Why 'family' is always the starting point and the end

One thing we have always wished the Mormon Church (or someone) would publicize more is the remarkable fact that as an American Mormon, the more education you have, the more likely you are to be active in the church. (The reason it is remarkable is that it is opposite of the correlation in most churches, where the more educated you are, the less likely you are to attend church.)

The correlations seem to suggest that LDS doctrines may be more logical and intellectually compatible than the doctrines of other Christian churches.

Whether people agree with that or not, the publication of this kind of polling data always leads to interesting discussions and gets us to ask thought-provoking cause-and-effect questions like: Are Mormons more active in their Church because they are educated, or are they more educated because they are active in their church?

The same cause-and-effect question comes into play on a broader scale with the recently released marriage and family studies from the Pew Research Center and the National Marriage Project from the University of Virginia. Both studies show a very important and very recent and very pronounced shift from the historical norm of less-educated Americans being more church- and family-oriented than their more educated counterparts. The Pew study shows 64 percent of college graduates are currently married, while only 48 percent of high school grads (who have not graduated from college) are married.

Among the 58 percent of Americans who have high school degrees but no college degrees (a group referred to by the studies as "middle Americans") divorce and co-habitation are up, as are premarital sex and births to teenage moms — while marriage, church attendance and employment are down. Among more educated Americans, the trends are reversed.

Other related studies show that those who never marry, or those who divorce and don't remarry, do significantly less well financially (have a 75 percent wealth reduction) compared to married individuals.

So which are causes and which are effects?

We are dealing with four elements here: 1. Education. 2. Faith and religion. 3. Economics and wealth. 4. Marriage and family.

There is a tendency to view the world in economic models — so you might say, "A bad economy and high employment cause less education, and both lead to less marriage and family know-how and a departure from faith."

But wouldn't it be equally logical to say, "Those with less education have a harder time getting good jobs and supporting families or living a traditional or religious life."