Do Faith and Political Party Matter in Divorce?

Jim Phelan
Apr 1, 2008 at 3:32 PM
16 comments

I found the results of a new study conducted by the Barna Group interesting. The researchers interviewed 3792 married adults (a random sample) from US households. Those who identified as evangelical Christians represented the lowest percentage of adults who were married and had gotten divorced (25%) verses those who were associated with non Christian faith (37%). Divorce among those who had been married was the lowest for those who identified themselves as “conservative” (28%) and highest for those who identified as “liberal” (37%).

Divorce among those who had been married for the total sample was 33%, which is well below the 50% statistic that is oft cited.

Do faith and/or political party matter when it comes to divorce?

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Now this is a study that asks the right questions. The quotes the liberals have been using have compared the number of marriages to the number of divorces. This does not take into account the repeat offenders, those who've married and divorced multiple times. Now we are getting some real numbers.

Getting statistics on the habits of Christians vs. non-Christians from the Barma group is about like getting economic and human rights data on the U.S. from the Communist party. They're not exactly an unbiased source. It's also interesting to note that this directly contradicts another study made by the same group on the same subject in 2000. Has that much really changed in 8 years?

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In my opinion, this study confirms what we already know. LIBERALS have no MORALS and especially no FAMILY VALUES. That is all. :-)

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I think faith and political leanings directly impact the longevity of any marriage, but these beliefs have to be equally shared and followed by your spouse. These studies all start from a bias of some sort. Everyone wants to be the group that has the lowest divorce rate because of their particular theology, or lack of it. Studies aside, you can call yourself a Christian, or an atheist, but how true are you to your tenet? Common sense would tell me that 2 atheists who have similar core beliefs will be more happily married. Same with Christians. The biggest difference between the atheist and the Christian couple would be faith in God, and a willingness to follow His word. Churches are a great support for marriage and family. But going to church, and following Christ, are often 2 different things. The starkest contrast wouldn't probably be revealed until a couple has children. God created marriage for the protection of our children. Did any of these studies have data about when divorce occurred as it relates to children? Since divorce is so prevalent, along with crime and illegitimate birth rates, and they have been similarly increasing in a parallel way, it's clear to me that marriage is the best position in which to raise children. This is what God's word tells us also. I think we can all agree that divorce has a negative effect on any society. No wonder every kind of group is scrambling to be known as the group with the lowest divorce rate. But, it is the Christian who has the written word of God to support marriage, and the church to support his/her struggles in marriage. If I were a betting person, I'd wager for the success of any Christian marriage over any atheist marriage, any day, regardless of the studies.

I think that people are people and therefore not perfect.

I think that people are people and therefore not perfect. A person's faith or political position I think influence their willingness to go through with the divorce but the desire for the divorce or circumstance is still there. People in high profile positions like evangelists or politicians are viewed certain ways and a concern for negative feedback and in terms of their occupations is a definite concern, though in my opinion their personal lives shouldn't be turned into occupational hazards. I just read an article at www.firstwivesworld.com talking more about this topic and I thought it was very interesting it was called "Evangelists Hold The Keys To Marriage"
Check it out at

http://www.firstwivesworld.com/relevant-news/faith-eggers/evangelicals-hold-the-key-marriage

Just my two cents

Ann Marie

Sheri,

While Barna is self-identified as a Christian organization, the randomized method would have shown the same results regardless of who did the polling. The fact that they show what they found, even though it didn't back up prior research does show they fair report regardless of bias. I see you are self- described as a "student" -- Keep on learning!

Jim Phelan replied to Ann Marie’s comment:
Apr 1, 2008
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Thanks, Ann Marie.

Whenever I come across quotes like this my usual response is 85% of women are bisexual and the other 15% are lying, 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot and 5 out of 4 people are bad at fractions.

Now I understand that I'm understating the gravity of these results but pulling statistics like this and pointing out direct correlations to what people identify themselves as and who they are doesn't really work.

Consider this: A young couple with conservative christian parents and upbringing get married at the age of 18 after exercising chastity all through high school and being good Christian kids decide that sex before marriage is wrong so just after graduating they marry and then proceed on with their lives.

Now as the world spins this young couple have to move to another city for work or education or both and lose touch with their original friends. Their values change with their environment and suddenly the reasons they originally married for don't seem to mean so much anymore and they can't talk to their parents or family because they simply don't understand, theirs is a different world. So with no one to look to for guidance they divorce, much to both their families dismay creating an even further gap. This gap leads to a degree of resentment and the old values the children were taught are pushed away and new friends teach them new ways.

My point here is that to say Conservative Christians get divorced less from those statistics is to not examine the real crux of the issue. Divorce is a traumatic event, perhaps it could be the reason why people change their beliefs rather than their beliefs preventing the traumatic event? I'm sure in some cases this is true and in others I'm completely wrong, which goes to illustrate my point even further, which is that these sorts of statistics can't display the whole of the issue without delving further.

The fact that they show what they found, even though it didn't back up prior research does show they fair report regardless of bias.

