In Which U.S. Cities Do The Majority of Single Christians – Specifically Those Who Regularly Attend Church – Live? by B. Showalter
There have been so many articles released this past week pertaining to the topics I normally blog about here, I can barely keep up. Here’s another one.
The second article below is from The Christian Post (as I said below the Tweet of this that was put out by The Christian Post: “Does it really matter since most churches do not have over 30s age singles groups and/or they insult singles for being single?”)
(Link): Single Practicing Christians Tend to Be in Big Cities – via Barna
Excerpts:
by B. Showalter, Feb 2019
Which U.S. cities do the majority of Christian singles call home?
The majority of Christian singles tend to dwell in large East Coast cities, according to Barna.
In a study (Link): released this week, researchers unpacked how much the dating and relationship landscape has changed in the U.S. Barna has consistently tracked for many years the relationship status of practicing Christians — defined as those who attend a religious service at least once a month, self-identify as Christian, and say their faith is important to them.
“The country’s largest city, New York, New York, tops the list at 32 percent, followed closely by Boston-Manchester, Massachusetts, (32 percent) and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, (30 percent). Las Vegas, Nevada, (28 percent) is the only non-East Coast city in the top five, followed by Washington, D.C. and Hagerstown, Maryland, (27 percent),” the data show.
Cities ranked No. 6–No. 10 on the list include Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area in California, followed by cities in the South.
…Marriage remains a priority for the more religious, conservative regions of the nation.
“The Midwest and the South usually have larger populations of practicing Christians and evangelicals who tend to marry sooner and more often than their less religious counterparts. The populations in these regions also tend to be much older than the coastal cities and urban centers, explaining the higher concentration of married couples,” the Barna report explains.
…The national average for cities with married practicing Christians is 52 percent.
Seventy-six percent of practicing Christians in who are married live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick, Washington, and Austin, Texas. Seventy-five percent are in Cedar Rapids-Waterloo, Iowa, Spokane, Washington, Paducah, Kentucky and Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
…The Barna report appears to dovetail with recent findings of the U.S. Census Bureau regarding young people and marriage. More millennials are delaying marriage and marrying at lower rates than previous generations; they are focusing on job security and personal wealth rather than getting hitched.
Some studies have shown that early (young) marriages are more likely to end in divorce – I have posts on my blog about that.
Related Posts:
(Link): Study: Got Married Sooner Than You Hoped? That’s Depressing
(Link): The Nauseating Push by Evangelicals for Early Marriage
(Link): Rush to early marriage feeds Utah’s higher-than-average divorce rate (article)
(Link): A Case Against Early Marriage by Ashley Moore (editorial)
(Link): A Response by Colon to Regnerus Re: Misguided Early Marriage Propaganda
Christian Pundit 