Statistics on Christian Marriages

Most of us who are neck deep in the evangelical subculture have heard the alarming statistics that the divorce rate among "born again Christians" is as high or higher than the divorce rate among the more secular.

In an interview on women and marriage in Christianity Today, sociologist Brad Wilcox says this:

This idea that Christians are just as likely to divorce as secular folks is not correct if we factor church attendance into our thinking. Churchgoing evangelical Protestants, churchgoing Catholics, and churchgoing mainline Protestants are all significantly less likely to divorce.

When asked how much less likely these people are to divorce, Wilcox says:

I estimate between 35 and 50 percent less likely than Americans who attend church just nominally, just once or twice a year, or who don't attend church at all. It is true that people who say they've had a born-again experience are about as likely to divorce as people who are completely secular. But if you look at this through the lens of church attendance, you see a very different story.

The bottom line for Wilcox is that, statistically speaking, church-going evangelicals tend to have far more stable marriages than the more alarmist figures indicate.  Of course, this doesn't negate the troubles of divorce when it does happen, but it does show that the marriage picture among church-goers is a little more rosy than we might think. 

My only comment to add is that a vital faith seems to be the sine qua non of stable Christian marriages.  The most stable marriages aren't necessarily those where the couple has read all of the Christian books on marriage, gone to all of the marriage seminars and retreats and learned all the techniques.  It's where Jesus Christ is the dominating factor of their lives and where His grace permeates the relationship.  Because of that, I think technique-based marital counseling (i.e. the typical stuff that comes across in most books and seminars on communication, understanding, sex, etc.) is only of limited usefulness.  Jesus has to be the dominating factor of all of life for the parties to be able to practice the self-denial and show the grace that makes a marriage work.

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Comments

[Steph]

I think that Christ being the center is entirely appropriate. If marriages truly are centered on Christ they WILL work - because if they are centered on Christ and trying to be more Christlike that entails working towards and displaying his attributes which are: selflessness, patience, diligence, long-suffering, charity (love), mercy, endurance, humility, faith (trust), knowledge, etc.

I believe that most downfalls of ours happen because of selfishness and forgetfulness and stubbornness. The marriages that work (even when they are not religious) is because they have incorporated and used the above attributes. Those that are willing to compromise, be patient, and be all around SELFLESS can make a marriage last. However, it has to go both ways. My parent's marriage failed because one was doing more than the other and trying harder. The other wasn't willing to put the work and patience and other person into it.

When we lose sight of what is important and can no longer see past ourselves and our own life we ironically lose what is most important and essential. Love. So I agree, marriages that are TRULY centered on Christ WILL last longer. But they can't just be "religious" - they have to live that religion. Someone can go to church all their life and still be as selfish as ever and have poor relationships. It comes down to the personal choice of doing what is right and what it takes to make it work.

[Jeannie]

What percentage of first marriages last 25 years or more? It's easy to find divorce statistics but not success rates.

[carla]

Could some one please indicate where I could get a hold of the complete study/statistics?
Thank you. (cposilva@gmail.com)

[Heidi Aust]

Sorry I forgot to leave a way for you to cntact me, (I'm the one with the research paper.) my email is ahha_haha@hotmail.com . it is my initials all mixed up, and my name is Heidi. Thank you for your time!

[Heidi Aust]

hi, I am writting a rather large research paper trying to prove that those who live a christian life with a relationship with God have a more joyous life than non-believers. When searching for facts I cam across your blogg and am now wondering if you have any more information that you wouldn't mind sharing?

[djchuang]

Statistics help point to some general trends of the masses, but aren't real good at getting to the particulars of people who don't fit the norm. So, let's say we use a bell-curve distribution, and say that church attendance helps the marriage of 66 2/3% of the population, but the other 33 1/3% need something more than church, something even more than a personal devotion to Jesus and His grace. Marriage is just plain hard work, and there are way too many factors at play. Some people learn how to appropriate God's grace in their particular marriage challenges, some aren't able to, or, lifestyle and habitual differences tear the marriage apart: be it communication style, priorities, psychosomatic differences, pace of life, loss of family, extended family dynamics and pressures, etc. And, then, if we looked at statistics of minimal divorce rates in Asian countries, are we to say that a vital faith is what keeps them together? Social dynamics are very much at play there; and the concept of a thriving, deeply emotionally-connected spiritually-vibrant intimate marriage is plain (mostly) foreign.

[Steve Sensenig]

This may not be particularly right on topic, but this post and the other recent one mentioning certain statistics (re: the age by which a person should be evangelized for a greater chance of them coming to faith) remind me of my frustration with a lot of these types of statistics.

Not only do most of us repeat statistics without even knowing if they are valid, but the statistics themselves can be very misleading.

For instance, the oft-repeated "half of all marriages end in divorce" supposedly came from a misreading of a statistic that showed half as many divorces in a particular time period as there were marriages. It was not a study that tracked specific marriages and found that half of them failed. I don't know all that for sure, but it shows the difficulty of basing our thinking on statistics. Statistics are so easy to skew and misread.

[DLE]

David,

Closer reading of the article has nothing to do with Christianity, though.

The top two predictors of women's satisfaction with their marriage as shown in the study were:

1. Emotional engagement by the husband.
2. The husband brought in at least 66% of the household income.

Neither of these, ultimately, have any direct connection to Christian faith. I don't see that women here said they found true happiness becaue their husbands properly assumed the role as the spiritual head of the household. Didn't seem to make the list. If anything, that second indicator only supports the idea that women are basing their assessment of their husband's worth on how much money he can bring in.

Perhaps this explains the reality that Christians today divorce at nearly the same rate as non-Christians. If women are ignoring the spiritual component of what makes a godly husband in favor of other factors, then the high divorce rate makes sense.

If anything, this shows that we need to start rethinking how we value a true Christian's worth.

[Jan]

I'm not sure the view from inside the churches is quite as settled as the statistics might suggest. The counselling room and pastoral visits make me lean toward a darker analysis of the Christian marriage state of affairs, so to speak. Or maybe that's just my personal history leaking in (I'm in my third marriage).

I won't go into the details, saying who or who was not at fault, which incidentally is never a cut and dried fact...we both were. I say that for those who lean just a bit too heavily on their Biblical get-out-of-marriage-free-card of adultery by their spouse.

From my daughter's point of view, no matter the reasons, I'm the one who abandoned her when she was six years old. She is in her twenties and we still haven't reconciled that feeling between us. My son...I saw him for the first time in six years last January (he's twenty now).

The story will never end for me this side of the Jordan's stormy banks. Nor should it. But I do take solace in the forgiveness of Christ and have committed myself, by his grace, to not repeating the past.

Why make this comment? Because I need to.

[bob s]

David, Amen brother! The BOOK is where all true believers need to be. In CHRIST alone.