Here’s something. I ran into a woman at the market yesterday who was from the Boston area and since we lived there for seven years in the 1980s we got to chat about the differences between New England and other parts of the country. One thing she pointed out was the result of apparently a new study that revealed the divorce rate in New England is lower than any other region in America. “At least we have that,” she said when I was recalling some of those nasty long winters. “And guess who has the highest divorce rate?” she asked.
I had a feeling what was coming, but I said, “Who?”
“The Bible Belt,” she said. “Leave it up to us liberal Democrats to show everyone what real family values are all about.”
She may have something there, at least from the standpoint that a region’s divorce rate may say more about real family values than any political platform. It also shows up the distance between what we say and what we do, which is probably one of the longest gaps in any religious measurement. Religious people may have the highest standards but they also have the hardest time reaching them.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this in relation to my son’s wedding coming up this weekend. I’ve been thinking about both the old covenant and new covenant aspects of marriage.
Marriage is definitely an old covenant institution, one of the first established by God. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
Marriage is a vow, a commitment… “‘Til death do us part.” And yet this does not guarantee a good marriage. A low divorce rate may only mean there are a bunch of old covenant marriages going on – people more reluctant to see divorce as a viable option to their problems. Vows alone don’t guarantee anything.
This is where the new covenant comes in. The new covenant is the old one, written on our hearts. It is what makes us new. Jesus called it “the new covenant in my blood” because it was His blood on the cross that paid for our sin and made possible our forgiveness and a new relationship with God. Suddenly there is now the possibility to be new people who live out the vows from inside out. All this comes through the Spirit of God, who becomes available to us by faith when we first believe. The Spirit is the enabler, the one who gives us the power to be who we really want to be.
Not that any of this is automatic. We have to want it, believe it and act on it; but it means the power is there. The power for the husband to love and care for his wife is available by means of the new covenant, and the power for the wife to respect her husband is available in the same way.
Do we just have committed marriages or do we have truly loving relationships in marriage? In the same way, do we have religious Christians or do we have living, thriving expressions of Christ acting in the world through His Spirit within?
There’s a lot more to marriage than the divorce rate.
John Fischer The Catch 
Felt a need to write great point & Amen to this: “There’s a lot more to marriage than the divorce rate.”
PS let me plz add: I once heard from a girl that I was dating, tell me she heard in a sermon that said: “You shouldn’t date someone, if you wouldn’t marry that person.” I replied (I was a newer believer back then) that is one of dumbest things I have ever heard and think / believe it is those type of “things” (Actually I said “jackass” thing some of these know-it-all Bible belt preachers preach!) that does nothing more then tend to set many people up for failure and divorce! You should date someone to get to know them, to see and find out if a good life long relationship is possible! And I tend to think / believe that, “love at first sight” is a bit more about lust, then it is about love. Of course I’m only speaking for myself in that regard… Yet it still to this day it about blows my mind! That someone would actually think like that, let alone say it in a sermon…
“The new covenant is the old one, written on our hearts.” I love that.
“There’s a lot more to marriage than the divorce rate.” I love that as well.
If New England has the lowest divorce rate in the country, I would say it has more to do with the old Puritan idea of “grin and bear it” than “Leave it up to us liberal Democrats to show everyone what real family values are all about.” What an idiotic statement. I would also like to see the figures on where most marriages occur. Probably the Bible Belt; which would explain why there are more divorces there. You can’t have divorces where people don’t believe in marriage.
I believe in failure. I believe that God welcomes failure. It’s how we learn. If someone isn’t failing, they’re probably not “attempting something so great for God that it is doomed to failure unless He is in it.” We’ve all heard how many times Thomas Edison failed before he came up with a successful light bulb. I know: marriage is for life. But who today is teaching couples how to have successful marriages? No one EXCEPT THE CHURCH. And still, we’re failing. I’d rather have tried and failed at something as wonderful as marriage, than to have never tried at all because it is “too difficult” or “out-dated.”
I say that as a single man. But I see in my married friends the tremendous benefits that marriage has brought to their characters and lives, and, in a way, I envy them. I don’t know what Christians in New England are like, but I LOVE my married, Bible Belt Christian friends and I want to be more like them.
