“America’s Mothers Are in Crisis” blared a February New York Times headline for an article arguing that mothers are “breaking” nationwide. Expected to do it all work, homeschool, keep house, care for their families many women left the workforce or hit a mental breaking point during 2020. But within the chaos, many Christian mothers are figuring out how to lean on their faith in new ways. Some moms are praying in new ways for and with their children or discovering spiritual formation habits inspired by staying at home during the pandemic. We asked ten mothers about what pandemic-inspired family discipleship habits they were hoping to cultivate or leave behind in the coming months and years.
I finally gave up Christianity when I was 15,” wrote the famous atheist Richard Dawkins in Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. Dawkins hoped to reach the rising generation of kids with the good news that they don’t need religion. In the decades since the New Atheist movement launched, you might think this was the only message sounding from the academic world. But this is simply not the case.
Religious belief was supposed to decline as modernization swept the world. But it hasn’t. Being a world-class academic and a serious, orthodox Christian was supposed to be increasingly untenable. But it isn’t. Giving up on religion was supposed to make people happier, healthier, and more moral. But it doesn’t. In fact, even Dawkins has had to acknowledge (grudgingly) the evidence that people who believe in God seem to behave better than those who don’t.