Churches must help 'recapture' worldview driving marriage, fertility crisis in US, author says

Churches, more than the government, can remedy America’s marriage and fertility crisis by restoring a vision of marriage and family as the richest source of human meaning, starting with the people in the pews, one Christian leader argues.

“Ultimately, we have to restore a Christian anthropology, a Christian worldview of man and woman in the image of God, and understand that God has made us for purpose. He's made us to love. He's made us for family,” Communio founder J.P. De Gance told The Christian Post.

De Gance, whose ministry equips churches to strengthen marriages and promote healthy relationships through church-focused resources, believes the marriage, family and fertility crises are driven by a “complex set of factors," but the underlying issue is fundamentally one of worldview.

“If we're going to recapture the imagination and re-enchant the world around us, we first have to focus on recapturing the worldview of those who are active as Sunday church-going Christians,” he said.

Co-author of the book Endgame: The Church's Strategic Move to Save Faith and Family in America, his comments come as Communio promotes its “Family and Civilization” campaign to help pastors, ministry teams and church leaders consider how their congregations can become more intentional about forming people for healthy relationships. 

According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. total fertility rate fell to a provisional record low of 1.57 children per woman in 2025.

De Gance warned about the practical concerns tied to America’s declining fertility rate, explaining that it could strain the country's social safety net and infrastructure while creating what he described as a large population of “kinless adults.”

The crisis cannot be solved by discussing its economic consequences alone, he stressed. 

“Nobody has kids because of the GDP,” he said. “Nobody's going to go on to have kids because of a crumbling infrastructure.”

He said people find their deepest sense of meaning and purpose in their relationships with those they love, particularly through the sacrificial love found in marriage and family life.

De Gance also pointed to what he described as a reversal in the way parents think about their children's futures. He cited a 2023 Pew Research Center study finding that nine out of 10 parents consider financial independence important for their children. By contrast, nearly half of the parents surveyed said it is not very important, or not important at all, that their children marry or have children of their own.

“We've completely inverted the goods,” De Gance said.

He believes that while work is good, people should not live for work. Rather, work can serve as a way to provide for and share life with a spouse and children. That inversion, De Gance said, can lead young adults to delay marriage while they pursue financial stability and career goals.

The Communio founder also cited research indicating that unmarried adults in their 30s are among the loneliest groups in America, warning that as marriage is delayed, the share of people who never marry increases.

According to De Gance, ideas associated with “free love” had circulated for generations, including through some 19th-century publications and movements. But the widespread availability of the birth control pill in the 1960s brought a technological change that helped separate sex from marriage, marriage from parenting and parenting from partnering.

He said the cultural changes that followed also contributed to the rise of consumerism and an emphasis on career and material fulfillment as measures of a successful life.

The Christian leader believes pastors can address the messages young people receive from their families and society, including the idea that they should wait until they have established careers and financial stability before seriously considering marriage.

De Gance maintained that the Church must first recapture a Christian worldview among believers themselves. He argued that secular ideas about marriage, family, consumerism and career success have influenced people sitting in church pews as well.

Communio's “Family and Civilization” resources seek to help churches put that vision into practice by giving pastors and ministry leaders practical tools for addressing relationships and marriage within their congregations.

De Gance said the value of marriage and family ultimately cannot be measured by economic productivity or material success. Instead, he pointed to what people are likely to remember at the end of their lives.

“At the end of our lives, when you or I are sitting on our deathbed and we look back at our life, we're not going to look back and think about the things that we've accumulated and the wealth and income that we've generated and our contribution to the GDP,” he said. “We're going to think about our children, our grandchildren, our closest loved ones.”