Thirty years after President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” from the pulpit of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, two Brigham Young University professors say their decades of interfaith research confirm its prophetic principles.
Professors David Dollahite and Loren Marks, co-directors of BYU’s American Families of Faith Project, in a recent episode of the Church News podcast, reflected on 25 years of studying how faith strengthens marriages and families.
“‘The Family Proclamation’ is kind of a Liahona that can guide us through the wilderness of contemporary challenges,” Dollahite said. He added: “People who will learn and abide by those principles in ‘The Family Proclamation’ give themselves a much better opportunity to have strong marriages and families.”
Origins of the project
The American Families of Faith Project began unexpectedly in 1993, when Dollahite and Marks interviewed Latter-day Saint fathers of children with special needs. Though religion wasn’t part of the original research design, faith naturally became central to their stories.
Since then, the professors and their students have interviewed hundreds of families from more than 20 Christian, Jewish and Muslim denominations across nearly 40 U.S. states. Their findings consistently show that faith practices provide strength and resilience in family life.
Marks explained that they sought out the “strongest families” in each congregation, visiting homes and asking couples how they faced challenges.
“One of the wonderful things that comes away from it is we’re left with some secret sauce, some insights, their stories or narratives that we can share as university professors with young folks that are looking at marriage or early on in family life, while learning along with them ourselves about what strengthens families most,” he said.
Common threads of faith
While differences across religions are real, Dollahite said their research highlights commonalities:
- Belief in God as a loving and present being.
- Reliance on sacred texts such as the Bible, Torah, Quran and Book of Mormon.
- Rituals and worship that bring families together.
“I found myself so many times in the homes of these folks of many faiths, many races, many ethnicities, many parts of the country saying similar kinds of things about the ways that their religious beliefs and practices made a difference in their marriage and family life,” he said. “That was beautiful. It was delightful.”
Marks added that many couples candidly acknowledged they may not have endured without faith. Some told him, “Without this deep faith, we do not believe our marriage would have endured. We think that we would have divorced.”
Rituals that build resilience
The professors shared examples of how daily and weekly religious practices sustain families:
- Jewish families gathering each Friday night for Shabbat prayers, blessings and meals.
- Muslim families fasting during Ramadan, then breaking the fast in reverence and gratitude.
- Latter-day Saint families gathering for family prayer, scripture study and recreational activities.
Such routines, Marks explained, build “spiritual muscle” and create protective patterns for children.
Even when imperfectly carried out, Marks said, quoting a colleague, “Family worship, family rituals, [are] not meaningful every time, but they are meaningful over time.”
Research aligning with the proclamation
From its beginning, the project has connected closely to “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” Dollahite noted that BYU faculty developed courses and textbooks based on the document’s principles, and subsequent social science studies have consistently validated its teachings.
“Hundreds of good studies document that the kinds of practices that are taught in ‘The Family Proclamation’ are really good for couples, really good for families, really good for children,” he said. “And so it’s nice to have that sense of confidence that a document, kind of modern scripture, is not only sound religiously, it’s also sound from social science research.”
Marks highlighted resources available at americanfamiliesoffaith.byu.edu, where their team links specific proclamation principles to related research.
Looking to the future
Dollahite and Marks are expanding their research to include interfaith marriages, couples navigating religious change and non-religious families. Their goal is to understand how diverse households cultivate strength and unity in today’s world.
Yet after thousands of hours of interviews, their conclusion is simple.
“Build faith in your home,” Marks said. “Try to model the kind of marriage that you hope your children will have one day. Have a shared family vision. Focus on the Savior in all that you do.”
After 25 years of listening to families of many faiths, both professors testify of the truth of prophetic guidance. “‘The Family Proclamation,’” Dollahite said, is “a tremendous light in an increasingly darkened world.”
