"[Church-going] adults were more likely than unchurched individuals to choose not to watch a particular movie or video only because the rating indicated that it contained objectionable material (22% compared to 7%, respectively); to have a discussion with someone about a moral issue (51% versus 41%); and to turn off a television program they were watching because they did not like the values or viewpoint presented in the program (47% compared to 34%). Unchurched adults were more likely to have viewed "adult-only" content on the Internet (19% versus 8% among the churched

... Churched adults were nearly twice as likely to have volunteered at least an hour of their time during the previous week to assist an organization that helps needy people (27% versus 15%). Churched people were also more prone to "go out of your way to say something encouraging to a person whom you sensed was in need of a kind word" (79% of the churched did so, 62% of the unchurched did). Both groups were equally likely to have given cash to a poor person whom they encountered during the past week."

(Source:  George Barna, "Survey Shows Faith Impacts Some Behaviors But Not Others," Barna Research Group of Ventura, California, October 22, 2002, http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=123&Reference=F .) 

"Sociologists have shown that regular churchgoing correlates highly with civic involvement, charitable giving, volunteering, and other publicly crucial behaviors.  The level of regular churchgoing is therefore a matter of civic, no merely ecclesiastical concern."

(Source:  John G. Stackhouse Jr., "Where Religion Matters," American Outlook, Fall 2002, p. 40-44.)

Modern social theorists have advanced any number of ideas for making American men better fathers.  Curiously, such ideas have not usually included getting men to attend church regularly.  Religious involvement, however, does make men better fathers, according to sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia. 

Writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, Wilcox reports that in nationally representative data collected between 1987 and 1994 from 13,017 adults as part of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), a clear linkage emerges between religion and paternal involvement.  That data, Wilcox concludes, show that "religion is related to paternal involvement in all three areas that were examined: one-on-one engagement, dinner with one's family, and volunteering for youth-related activities."

Readers might falsely suppose that the linkage between religion and good fatherhood simply reflects the fact that the same commitment to conventional values that makes men good father also makes them churchgoers.  But by using a statistical model that takes "civic engagement" into account, Wilcox advances convincing evidence that the religious effects in his study are "for the most part, not artifacts of . . . a conventional habitus."  In other words, "religion appears to make a unique contribution to paternal involvement above and beyond its status as a conventional activity. In all likelihood, the specific attention that religious institutions dedicate to family life accounts for the religious effects found in this study."

Although Wilcox found a linkage between religion and good fatherhood in all denominations, he uncovered evidence of "an independent effect" of "conservative Protestant affiliation" on some aspects of fatherhood: "Conservative fathers are more likely to be involved with their children in personal activities such as personal talks than unaffiliated and mainline Protestant men." Wilcox reports that conservative Protestant fathers are also "more likely than unaffiliated men to have dinner with their children and to participate in youth-related activities."  In an age when feminism defines political correctness, Wilcox highlights the effects of conservative Protestantism on paternal involvement as "particularly striking in light of the gender traditionalism championed by conservative Protestant churches."

Wilcox concludes by arguing that since previous research has established that "paternal involvement is positively associated with a range of beneficial child outcomes," religion may-like civic engagement-- "exert positive effects on children through its association with increased paternal involvement."

(Source: W. Bradford Wilcox, "Religion, Convention, and Paternal Involvement," Journal of Marriage and the Family 64[2002]: 780-792.)