Posted on 02/16/2011 2:06:45 PM PST by wmfights
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BP)--"Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!" It's one of the most quoted stats by Christian leaders today. And it's perhaps one of the most inaccurate.
Based on the best data available, the divorce rate among Christians is significantly lower than the general population.
Here's the truth....
Many people who seriously practice a traditional religious faith -- be it Christian or other -- have a divorce rate markedly lower than the general population.
The factor making the most difference is religious commitment and practice. Couples who regularly practice any combination of serious religious behaviors and attitudes -- attend church nearly every week, read their Bibles and spiritual materials regularly; pray privately and together; generally take their faith seriously, living not as perfect disciples, but serious disciples -- enjoy significantly lower divorce rates than mere church members, the general public and unbelievers.
Professor Bradley Wright, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut, explains from his analysis of people who identify as Christians but rarely attend church, that 60 percent of these have been divorced. Of those who attend church regularly, 38 percent have been divorced [1].
Other data from additional sociologists of family and religion suggest a significant marital stability divide between those who take their faith seriously and those who do not.
W. Bradford Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, finds from his own analysis that "active conservative Protestants" who regularly attend church are 35 percent less likely to divorce compared to those who have no affiliation. Nominally attending conservative Protestants are 20 percent more likely to divorce, compared to secular Americans [2].
Professor Scott Stanley from the University of Denver, working with an absolute all-star team of leading sociologists on the Oklahoma Marriage Study, explains that couples with a vibrant religious faith had more and higher levels of the qualities couples need to avoid divorce:
"Whether young or old, male or female, low-income or not, those who said that they were more religious reported higher average levels of commitment to their partners, higher levels of marital satisfaction, less thinking and talking about divorce and lower levels of negative interaction. These patterns held true when controlling for such important variables as income, education, and age at first marriage."
These positive factors translated into actual lowered risk of divorce among active believers.
"Those who say they are more religious are less likely, not more, to have already experienced divorce. Likewise, those who report more frequent attendance at religious services were significantly less likely to have been divorced [3]."
THE TAKE-AWAY
The divorce rates of Christian believers are not identical to the general population -- not even close. Being a committed, faithful believer makes a measurable difference in marriage.
Saying you believe something or merely belonging to a church, unsurprisingly, does little for marriage. But the more you are involved in the actual practice of your faith in real ways -- through submitting yourself to a serious body of believers, learning regularly from Scripture, being in communion with God though prayer individually and with your spouse and children, and having friends and family around you who challenge you to take you marriage's seriously -- the greater difference this makes in strengthening both the quality and longevity of our marriages. Faith does matter and the leading sociologists of family and religion tell us so.
That makes much more sense than what is reported by the usual suspects.
Thank you- one of my pet peeves is preachers who bear false witness against the church to make some kind of a convoluted point! I appreciate you posting this-
OTOH, if all the couples who were just living together were added into the mix,.....The fact is, Christian couples are more likely to get married in the first place.
In 1996, my wife was part of a group of five women who were very active in their churches, as were their husbands, including deacons, children s ministry, etc. They also had families and had all been married in the “20 years” range. One of the women was even the secretary at her church.
By 1999 all of the women except one had divorced their husbands. And they all used the same attorney. No, the one wasn’t mine. I was the second to go. I had been married 20 years and it happened out of the blue and was brought on by a class she was taking at the church (Learning to live, Learning to love).
Interestingly, the Lord brought the woman of my dreams into my life less than two months later! And I was “done” with women - or so I thought. We are nearing our 13th anniversary and the honeymoon STILL is not over.
And my wife is now counseling a woman she works with that is the same age as my ex was when she did it. And the reasoning is the same - she’s just “fallen out of love” with her husband and wants to move on. And yes, she is also VERY active in her church.
On a side note, the reason I think the divorce rate is so high among Christians relative to non-Christians is that non-Christians often don’t bother to get married. They live together and when the going gets tough they split up. It is not factored into the stats.
Thanks for posting this. Every Christian knows it takes 3 for a successful marriage: husband, wife and the Lord.
