The chart is startling.
In 1990, nearly half of all 30-year-olds in America were both married and homeowners. Today, that number is under 15%. BlazeTV host Steve Deace reacted to this steep collapse by warning that absent spiritual revival, these numbers portend "the death of a culture."
He's right, of course. No civilization that eschews the familial ordering of society will endure. But while Deace wisely pointed to economic, cultural, and domestic causes, I think it's critical that Christians testify to something more: this isn't just an alarming economic challenge or a crippling cultural trend. At its heart, this is a spiritual crisis that the Bible has already diagnosed.
Contrary to what is now conventional wisdom, Christians know that marriage isn't a social construct, nor is it up for reinterpretation by mortal man. It is, in fact, the first institution God gave to humanity — designed to be fruitful and enduring, a living reflection of Christ's eternal love for His Church. That reality carries with it an unshakable truth: entering into such a covenant means recognizing that a home is never merely a piece of property, but the God-given setting for discipleship, hospitality, and generational faithfulness.
That's why when marriage and household stability collapse, it's not just an economic inconvenience, it's the unraveling of God's created order.
I don't doubt that inflated housing prices, student debt, and wage stagnation are real factors that discourage young Americans thinking about marriage and family. But Romans 1 tells us that when people turn from God, the breakdown of family life is one of the inevitable consequences. That means every broken covenant is rebellion against God before it later manifests as a "decline in the culture."
In his commentary about the issue, Deace warned that if this all isn't fixed or course-corrected, "Your kids and grandkids - and I'm talking about my own - they're going to live in a communist country and/or need to know Arabic."
I'll leave the soothsaying to those more qualified in such fields. But while I don't know how American society will respond to these alarming realities, I will remind my fellow Christians that the early church didn't wait for the Roman Empire to fix itself before building godly households. Amid an equally corrupt and depraved civilization, those believers set themselves apart by the way they lived: marriages were honored, children welcomed, homes opened in hospitality. All of it modeled in the middle of hostility to their "peculiar beliefs."
Their witness shook an empire; ours can too, if we will walk as they walked.
Paul's words to Titus paint the same picture: older men and women training the younger to live self-controlled, godly lives, to love their families, and to keep their households in order. This isn't nostalgia, it's biblical normalcy.
If the statistics are grim, then for Christ's Church the assignment could not be clearer. Let the pundits analyze and the politicians argue, we are called to live the revival our culture desperately needs.
Nothing else needs to happen for us to reclaim discipleship in our homes rather than outsourcing spiritual formation to schools, media, and government. We need not delay in teaching that marriage is a sacred mission, not just a marker of adulthood, and that covenant love reflects the Gospel of Jesus. We can immediately recover financial stewardship as part of our mentoring the next generation - spiritual and practical home building.
Yes, the death of a culture may be underway. But the decline that shocks the world is the same void the gospel was made to fill. And I guess I'm a believer that if God's people will be faithful in the small, daily work of covenant love in our marriages, parenting, and stewardship, the watching world might see that while cultures collapse, the Kingdom of Christ does not.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