So, if a liberal think tank produced two randomized studies with contradictory results, you'd automatically assume that those results were valid because they were randomized and contradictory? Not buying it.

So, you don't trust the statisitics, or the organization producing them? It wouldn't be hard to dudlicate, should a "liberal think tank" (oxymoron?) wish to do so. But, in my opinion, liberals react to feelings, not facts.

Another thing to consider - divorce may sometimes be the best solution to an unhealthy marriage. Could some of those cases where there is a higher percentage of divorcees be because they realize that (in their case) it is healthier for the couple to divorce than to remain together?

We'll never know what could have been, but it still remains an interesting question, and is the reason I think these things need to be considered on a case-by-case basis, rather than lumped into a group of conservative vs. liberal, evangelical christian vs. non.

And I like to see how Jews vs. non-Jews, Buddhists vs. non-Buddhists, etc measured up. I think the numbers would be pretty similar to those found here, although I have little to back that up.

I agree with Ross, in that probably you would find similar numbers among any religious group in general as opposed to those professing no religion (or atheist or agnostic), as most traditional religions admonish their followers against divorce.
But I have to disagree with bluesingingcat where she says:
"Everyone wants to be the group that has the lowest divorce rate because of their particular theology, or lack of it."
I don't think that is necessarily true. If your ethical compass points you in a direction away from religion, to either no religion or the "religion" of humanism or atheism, why would you then necessarily find divorce a bad thing? If you look at what Hollywood puts out there (who are about as humanistic a group as you can get), then divorce is okay...in fact, adultery is okay, as long as you "love" the person. (Well, if you just lust them, it's okay, too.) My point is, that not everyone thinks that divorce is the bane of social health. For example, I point to Ross' comment above: "divorce may sometimes be the best solution to an unhealthy marriage."
If people in our society don't see divorce as a problem, why would they care if this group or that group has lower divorce statistics? And similarly, why would any group see the need to "spin" their statistics to bias it one way or another?

I don't trust either one.

Subjective data is inherently subject to such a plethora of flaws and biases that at the very least, it should always be taken with a large grain of coarse salt. For example, the first study was criticized by ministers who didn't like its results because they pointed out that a lot of the people who self-identify as "born-again" Christians would not fit their definition of such. Do you really expect to hear the same objection this time? I'd bet no - the data says what they want it to, so the problem of how the surveyors verify the authenticity of the "born again" experience will likely disappear in this round.

Subjective data can be skewed by even slight bias - the way a question is worded, the tone of voice of the interviewer - these can change a statistically significant number of responses. You should know this. This is covered in the first half-semester of Psych 101, Statistics 101, and in every statistics course after that. It's as fundamental to data-interpretation as the x and y axes.

So is data that is so sensitive to even slight bias to be trusted when coming from a group with an obvious and heavy bias? No. The Barna group is an Evangelical organization with a clear agenda. If they flipped coins, and recorded data on whether the coins landed on heads or tails, the data would be trustworthy. But this is subjective data on religion coming from a religious group with a clear agenda of promoting their religion. It's about as reliable as data on abortion coming from NARAL. In other words, it's junk.

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I AGREE ,, my wife and I are conservitive republicans , and we have been married 41 years and very happy !!!!!!

An excerpt from the study:

For instance, the groups with the most prolific experience of marriage ending in divorce are downscale adults (39%), Baby Boomers (38%), those aligned with a non-Christian faith (38%), African-Americans (36%), and people who consider themselves to be liberal on social and political matters (37%).

Among the population segments with the lowest likelihood of having been divorced subsequent to marriage are Catholics (28%), evangelicals (26%), upscale adults (22%), Asians (20%) and those who deem themselves to be conservative on social and political matters (28%).

Look at all segments cited. By promoting "Evangelical Christians" vs. non-Christians, does this mean that Jews and Muslims have a high divorce rate? I find that hard to believe. But I could be wrong.

What should we conclude about African Americans? People who are poor? Seems like important data gets overlooked by leaving out those groups.

Shouldn't the conclusions about poverty and other issues be part of this? Or was the sole purpose of the study demonstrate Evangelical Christians who were Conservative have better marriage rates?

I agree that this as a problem for society to embrace. I can tell you, if people were taught that even if the bad stuff happens in a marriage, you don't cut and run, you stick it out, maybe things would be different. But that's not what happens. It seems sad that in our transient society, the two most important careers for anyone to ever have, which are the most difficult: marriage and parenthood, are not taught anywhere. There are no classes on how to parent, or how to stay in a marriage. Well, there are some marriage programs in churches. But gone are the days of extended families living together or close by and supporting each other and teaching the art of marriage and parenting.

So by just focusing on faith and philosophy all they really did was pat themselves on the back for being right. It didn't forward the action. It simply served to promote Conservatives are good. Liberals are bad. Christians are good and Evangelical Christians are the best. Sorry. A bit cynical that key points that could help the greater good were just left out. So to me, there are underlying nuggets within the fact that Evangelical Conservative Christians have best marriage rate - but those points aren't drawn out.

Do Faith and Political Party Matter in Divorce?

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