In response to my previous post, dear XRLQ writes:
I’ve heard the overall divorce statistics are roughly the same between nominal Christians and nominal non-Christians, but I’ve never heard it was the same across denominations, which would be more than a little odd since some think the Biblical proscription against divorce establishes a mortal sin, while others think it was one of God’s little April Fool’s jokes, and most others fall somewhere in between. If divorce stats really are evenly spread among these groups, then query whether religion has any real influence on anybody at all.
First off, the statistics. As Lynn reminded me, the best recent study on Christians and divorce is that done by George Barna (himself an evangelical) in 2004. A summary of the results is here. Here’s part of Barna’s report:
Although many Christian churches attempt to dissuade congregants from getting a divorce, the research confirmed a finding identified by Barna a decade ago (and further confirmed through tracking studies conducted each year since): born again Christians have the same likelihood of divorce as do non-Christians.
Note: Barna isn’t talking about nominal "Christmas and Easter" Christians; he’s talking about those who have had a "born-again" experience. He notes that Hugo is not as anomalous as some might think:
Multiple divorces are also unexpectedly common among born again Christians. Barna’s figures show that nearly one-quarter of the married born agains (23%) get divorced two or more times.
And for those interested in denominational figures, Barna notes:
The survey showed that divorce varied somewhat by a person’s denominational affiliation. Catholics were substantially less likely than Protestants to get divorced (25% versus 39%, respectively). Among the largest Protestant groups, those most likely to get divorced were Pentecostals (44%) while Presbyterians had the fewest divorces (28%).
While there are many different Presbyterian churches, I’m struck that what is considered a "moderate mainline" denomination reported fewer divorces than the Pentecostals, the fastest growing wing of global Christianity, and one usually associated with a strict adherence to Biblical mores.
But while statistics have their place, I’m struck by XRLQ’s remark: If divorce stats really are evenly spread among these groups, then query whether religion has any real influence on anybody at all.
Oh, XRLQ, I do query. But from my vantage point, I don’t see the high divorce rate among evangelicals and "born-agains" as evidence of a failure of religion to truly impact people’s lives. After all, as I’ve written before, I think divorce can be, in some instances, a positive and healthy experience — even if it is rarely, if ever, the best possible outcome for a marriage. The fact that two people who belong to a church choose to get divorced does not prove that the church has failed them, nor does it prove that the husband and wife are "bad Christians." Indeed, the question we have to ask is, "How did your faith affect your decision to get divorced?’ And then the follow-up: "How did your faith affect the way you and your partner divorced?"
The latter question is vitally important. My most recent ex-wife and I divorced while we were both active members of All Saints Pasadena. While few folks in the community sought to intervene to save our marriage, many offered us counsel on how to go through the process gracefully and lovingly. Though I am not in contact with my ex, our divorce was civil and kind. Comparing this most recent divorce to my earlier ones (which took place when I was "unchurched"), I can say with complete and utter certainty that my faith empowered me to be a far more thoughtful, patient, and loving "ex-husband" in the divorce process than I would otherwise have been! It was my faith that helped me to not to say vicious and unkind things; it was my faith that helped me though the painful process of moving out and setting up a new life. If there’s such a thing as a "good divorce", my third wife and I had one — and our personal beliefs and our church community helped us to make it so.
My faith also allowed me to believe that things could and would be radically different this time, with my new wife. I fell head over heels in love with she to whom I am now married very quickly, not long after the end of my previous marriage. As crazy as I was about my gal, I was terrified as well. Heck, being divorced three times by one’s mid-thirties is an embarrassing statistic even by Los Angeles standards! I also was afraid that in some sense I didn’t have what it takes to make a marriage work; that old fear that I was "broken" and "toxic" resurfaced.
But in the three years since then, I’ve been surrounded by love and embraced my extraordinary spiritual mentors, both at All Saints and elsewhere. From the ashes of another brief marriage, my faith helped me to pull out of a morass of self-pity and begin the hard work of looking at myself and making necessary changes. Without God, without a community of others to love me, I would long since have given up. Without "religion", without "faith", I wouldn’t be stupefyingly happy with this amazing wife I have; I’d likely be an aging skinny bachelor, living on TV dinners and having a series of superficial and unsatisfying "relationships" with a series of no-doubt totally inappropriate women!
