The Problem of Divorce, Marriage definitions, terminations, and The Christian Right

George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented: "While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages."

Donald Hughes, author of The Divorce Reality, said: "In the churches, people have a superstitious view that Christianity will keep them from divorce, but they are subject to the same problems as everyone else, and they include a lack of relationship skills. ...Just being born again is not a rabbit's foot." Hughes claim that 90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been "saved."

Ron Barrier, Spokespersonn for American Atheists remarked on these findings with some rather caustic comments against organized religion. He said: "These findings confirm what I have been saying these last five years. Since Atheist ethics are of a higher calibre than religious morals, it stands to reason that our families would be dedicated more to each other than to some invisible monitor in the sky. With Atheism, women and men are equally responsible for a healthy marriage. There is no room in Atheist ethics for the type of 'submissive' nonsense preached by Baptists and other Christian and/or Jewish groups. Atheists reject, and rightly so, the primitive patriarchal attitudes so prevalent in many religions with respect to marriage.

The Associated Press computed divorce statistics from data supplied by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health. They found that Nevada had the highest divorce rate, at 8.5 divorces per 1,000 people in 1998. Nevada has had a reputation as a quickie divorce location for decades. People from other states visited Nevada, fulfilled their residency requirements, got divorced and returned home single.

The data showed that the highest divorce rates were found in the Bible Belt. "Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma round out the Top Five in frequency of divorce...the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average" of 4.2/1000 people.
-11 southern states (AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, MS, NC, NM, OK, SC and TX averaged 5.1/1000 people. (LA data is not available; TX data is for 1997).
-Nine states in the Northeast (CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT) averaged only 3.5/1000 people.

Some of the factors that contribute to a high divorce rate in the Bible Belt, relative to Northeastern states are:
-More couples enter their first marriage at a younger age.
-Average household incomes are lower (OK and AR rate 46th and 47th in the U.S.)
-They have a lower percentage of Roman Catholics, a denomination that does not recognize divorce. Anthony Jordan, executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention in Oklahoma commented: "I applaud the Catholics," says Jordan. "I don't think we as Protestant evangelists have done nearly as well preparing people for marriage. And in the name of being loving and accepting, we have not placed the stigma on divorce that we should have."
-Some factor in conservative Protestantism -- which is prevalent in the Bible Belt -- may causes a higher level of divorce.

Baptists and nondenominational Protestant churches (which dominate the Bible Belt) included more adults who had been divorced (29 percent and 35 percent respectively) than any other Christian denomination, mainline or otherwise. Lutherans and Catholics had the lowest divorce rates at 21 percent. By contrast, the rate among atheists and agnostics was just 21 percent.

The same week the bishops released the statement on criminal justice (along with statements on Sudan, immigration, art and worship, abortion, and the Middle East), the chair of the bishops’ committee on marriage and family life joined the heads of the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the National Council of Churches in issuing a call for the churches to "strengthen, support, and restore" marriages, which they called "God’s first institution." (The NCC general secretary, Bob Edgar, later withdrew his signature, warning that the declaration on marriage might be used by some in "inappropriate ways." He said, "it would be unconscionable if support for married couples...were to be twisted into a weapon that can be used to attack gays and lesbians.")

"The U.S. has more churchgoing than any other major democracy and it reports much higher rates of murder, rape, robbery, shootings, stabbings, drug use, unwed pregnancy, and the like, as well as occasional tragedies such as those at Waco and Jonestown. . . . There may be no link between the two conditions, but the saturation of religion has failed to prevent the severe crime level. . . . Societies rife with fundamentalism and religious tribalism are prone to sectarian violence. In contrast, England, Scandinavia, Canada, Japan, and such lands have scant churchgoing, yet their people are more inclined to live peaceably, in accord with the social contract. The evidence seems clear: To find living conditions that are safe, decent, orderly, and 'civilized,' avoid places with intense religion." James Haught

"As a result of losing a parent through divorce, children suffer two- to threefold increases in depression, suicide, school dropout, gang involvement, substance and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, physical and sexual abuse, and other serious problems," said Dr. Michael Lamb, head of the section of Social and Emotional Development at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development."

The dissolution of the marriage tie was regulated by the Mosaic law (Deut. 24:1-4). The Jews, after the Captivity, were reguired to dismiss the foreign women they had married contrary to the law (Ezra 10:11-19). Christ limited the permission of divorce to the single case of adultery. It seems that it was not uncommon for the Jews at that time to dissolve the union on very slight pretences (Matt. 5:31, 32; 19:1-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18). These precepts given by Christ regulate the law of divorce in the Christian Church.