LONELY GENERATION: US Surgeon General Declares Loneliness a Health Crisis. JP Gance Communio's Scientific Study On Biggest Causes & Surprising Victims, Young Americans

Communio, a national nonprofit organization that works with churches to strengthen families and develop stronger faith lives, has released its new Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships showing that a forty-year decline in marriage and fatherhood has fueled the public health crisis in loneliness and driven the national decline in Christian faith.

The conclusions are drawn from a nationwide survey of 19,000 Sunday church attendees conducted during worship in 112 evangelical, Protestant, and Catholic congregations.

In the wake of the US Surgeon General’s May 2 advisory on loneliness, this study found just 22 percent of church goers were considered lonely. Single church goers were more than three times more likely to be considered lonely than the married. Men and women who had never married in their 30s were more likely to be lonely than the loneliest group of widows.

The collapse of resident fatherhood through the decline in marriage is fueling the direct decline in faith. The study found 80 percent of all Sunday church attendees – single or married, young or old -- in the United States grew up in a continuously married home with both biological parents at a time where this is increasingly rare. This trend held across age groups.

Roughly 1 in 5 married churchgoers struggle (have a satisfaction gap) in their marriage. Women are 62 percent more likely to struggling than men. Cohabiting women were 76 percent more likely to struggle than married women and twice as likely to struggle than cohabiting men.

“To effectively evangelize today, we must address the declining number of marriages, poor marital health and improve the effectiveness of fathers in those marriages,” said J.P. DeGance, President of Communio. “By addressing these three issues, we can end the loneliness epidemic as well as spark a sustained revival in Christian faith and active church attendance. The link between marriage and faith is clear, yet 85 percent of all churches in the United States report spending zero dollars annually on marriage and relationship ministry.”

Communio is a nonprofit that equips to evangelize through the renewal of healthy relationships, marriages, and families.