Like to 2nd this: “..believe in failure. I believe that God welcomes failure. It’s how we learn. If someone isn’t failing, they’re probably not “attempting something so great for God that it is doomed to failure unless He is in it.”” and add a Amen to it too, yet I too, as a single man that has never been married, can see how being Married and having Children has added to a few of my buddies lives. 🙂
John,
Marriage was a relationship created by God, not an institution. I don’t believe that God creates institutions, but He is ALL about relationships, which He loves to create between Himself and his children, and His children to one another, whether or not they acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior. It is through relationships that the Kingdom is expanded, not through institutions!
Bob Cooling
I think many non-believers today are living together and not getting married, even when children are involved. If they decide to separate, they just move out. No divorce required. Therefore, the divorce rate is lower. However, if you are a Christian, you more than likely will follow our Lord’s instructions and marry. Yes, Christians do get divorced which would show the divorce rate to be higher among that group. I don’t think it has anything to do with geographical area or politics.
a pastor i much admire recently said to me (speaking of the machinary of the ‘church in a discussion on denominations and phariseeism) that ‘ all institutions {possibly a different noun} are of the devil—- even after reading the above comments i still have a question as to your meaning of ‘There’s a lot more to marriage than the divorce rate.’
if you’ve recollection of who i am and for readers here, know ive been faithful to a marriage my wife ended 14 yrs ago. it is a large portion of the root souce of much angst in my day to day–
i still cannot see a worthy alterative to remaining faithful to the vow i took- i’m not pining or even hoping for reconcilliation– its just – well– 2 of the 3 of (U)s are still faithful–and i like end outcome of those odds
With the perspective of being born in the Bible Belt to fundamentalist parents and having lived in New England most of my adult life (that’s about 46 years), I would like to add the observation I read in Touchstone or First Things (both great magazines/journals) that in New England when young teenage girls get pregnant, they are more likely to get an abortion or remain single, and more young people live together and never get married, therefore never get divorced. Whereas, in the Bible belt when young people get pregnant without finishing high school or college, they tend to get married out of obligation, but then that results in a higher incidence of divorce.
This doesn’t conflict with the message of New Covenant marriage vs. Old Covenant marriage; it does perhaps shoot down stereotypes about the New England area and the Bible belt South. We have a need for more New Covenant marriages everywhere.
John –
I once read this set of statistics somewhere:
* Divorce in scoiety today for the last several decades has hovered at 50%.
* For Christians, it might even be slightly higher.
* However, for the couples that pray TOGETHER, the divorce rate is 1 in 400 (1/4 of one percent)!
Why is that? Marriage is about intimacy, and how more intimate can you get with your spouse than to let them see your full vunerability in front of your God, to see your hopes, dreams, complaints, rants (and even secrets) bared before God. Thus, marriage is really a threesome, not a twosome.
We fall in love, but we DECIDE to love when we get married. And that means that you love (you take action) even if, at some point, you don’t like your spouse.
Marriage is a continuous cycle of Romance-Reality-Resentment-Reconciliation. That cycle can be as short as an hour or as long as several years. But if we realize that — and ask God for HIS strength to endure — we can move from resentment back to romance. And many of the strongest marriages I know are those where they’ve been through a resentment stage so bad that one or both was ready to throw in the towel. In fact, one “so-in-love-they-were-an-example” couple that I knew had survived one cycle so bad that, in her words, “I stayed only … ONLY because I knew I could make him more miserable than if I moved out.”
We need our older, successful couples taking newer couples alongside and mentoring them.
Amen to that, Pat.
This Sunday we will have been married 35 years. What amazes me is I haven’t screwed it up yet!
Christians like to think because we have God we have an edge up on others. The truth is we don’t. The tragedy is Christians in trouble tend to hide it from others because we’re supposed to have the answers. The lack of honesty in the church, generally speaking, causes this facade of holiness until the marriage explodes.
When your family are the only ones that see how faulted you are the pressure can be too much.
You said, “Religious people may have the highest standards but they also have the hardest time reaching them.”
Christians should work harder on living in the light they have and less about imposing their “standards” on others.
You don’t have to be Christian to have family values.
John – Like several folks above, I think the statistics are misleading, but I’m not focusing on that. I just want to thank you for the intriguing juxtaposition of old covenant and new. I very much like the way you put that. Would that all of us would be willing to order our marriages like that!
Loved “The Catch” and the comments/replies. Well done!