Christian Divorce Rates — Years ago I volunteered at a well-known abortion alternative center. Pregnant women would come in and we would provide a free pregnancy test, would clearly state we were not an abortion clinic and explain alternatives for the mother and child. Part of the intake form included a question regarding the faith of the person coming in to receive our help. I was new at the organization and had to fill out the form. I asked the young lady if she was a Christian. She told me that she was not, but that she believed that a god existed although she did not really go to church. I asked if she had ever attended church she said she had once visited a Catholic church but that was years ago and she never really went. So, on the form I selected that she was not a believer. Later that week, the person in charge of the center called me into the office to question me about the fact that I had marked unbeliever. She said that very rarely anyone who came in was marked as “unbeliever”. I defended my choice and told her that the girl said so herself. The supervisor ignored my statements and asked if the girl had attended a church at any point in her life. I told her that she had only attended a Catholic church once and never went again and that she herself said she was not a Christian. The supervisor promptly told me “well, that is it, she is Catholic because she attended once so you have to change that on the form.” I protested that it was not accurate, but it didn’t matter. Those statistics from that office and others like it are sent to a database nationwide. These are the same stats they use to claim Christians have abortions at the same rate as non-believers. However, their definition of Christianity is extremely loose. The rule was that if the girl even stepped into a church or her parents went to a church then the girls were considered Christians and whatever denomination that was that is what they were marked (i.e., protestant, evangelical, etc.) After that incident I realized that a lot of the statistics that claim Christian women are getting abortions are likely skewed. I figured that other statistics were as well. I left the organization in disgust. The only reason I could figure they were doing this was to compel Christians to donate. It made me sick to my stomach that an organization that is supposed to have Christian values is being so deceptive. These days, I eye any statistic or research with great skepticism. I am glad someone else had the courage to say something. Thanks for the post.

I think this is the most interesting statistic in the article.”Nominally attending conservative Protestants are 20 percent MORE likely to divorce, compared to secular Americans.”

I’d love to hear some commentary on why that is.

That’s odd… King’s Cross came out two weeks ago here in Aus. I knew we were ahead in the time zone equation, but not by that much!

@Ken All that quote is doing is accurately reporting statistics. It would be disingenuous to report that being a committed Christian made your marriage much less likely to fall apart if the stats showed that there was little difference between the faiths. Anyway, what stats can’t show is the quality of the marriage, for example, cultures which practice arranged marriage often have very low divorce rates (probably lower than most groups of committed Christians), but what percentage are happy? The stats can’t report these deeper issues. Nothing to worry about here!