Christian Divorce

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Truthcast - News and views in the light of God's truth

Born-Again Christians and Divorce:
Do They Do Better Than Non-Christians?

By Vytas Safroncikas
June 30, 2000

(Truthcast.com/AgapePress) - Six months after releasing his findings, the head of California-based
Barna Research Group is defending and explaining the results of his research that shows the divorce
rate among born-again Christians across the nation is higher than non-Christians.

Talk to Christian leaders anywhere, and you'll come away feeling that born-again Christians just
don't get divorced as often as the rest of society. There's good reason for that belief. Most churches
teach that divorce is either not allowed, or allowed under only very limited circumstances, such as
marital infidelity. The disturbing revelation is, as society has grown more comfortable with divorce,
so have a great number of Christians. And today, far too many are not seeing the danger in their
own homes.

In December of 1999, George Barna published the results of a survey which found that 34 percent
of adult members of non-denominational Christian churches have experienced divorce in their
lifetime, in contrast with 21 percent for atheists, agnostics and Roman Catholics. Baptists had the
highest rate for born-again denominational Christians at 29 percent. The Mormon divorce rate was
24 percent. Overall, 27 percent of born-again Christians have experienced divorce compared to
24 percent for the rest of Americans. Nearly four thousand interviews were conducted, leaving a
very small margin of error.

George Barna's research confirms what he says is a pattern that has existed for some time. The
study raises questions about the effectiveness of how well churches minister for families. The
common wisdom has been that churches provide practical and effective support for marriages. The
Barna Research Group study challenges these assumptions.

From his Ventura, California offices, Barna says he continues to stand by his statistics, even though
they have raised a lot of eyebrows, upset some, and angered others. He's received a lot of
questions and listened to concerns raised by many during the first half of this year. George Barna
knows he's not been able to communicate with everyone who has had a reaction to the study, a
study that has been noted in numerous pulpits.

The figures Barna Research released vary greatly from the 50 percent divorce figure often used in
church pulpits and in the media. That big figure is usually derived by dividing the total number of
marriages in a year by the total number of divorces during the same year. The result is typically
around 50 percent on average, because there are about twice as many marriages as divorces.
However, that figure doesn't take into account factors such as multiple divorces, two, three or
more in a lifetime among the population. The real percentage is closer to half the generally reported
figure. It's lower, but the realization that one-quarter of all marriages end in divorce is a true
tragedy, particularly when it hits so-called divorce-proof families. He doesn't do research outside
the country and can't confirm this, but Barna says he has been told that the U.S. ranks number one
in the world in broken marriages.

Barna lays out some facts that shed some more light on his recent research. Among the Christians
who have been divorced and are married to a non-Christian, they were "unequally yoked" when
they got married; the disparity did not suddenly occur after they were married. Therefore,
dismissing their divorce on the grounds that his researchers were evaluating "mixed marriages"
makes no sense. The divorce statistic simply shows what percentage of Christians have been
divorced, regardless of what type of person they married. More than one out of every four
believers has been through at least one divorce, whether people co-habit or not prior to marriage.
Of more than 70 other moral behaviors Barna studies, when comparing Christians to
non-Christians, he rarely finds substantial differences.

It's probably accurate to say that the high Christian divorce rate is the result of a growing
acceptance of relative truth and situational ethics, not just in society as a whole, but inside The
Church itself. Christians often believe God wants them to be happy. They tend to forget that in the
Bible, God says "I hate divorce".

[Vytas Safroncikas is editor of Truthcast.com]

Copyright 2000 Truthcast.com and Agape Press