So, when XRLQ suggests I ask whether religion makes a difference, I have to say, "Heck, yes!" While my faith may not have been a prophylaxis against the end of a marriage, it was the key to a graceful and civil divorce and the cornerstone of my personal rebuilding project in the aftermath of great pain. It is the foundation of the candid, challenging, and incredibly fulfilling relationship my wife and I have built together over the last couple of years of our courtship. For all of this, I am immensely grateful to a God who loves me without conditions and far more than I deserve!
So yes, we Christians divorce right alongside everyone else. Yes, our most conservative and impassioned believers have no lower divorce rate than those who have a more subdued or lukewarm faith. But Barna’s figures don’t tell us the whole story. And while I don’t think anyone has done a study on the willingness of divorced Christians to remarry after multiple divorces, I wouldn’t be surprised if the research were to show that the deeply faithful were more likely to believe in the possibiility of a fresh start.
Hi Hugo, I appreciate this post. As a numbers guy, thus sort of thing speaks to me. :)
For me, the main message here is that when it comes to divorce, Christians - particularly in this case Evangelicals - are just as human as everybody else. No better, no worse.
I fully realize that the rhetoric of some of the more strident Evangelicals vis-a-vis sexual behavior surely is hypocritical (thinking of Jimmy Swaggart here), but I don’t think that Evangelicals or even Christians hold a monopoly on hypocritical rhetoric.
Full disclosure: I personally am not a Christian.
I read a Christianity Today article which suggested that the divorce rates of Christians can be interpreted differently if you consider demographics:
I don’t know what the biases of the people who did this study might be–I suspect they’re Christian, given the context in the article–but if these stats are true, they’re certainly suggestive.
I haven’t seen the stats, but I suspect there are some serious problems with corrolation and causation. Do they correct for things like income? It might just be that Presbyterians are more likely than members of other denominations to be middle class, and that middle-class people face fewer of the pressures that cause marriages to break down. It also may be that Evangelical denominations have special appeal for people who have faced that kind of challenges that make it difficult to make a marriage work. Maybe those people would have ever higher rates of divorce if they hadn’t found faith. (And I say all that as someone who has no particular stake in defending religion.)
Having said that… I’m glad that your faith made it easier for you and your ex to have a civil divorce. But I don’t entirely understand why Christians feel such a need to assert, with exactly no evidence, that you’re better people than the rest of us. Plenty of not-very-religious people behave decently during their divorces.
Sally, I in no way meant to assert that Christians have a monopoly on civility. I was speaking very deliberately about my own experience; my first two divorces were very different from my third, and for me (and perhaps just me, though I suspect not), faith played a huge difference.
For someone like me, faith is necessary in order to behave decently. I’m quite aware, however, that many nonbelievers manage, based on reason or innate goodness or what-have-you, to do a wonderful job of being kind and loving to those around them. My proverbial hat is off to them. Chalk it up to my sinful nature.
When you talk about the Christian view of divorce being a sin, you need to complete that by saying it’s remarriage after divorce that’s the real no-no. For example, I know devout Catholics who are divorced (and I guess didn’t get an anullment) who will not date and remarry, because that’s where the adultery comes in.
Hugo, I think you’re misinterpretting and ducking XRLQ’s question. He’s talking about denominations that have strong words about divorce, compared to those that don’t. You’re looking at whether religion in general makes you less likely divorce, but when he asks “does religion ahve any effect” he’s more saying “does anyone bother to follow what their church tells them to do if it inconveniences them?”
You may think it a good thing that a Church with strong anti-divorce proscriptions doesn’t get it’s flock to follow that well (as do I), but it doesn’t speak well to their effectiveness or devotion to fundamentalism.
As for “controlling for other variables”, that is certainly taken into account in various studies. The least I can say is:
1. Hugo (and I) believe that Church’s that implicitly encourage people to marry for the sake of sex, risk higher divorce because of unsatisfied marriages.
