Evangelical men & Maureen Dowd

(image placeholder)Posted: 8/20/04
Church-going evangelical men least likely to abuse families, research says
By Jonah D. King
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)--The more they attend church, the less likely evangelical husbands and fathers will physically abuse their spouses and children, says author and University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox.
In a new book, "Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands," Wilcox examines the family behaviors of evangelical men with different religious practices as shown in three large-scale surveys taken in the early 1990s.
Among those behaviors is the frequency of physical abuse.
"What we find is the lowest rate of reported domestic violence in the early 1990s is among active evangelical husbands," Wilcox said. By "active," he means husbands who attend church regularly.
Wilcox cites data from the National Survey of Families and Households that indicate 2.8 percent of active evangelical Protestant husbands commit domestic violence, compared to 7.2 percent of nominal evangelical husbands--those who attend church once or twice a year or not at all.
The survey also shows active evangelicals spend more time on parenting and working to fulfill the emotional needs of their wives and children than do nominal evangelicals.

Get the whole enchilada HERE

Speaking of Maureen Dowd,  NY Times columnist, she’s been writing semi-regularly about her continued status as a dissatisfied single woman for some time. She’s recently published a whole book chronicling her plight.  She has dated, and apparently lost, some high profile guys including Michael Douglas who in a moment of insanity chose to marry Catherine Zeta Jones, who stars in Zorro movies but does not write NY Times columns.  (I’m joking about the insanity.  Let’s just say that Catherine, at least in her movies and ads, appears to be “muy bonita.”)

On the one hand, I do feel for “MoDo.”  It would appear her upset over her single and childless status is real.  On the other hand, if she wants a husband she’s probably searching in all the wrong places.

MoDo needs to hang out with the Evangelicals;  the men make excellent husbands.  HOWEVER, there is going to be a vast political chasm between Evangelical men and MoDo.  Furthermore, Evangelical men who take their reading of Scripture seriously should never consider being “unequally yoked:” i.e. married to someone who was is not also a devout believer – which I don’t think MoDo is.

Anywho – it nice that some researchers have actually recognized that devout Evangelical men are better marriage material than a lot of people think.