Key Takeaways

• Communio founder and president J.P. De Gance published an op-ed in Townhall arguing that strong families and religious practice are among the most powerful protections against America’s growing mental health crisis.

• Research published in Pediatrics found that as many as 40% of high schoolers report persistent sadness and hopelessness, with 10% reporting a suicide attempt. Religious practice is associated with measurably better mental, physical, and social health outcomes.

• Adults whose parents divorced before they turned 18 are 70% more likely to be depressed than those from intact married families. Adults whose parents never married are twice as likely to report depression and loneliness.

• The Passing the Torch report, commissioned by IFS and Communio, found that adults who grew up in households with regular faith conversations were more than twice as likely to attend church, pray daily, and consider religion very important in young adulthood.

• The practical implication for parents is both encouraging and actionable: a regular date night, praying together, attending an annual marriage class, and having faith conversations at the dinner table go a remarkably long way in protecting children’s future wellbeing.

The Story: A National Platform for an Urgent Argument

On June 14, 2026, Townhall published an op-ed by J.P. De Gance that connects two of the most pressing crises facing America right now in a way that most public conversations have failed to do.

The mental health crisis among young people is severe and worsening. The family stability crisis has been building for decades. De Gance’s argument in Townhall is that these are not two separate problems. They are the same problem, seen from different angles.

Religious practice and family stability are among the most powerful protective factors against mental illness, loneliness, and hopelessness. And the decline of both over the past 40 years has not been incidental to the rise of the mental health crisis. According to the data De Gance cites, it has been causal.

For pastors, this op-ed is not just a piece of policy commentary. It is a pastoral brief for why strengthening marriages and families in your congregation is one of the most direct contributions your church can make to the mental health of the next generation.

The Core Finding: Faith Protects. Family Protects. And the Data Is Clear.

The Wheatley Institute recently published research finding that religious involvement is associated with better mental, physical, and social health outcomes. De Gance notes this is not surprising, given what Communio’s own research has documented about the relationship between faith, family, and flourishing.

What is striking is the specificity of the mental health data when family structure is examined directly.

Drawing on the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey, De Gance presents findings that should stop every pastor and policymaker in their tracks. Adults whose parents divorced before they turned 18 are 70% more likely to be depressed than those whose parents remained married. Adults whose parents never married are twice as likely to report depression compared to those from intact families. Both groups are also far more likely to report persistent loneliness.

These are not marginal differences. They are among the largest effect sizes in the mental health literature. And they point to a conclusion that is both sobering and clarifying: family structure is not just a moral or religious concern. It is a public health concern. The stability of a child’s home environment is one of the strongest predictors of their mental health as an adult.

The Passing the Torch report adds a further dimension. Adults who grew up in households with regular conversations about faith were more than twice as likely to attend church, pray daily, and say religion was very important to them as young adults. Religious practice, in turn, is protective against the very mental health challenges the data describes. The chain runs from a healthy marriage, to an engaged faith community, to children who are statistically more likely to flourish as adults.

The Counterintuitive Angle: The Mental Health Crisis Is Not a Healthcare Problem. It Is a Family Problem.

Here is the reframe that De Gance’s Townhall op-ed makes most powerfully, and that the broader public conversation consistently misses.

America’s response to the youth mental health crisis has been primarily institutional: more counselors in schools, expanded access to therapy, increased mental health funding, better awareness campaigns. These responses are not wrong. But they are downstream interventions addressing consequences rather than causes.

De Gance’s argument is that the root cause is upstream, in the family structures children are being raised in and in the faith practices that either are or are not part of their daily lives. The rise of the “nones,” Americans with no religious affiliation, is described by sociologists as the result of “generational succession”: each new generation entering adulthood less religiously engaged than the one before. That succession is not random. It tracks directly to the family environments in which those generations were formed.

The practical implication is significant. The most effective long-term mental health intervention available to any community is not a clinical program. It is a culture of strong marriages and intentional faith formation in the home. And the institution most capable of building that culture is the local church.

As De Gance puts it plainly in the op-ed: for parents, loving the one you’re with by investing in your marriage through activities like a regular date night, praying together, or attending an annual marriage class will also go a long way to protecting your kids from problems down the road.

What This Means for Your Church

At Communio, De Gance’s Townhall column articulates something we see confirmed in church after church across the country: when a congregation takes marriage and family formation seriously, the ripple effects extend far beyond the couples being served.

Children in those homes grow up more likely to retain their faith, more likely to report good mental health, and more likely to become the kinds of adults who build stable families of their own. The investment in one generation compounds into the next.

Think about the families in your congregation right now. The parents who are quietly struggling in their marriage and don’t know where to turn. The young adults who grew up in fractured homes and are navigating the long-term effects. The children watching their parents’ relationship and being formed, for better or worse, by what they see. Each of these represents both a pastoral need and an opportunity.

Churches that build a proactive culture of marriage and relationship formation are not just running good ministry. They are building one of the most effective mental health interventions available in their community. Not because they are replacing therapy or clinical care, but because they are addressing the upstream conditions that determine whether people need those services in the first place.

That is the work Communio was built to help churches do. And J.P.’s Townhall op-ed gives every pastor the language and the data to make that case to their congregation, their elders, and their community.

Take the Next Step

Communio partners with churches to build marriage and family ministry that strengthens the relational foundations where faith is formed and flourishing begins.

► Read J.P. De Gance’s full Townhall op-ed → townhall.com

► Download the Passing the Torch report → communio.org/passing-the-torch-report

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the research say about family structure and mental health? According to the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey, adults whose parents divorced before they turned 18 are 70% more likely to report depression than those from intact married families. Adults whose parents never married are twice as likely to report depression. Both groups are also significantly more likely to experience persistent loneliness. Family stability is one of the strongest predictors of adult mental health outcomes.

Does religious practice protect against mental health challenges? Yes. The Wheatley Institute recently published research showing that religious involvement is associated with better mental, physical, and social health. As J.P. De Gance notes in the Townhall op-ed, the 40-year rise in religious non-affiliation has been accompanied by an epidemic of loneliness, suicide, and explosive growth in mental illness. Religious practice tends to mitigate and protect against many of these outcomes.

What is the connection between family breakdown and the rise of the “nones”? Sociologists describe the rise of religious non-affiliation in America as the result of “generational succession,” meaning each new generation enters adulthood less religiously engaged than the one before. This succession tracks directly to the decline of intact, married families and the reduction in faith formation practices in the home. Parents over the past 40 years have been less effective at transmitting faith to their children, and the data on religious non-affiliation reflects that trend.

What practical steps can parents take to protect their children’s mental health and faith? J.P. De Gance points to several high-impact, accessible practices: having regular conversations about faith at home, saying grace before meals, praying together as a family, attending church consistently with both parents, investing in the marriage relationship through date nights and marriage education, and building strong, warm relationships with children. Research shows these practices are among the most powerful predictors of children retaining faith and experiencing good mental health as adults.

How can churches address the mental health crisis in their communities? Churches are uniquely positioned to address the upstream causes of the mental health crisis by strengthening marriages, equipping parents for intentional faith formation, and building a community culture where families are supported at every stage. Communio partners with churches to build data-informed relationship ministry that creates exactly this kind of environment, serving couples and families before crisis rather than only after it.

Credit: This post draws on J.P. De Gance’s op-ed published in Townhall on June 14, 2026, data from the Austin Institute’s 2025 Relationships in America Survey, the Wheatley Institute’s research on religious involvement and health, and the Passing the Torch report by the Institute for Family Studies and Communio. Read the original Townhall op-ed here.