Marriage Initiative Unveiled at Christian Counselors Event

Brace yourself for the latest batch of research results: Born-again Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-born again adults. A new study from Barna Research Group, released earlier this month, shows that 33 percent of all born-again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce. That number is statistically identical to the 34 percent of non-born again adults who divorce, says Barna.

Anticipating "hostility and denials" that emerge whenever his company releases new survey data showing that massive numbers of born-again Christians get divorced, researcher George Barna provided additional details regarding the data. "The adults analyzed in the born-again category were not those who claimed to be born again, but were individuals who stated a personal commitment to Christ, confessed their sins, embraced Christ as their savior, and believe that they have received eternal salvation because of their faith in Christ alone.

"More than 90 percent of the born-again adults who have been divorced experienced that divorce after they accepted Christ, not before," Barna adds. "It is unfortunate that so many people, regardless of their faith, experience a divorce, but especially unsettling to find that the faith commitment of so many born-again individuals has not enabled them to strengthen and save their marriages."

Using Barna's gloomy pronouncement as a battle cry, some 6,000 Christian counselors are meeting in Nashville this week to grapple with solutions to the devastating problem of divorce. The American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC), the largest faith-based counseling association in the world, will announce at its 2001 World Conference a new commitment and goal to help build healthy marriages based on biblical principles.

In collaboration with Christian counselor Gary Smalley and the Smalley Relationship Center, and Les and Leslie Parrott of the Center for Relationship Development, the AACC will seek to train 100,000 married couples as marriage coaches within 10,000 churches across the country over the next five years.

Marriage coaches will mentor married couples, and serve as examples of biblical marriages in churches and communities to improve the divorce statistics.

Smalley provides a humorous example of mentoring: After reading a marriage book, a retired accountant and his wife realized the importance of having friends as support. After finishing some work around the house, the wife decided to call another couple to see what they were doing. "Not much," said the other wife, "we're just drinking tea and talking."

The accountant's wife hung up the phone. "Why don't we do that?" she demanded. "They're just drinking tea and talking."

"So," said the accountant, "fix us a pot of tea." Soon they sat with their freshly brewed tea, staring at each other. "Call them back," he directed, "and find out what they're talking about."

According to Smalley, this story illustrates how a support network can help improve a relationship. The moment the couple had difficulty communicating, they called their friends for help. The support that the retired accountant and his wife received is an example of mentoring.

"Having a friend to stand beside you, to put his or her arm around you when you're weeping, to provide comfort and conversation, and help lead you towards the right decision is what [mentoring] is all about. But it's the power of God's love through close friendships that seem to provide the strength necessary to keep going," adds Smalley.

Members of the AACC, who are meeting Aug. 29-Sept. 1, want to call not just the church, "but the greater world community and the nation to some type of effort to curb, to reduce, the divorce rate," says AACC president Tim Clinton.

The 45,000-member association provides a place where counselors who are committed to incorporating faith into their care can find professional development and continuing education. The AACC offers conferences, workshops, forums and publications with the latest thinking on faith-based mental health care in areas such as depression, grief and teen isolation.

But helping marriages is a primary goal. "If you look at the institution of marriage, you don't go very far in Scripture to realize this is a God-ordained intimate bond and something that God has always desired to bless," says Clinton. "Then you don't have to go much further in Genesis to realize there is an all-out assault to destroy that bond."

According to Clinton, "It seems like we are in an absolute cultural war when it comes to marriage. The divorce rate is still at an epidemic proportion. An estimated 40 to 50 percent of today's marriages, people who are getting married this year, will end up getting divorced by the time they reach the peak of their marital years."

John Gottman from the University of Washington found that by counting people who separate and never go back to their marriage, but do not divorce, that number can soar to 67 percent.

"To me that is just a statistic," says Clinton. "It doesn't tell the true story of what's going on behind closed doors in the quiet corners of a lot of hearts of people who are just battered by the atrocities of everyday living, whether it is physical problems, money problems, kids gone bad. It seems like everything in life is just working against love and marriage.

"It's one tough assignment," Clinton adds.

Les and Leslie Parrott say most of their advice directs counselors to attack myths that hobble marriages from the start - myths that say - "My spouse will make me whole."

If you believe somebody can complete you, "you are setting yourself up for serious heartbreak," Les Parrott says.

"Young people tell us that if they are in love and God is with them, then that is all they need," says Leslie Parrott. "Later, if they are not happy, they say, 'God wants me to get a divorce.' There is very little appreciation that marriage requires hard work and communication skills. They have been shown by the example of friends and family that when things go bad, you just get divorced."

Says Clinton: "Our prayer is over the next five years that God would allow us in some small way through the mentoring program, plus several other AACC initiatives, to help curb the whole divorce trend."