Divorce and the Church: A Lot Less Than You Think

And it's a lie pastors need to stop telling.

by Rod D. Martin
November 7, 2013

A fact checker report finds that the divorce rate among practicing Christians is more than 33% lower than you think it is.  And that's both a blessing and a big, big problem.

Mark Twain's list of the three kinds of lies applies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Millions -- including a lot of gullible pastors -- believe that Christians have the same divorce rate (or higher!) than the world at large. Well, that turns out to be true...but only if you include people who self-identify as "Christian" without ever going to church or in any other way actually being one. Turns out that actual practicing Christians have a radically lower divorce rate. Hmmm....

The gullible pastors in question will protest that even if our divorce rate is just 38% instead of 60%, well, that's still way too high. And it is. My suggestion: if you guys wouldn't spread worldly, easily disprovable lies about how prevalent divorce is in the church, maybe divorce would be less socially…