2. Those churches have higher divorce than their rhetoric would lead you to believe.
So yes those people get married younger. That’s kinda the point, they’re getting married young so they can have sex earlier, and getting divorced more because of it.
It makes a certain intuitive sense to me that self-described “born-agains” would tend to be a bit more prone to divorce than more mainline Christians. A tendency to think of changes in one’s life as radical breaks from the past and the beginning of an entirely new and different phase seems as though it might be prone to a similar rythym of change in other spheres of their life.
“A tendency to think of changes in one’s life as radical breaks from the past and the beginning of an entirely new and different phase seems as though it might be prone to a similar rythym of change in other spheres of their life.”
DJW, that’s very near a nerve, my friend! Or maybe it’s just that I’m an ENFP/Gemini with a moon in Scorpio and a passion for Jesus.
I sincerely don’t mean anything pejorative by it, personally or generally. It’s a ‘rythym of life’ foreign to me, but it clearly has its benefits as well as its drawbacks.
I wasn’t offended, DJW; I just was admiring your pithy accuracy.
I’m going to attribute lower Catholic rates to their various pre-marriage educational programs, which include a lot of lessons intended to get the prospective partners communicating better and learning how to resolve conflicts. I know a couple that ran a “Toured Marriage” program for several years, and sat in during a couple evenings while I was dating their daughter. The programs can be very good; like anything else they require a good teacher.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that one of the factors working against Fundamentalist marriages is the black/white worldview the faith promotes. If something is not Godly, it is evil. Not the best setting for conflict resolution and compromise.
So yes those people get married younger. That’s kinda the point, they’re getting married young so they can have sex earlier, and getting divorced more because of it.
Actually, I think the point that the CT article was raising was that early marriages may as well be a function of *class* as well as *religion.* Which is not to say some Christians don’t get married earlier to have sex; certainly that happens. But it seems unfair to argue that religious teachings on pre-marital sex are the sole or even primary cause of early marriages.
Just to throw in another data point, a few years ago Statistics Canada concluded that frequent churchgoers were in fact less likely to divorce than the rest of the population. I remember their spokeswoman was very insistent that *of course*, this variance could have *nothing* to do with differences in belief systems, oh my word no, it had to be the *greater opportunities for socializing* at the *after-church coffee hour*, yeah that’s the ticket. You know, isolation is so hard on married couples.
Kidding aside, I would warn Xrlq and others about generalizing too broadly from American religious culture.
By the way, has anyone controlled these divorce rates for class, education, race etc.?
This data strikes me as a bit odd. I don’t have much recent personal information, but I used to attend a couple of very large Evangelical churches and almost no one had been divorced. It was big news when someone got divorced and in some cases could lead to their removal from the church. One very popular pastor was divorced by his wife, and even though he didn’t want the divorce, he was required to step down from the ministry.
It’s a bit hard to reconcile this experience with the idea that divorce is just as common among these people as it is among the general population.
Take it up with Barna and Christianity Today, Doc; anecdotes are not evidence, but Barna’s research is regarded as world-class.
i think it does us all good to invoke mark twain at moments like this - you know, “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” i’m not attempting to make a value judgement on the statistics presented (and debated here), but just noting that numbers can be used to prove any point, if they’re manipulated in the right way.
the real point of my comment is this, though - hugo, one sentence from one of your above comments floored me:
“For someone like me, faith is necessary in order to behave decently.”
maybe i just haven’t been reading your blog for long enough, and you’ve already been over this particular topic, but that is a fairly jaw-dropping thing to say. i, for one, would be fascinated to here more about it (or directed to some spot in the archives that would serve that purpose).
Kate, I’ve dealt with that subject obliquely but never directly. I’m mindful of the implication — that those who are’nt religiously inclined aren’t virtuous, and I want to avoid that. I write from personal experience, not in an effort to convince others that my position is universally true.
Maybe I will touch on this one day soon.
Maybe it does have more to do with income, but someone did mention age and I was responding to that.
Besides, the idea that people are more influenced by their income level than the teachings of their church when it comes to divorce, is pretty supportive of XLRQ’s contrarian question.