Your story shows that churches aren’t teaching very well what love is - it is not just a feeling. It is not passive.
Falling in love is emotional, but Love is an act of the will.
>>Your story shows that churches aren’t teaching very well what love is - it is not just a feeling. It is not passive.<<
Well, at that same church I was taught that love is a decision and an action. I say to this day that everyone is loveable and hateable. How you choose to “see” them is completely up to you. And when you marry them you make a committment to “love” them.
Interesting story RobRoy. When I was a teenager, our church decided to get a deaconess because it was a very large church and the two pastors were overwhelmed. I don’t know what the divorce rate was before she came, but all of a sudden it seemed like couples all over the church started divorcing ... people who had been married for years or even decades.
The deaconess had a nice big house, and it seemed to become a staging place for women that had just left their husbands ... until they “got on their feet again”. At one point, I think there were 7 or 8 women living there, with their children. I met more divorcing people in the year after she came than I had in my entire life up to that point. And then my parents switched congregations ... and it all went away.
I thought I was happily married, then the best friend of my wife got divorced........ I was divorced myself within the year.
Yes. I think it is the cuture in which we now live. I understand that roughly 80% of divorces in the US are instigated by the wife. And a huge percentage of them are because she just “isn’t happy” any more.
As a matter of fact, this “fredoneverything” article pretty much nails what happened to my family. Frighteningly so. A lot of men who have read it have commented that it is very similar to what happened to them.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Divorce.shtml
Yes. I was at a wedding last summer where I met the woman who stayed with her husband. She said she stopped going to the “ladies night out” because it was basically a “complain about your husband and get moral support” session. You know, the old, “my husband did such and such.” and “I don’t know why you put up with him” baloney.
True friends don’t respond that way, unless we are talking REAL abuse.
>>I thought I was happily married, then the best friend of my wife got divorced........ I was divorced myself within the year.<<
Yep. Same thing here. I literally did not see it coming.
One of the reasons they are doing it, I believe, is because they “can” and play down the negatives and play up the positives.
A woman in a prarie log cabin in the early 1800’s would be kinda stuck if she divorced her husband. Of course, like is mentioned in the article I posted from Fred, many feminists consider this newfound “freedom” for married women to be a Good Thing. Kinda like picking up a hot chick at a sleazy bar is a Good Thing, until you come down with the clap.
>>Earlier this month we celebrated 24 years together! <<
Congratulations! Seriously.
Meanwhile, mine refused to talk - at all. We even got the church deacons involved and the only thing she would even listen to is anything supporting her position that if only I would change, everything would be ok. Funny thing is, I WAS changing and continued to change. My current wife of almost 13 years is reaping the benefits and she never tires of telling me how she feels.
Meanwhile, my ex is falling into exactly what Fred warned about, except in her case it is not a cat named fluffy, but a dog.
And our three daughters? The middle and youngest were in a rock/pop band with me last year (we have a web page but I don’t post it here) and my oldest is actually thinking of moving to Kentucky when we do.
Sorry that it didn’t work out with your ex, but very happy that it IS working with the new wife!
It is always good to hear when the kids come out on a plus side! Too often that is not the case (my parents divorced: it was NOT good for my siblings (I was still young enough to not be as affected as the older ones - and she was re-married by the time I got into my developmental years))!
Lots of prayers to you and your family!
Sexual and physical abuse, of herself or her children, that a woman wouldn't have the economic freedom to leave.
My father said he read a book about the habits of the upwardly mobile (not those born wealthy, but those born poor who become wealthy) - and one thing they seem to NOT do is divorce.
Divorce killed me economically.
I used to own a three bedroom house with an ocean view and we had a maid twice a month and a gardener every week. The two of us worked hard, but lived like royalty. We had a combined income well over 100k a year.
Now I live in an apartment and have debt and a tax bill, had to shortsale the house in a down economy.
On the plus side she was the best damn roommate I ever had! Payed half the bills, was sexy as hell, and kept ME real happy!
Being single hasn't been so bad either. A LOT of desperate women out there!
Wonderfully said.
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