. In the West, a consequence is that many people have turned away from institutionalized religion, though not necessarily from spirituality entirely. There’s a growing demographic of people who identify as “spiritual but not religious.” These individuals often seek a sense of meaning and purpose, an experience of something higher, and a sense of connectedness and commitment, but generally without traditional institutionalized structures or rigid authority. Anything that reminds them of an absent father figure can spark resentment. The absence of a father (with a small ‘f’) often leads to an aversion to God as a Father (with a big ‘F’), and this aversion can extend to authority figures in general, especially those that are conventional, traditional, and emerge from societal structures perceived as having failed them.

To some extent, Indian or Eastern spirituality appeals to such individuals, especially when it is presented without excessive institutionalized forms that resemble the churches they have abandoned. When spirituality is presented prescriptively (“you should do this”), it can be a turn-off. However, when it’s presented descriptively (“this is what I did, this is why I do it, and this is what I experienced”), it conveys authenticity.

Overall, while there is some opportunity for spiritual engagement, there is also an erosion of traditional spiritual orientation and the means through which it was transmitted in the Western world (primarily the church and its associated structures). The church was not just a place of worship but often a hub for healthy socialization. Accelerating factors, such as church child abuse scandals, have further eroded trust in institutionalized structures. So, it’s not necessarily an aversion to spirituality itself, but a strong aversion to spirituality presented with institutionalization and rigid authority structures, especially those that appear paternalistic or patriarchal.