Tuesday, May 14, 2013

An Interesting Article About Christians and Divorce

"If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: The divorce rate among Christians is basically the same as it is among non-Christians. We usually hear this argument from fellow Christians, who ask, “How can we make a stink about the sanctity of marriage if we’re divorcing at the same rate as the world?”

The problem is, it’s not quite true.

As Brad Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and Director of the National Marriage Project, found that active, conservative members of both Protestant and Catholic churches are significantly less likely to divorce—by 35% and 31%, respectively—than Americans who are religiously unaffiliated.

(The numbers often get skewed because most studies fail to take into account the level of religious commitment and practice among those who identify themselves as Christians. Those who claim to be Christian but rarely darken the door of a church divorce at a rate 20% higher than secular Americans.)

Okay, so you might be asking, why does this matter?

This Christian divorce myth finds an all-too-eager audience among those who oppose Christian sexual ethics. I’ve heard it argued by liberal activists for years: “Christians have no right to lecture the culture about God’s plan for marriage; they can’t even keep their own marriages together.”

As Wilcox’s study indicates, that’s not entirely the case. Faith—more specifically, Christianity that’s lived out and taken seriously—makes a significant difference in the stability of marriage.

I’m not suggesting that Christians have it all together. The divorce rate in the Church is still disappointingly high. But this data does expose that one of our culture’s favorite charges against Christians is just not true."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
excerpt from an article on LifeSiteNews.com       click here to read more

LifeSiteNews.com is a non-profit service dedicated to spreading the truth concerning issues of life, family, and culture in our world today. LifeSiteNews Daily News reports and information pages are used by numerous organizations and publications, educators, professionals and political, religious and life and family organization leaders and grassroots people across North America and internationally. LifeSiteNews.com Daily News reports are widely circulated reports on important developments in the United States, Canada and around the world. Their purpose is to provide balance and more accurate coverage on culture, life and family matters than is usually given by other media. Available by free daily email subscription and on LifeSiteNews.com.