The Myth Of The Christian Divorce Rate (October 23, 2005)

From time to time I hear that the divorce rate among Christians is about the same as it is for the population in general. This statistic is presented as fact, a lamentable and ugly thing that requires soul-searching and repentance on the part of the church. But it seems to me that a couple basic things are not being taken into account when it comes to determining this "Christian divorce rate."

First of all, the matter of consent is always ignored. If I were asked, for example, "What is the rape rate among Christians?" I would want to know exactly what that question meant. Does it mean, "What percentage of Christian believers commit rape?" I think the right answer is zero. Christians don't do that. By committing such an act a man would prove that he was not a Christian at all. "But suppose he says he's a Christian and he goes to church all the time?" Well, so what? A man can put on a red suit and say "Ho ho ho" but that does not make him Santa Claus. I think there are cases (unless I just saw it in a movie) where criminals have donned masks of former U.S. presidents and then robbed banks. Does that make us fret about armed robbery committed by ex-presidents? Of course not. Just as no real ex-president has ever robbed a bank, so no real Christian has ever raped - though no doubt many rapists have donned the mask of a Christian façade.

But if the question about the rate of rape among Christians means, "What percentage of Christians have been raped?" I would say I don't know. But whether the right answer is 0 or 100, it is irrelevant to the point of what sins that Christian, or the church as a whole, needs to repent of. It is not a sin to be raped.

If the questioner wanted to erase the distinction, saying, "Raping, being raped - whatever, it's all the same. I just want to know what the rape rate is," then I would answer, "You are so evil that I don't want to talk to you." To lump together perpetrator and victim in a single statistical category and say, "They were involved in a bad thing," is despicable. We don't say that Jews and Nazis had a high
genocide rate. We say that Nazis killed Jews.

In the same way, to speak meaningfully of a divorce rate we really have to know who is divorcing whom and who is consenting to what. Of course, there are plenty of divorces by mutual consent, and there are plenty of bad people who deserve to be divorced by their longsuffering spouses. But there are also good people who are divorced without their consent and against their will by spouses who have handed themselves over to the devil. I deny that there is any insight to be gained by artificially grouping together these disparate categories. Labeling it all "divorce" distorts and artificially inflates the problem, and insidiously reduces the blame that is due perpetrators by stretching it out to cover victims as well. Imagine if the list of registered sex offenders were expanded to include the people they had abused. The total number would be astounding, but not enlightening. And the victims would be fully justified in taking offense and saying, "Our names should not be on the same list as those who hurt us."

In divorce there are victims and perpetrators. Until we can sort that out, it remains as invalid to speak of a "divorce rate" as it is to speak of a generalized rape, abuse or genocide rate.

The other problem I have with the notion of a "Christian divorce rate" is that I never see it specified as to whether one or both parties are Christians. This makes all the difference in the world. If an unbeliever divorces his believing spouse, does that count toward being included in the overall Christian divorce rate? I don't think it should. When Christians are mistreated by unbelievers, we lament and sympathize with them, but we do not rend our clothes and say, "What is the matter with us Christians? We really need to do better." In this case it is the unbelievers who need to do better. The problem here is not with those who embrace the faith but with those who reject it!

I know lots and lots of divorced and divorcing people. But I do not know a single instance, not even one, of two Christians who have divorced each other. I'd be curious to know if anyone who reads this page knows of even one such case. What I have seen are apostates - those who deserted their faith along with their spouses, and frauds - those who claimed to be Christians but whose infidelities or other sins made it clear that they really weren't believers at all. What I have never known is a case where I could say, "These are two real Christian believers who just could not get along, and one divorced the other."

Until I am otherwise convinced, I do not believe that the real "Christian divorce rate," meaningfully defined, is 30, 40, or 50 percent. I think it is zero.