2008 California Election Forum

On my bookshelf is a book that I got at a Christian bookstore more than 20 years ago.

As I read it, I realized the author knew nothing about economics. And he had no respect for individual freedom.

Since then, author Ron Sider has been called an advocate for Christian socialism with his Evangelicals for Social Action.

One of the lies he has popularized is that Christian families are no different from secular families. He has said that Evangelicals and born-again Christians divorce at the same rate as, or slightly more often than, other Americans. He also said Christians were having extramarital sex at the same rate as non-Christians.

This has always bothered me. One of the most important lessons I taught in my Bible class for singles was how Christians can divorce-proof their marriage.

Recently, Dr. Brad Wilcox and Dr. Byron Johnson did something that hadn’t been done before: they studied the religious practices of people who called themselves Christians. They did this by looking at the rates of church attendees.

Here is what they found:

1. Those who do attend church weekly are less likely to divorce. In fact, their marriages are considered “happy.”
2. As church attendance declines, divorces rise.

In other words, there is a direct connection between strong marriages and being a Christian who regularly attends church.