The mediating effect of coparenting quality on the process of faith transmission from parents to child in Chinese Christian families in California

This study explored the mediating effect of coparenting quality on the process of faith transmission process. In reality, the Chinese Christian church tends to emphasize outward evangelism and to be neglectful of the inward faith transmission process with children. However, Christian parents have a critical role in passing on the faith to their children as they fulfill the Great Commission within their own family context. Furthermore, there are limited empirical studies in Chinese Christian church context so that almost every topic is under-studied. Based on the literature review, this quantitative study hypothesized that the parental attitude toward parenting would relate to religious activities at home, the parental attitude toward parenting would relate to coparenting quality, the coparenting quality would relate to religious activities at home, and also the coparenting quality would mediate the faith transmission process at home.;The sample was limited to Chinese Christian parents with their oldest child from age three through fifth grade, and 144 pairs of Chinese Christian parents were recruited from 19 Chinese Christian churches in California. The questionnaire included personal religious involvement, parental attitude toward parental role and toward faith transmission, family faith activities, and demographic information.;Hypotheses were supported for most of the subgroups through hierarchical multiple regression analyses where parental attitude was correlated with family faith activities and with coparenting quality, coparenting quality was correlated with family faith activities, and coparenting quality was shown to have a mediating effect on the link between parental attitude and family faith activities. The analyses also revealed that fathers, compared to mothers, and the first-generation Christian parents, compared to the second-generation Christian parents, were less engaged in the faith transmission process. Additional analyses revealed that the difference between parental personal religious involvements as well as between perceived spouse's investments in faith transmission lowered the frequency of family faith activities.;.Based on the findings from the current study, I recommended pastors and lay leaders educate parents to practice faith activities at home in general, promote the coparenting relationship so that parents can learn how to work together, encourage fathers to engage in parenting and faith transmission, and pay attention to the difference in religious involvement between husband and wife. Limitations of the study were noted and followed by recommendations for future research.