# Evangelicals have the highest divorce rates - Atheists the lowest **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 26, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639 "2008-10-26T16:05:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/21 "2008-10-27T02:40:16Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Well, one question is how many Evangelicals are actually “committed Evangelicals” What’s the divorce rate of _True Scotsmen_? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/22 "2008-10-27T02:57:58Z")
Are you suggesting that we should draw no distinction between people who merely call themselves evangelicals and those who attend church on a regular basis? Or those between those who simply join a church and those who are knowledgeable about the basis for their church teachings? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/23 "2008-10-27T04:51:44Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Also, the studies claiming that Evangelicals get divorced more are using nothing for their measure of whether the person surveyed is Evangelical but their claim on a survey form to belong to a denomination and not how often they go to church Is this wrong? If I think I belong to a religion do I not if I don’t go to its church? I’m not sure that all religious people would agree, and I don’t know what authority exists to say who is right. > [@](#): > > In reply to this, there are claims that in fact if you chose people with similar incomes, marriage ages, and geographical location, those who go to church more often are less likely to get divorced. This may well be right but the next step is to consider whether evangical religion affects these factors. It may well lower marriage age, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/24 "2008-10-27T08:14:04Z")
bobthebuilder writes: \> I always thought that denominations like Southern Baptists, Evangelical Free, \> Missionary Alliance, Sovereign Grace, and most Charismatic and Pentacostal \> Churches would also be evangelical? Except for the Southern Baptists, these are not the large Protestant denominations, which is what I was talking about in the post you quoted. Evangelical Free, Missionary Alliance, and Sovereign Grace churches (whatever they are) are not large denominations. Neither are churches with the words Charismatic or Pentacostal in their names. It’s hard to tell but the study that astro is quoting is apparently claiming that the mainline Protestant churches like Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, non-Southern Baptists, etc. are not **by definition** Evangelical. The study is apparently not asking people “Are you an Evangelical?”. Rather, it’s asking them, “What church do you belong to?” This is slightly strange when the study reports its results as being about whether one is an Evangelical. The term “Evangelical” is rather loosely thrown around and some Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, non-Southern Baptists, etc. call themselves Evangelicals. The thing to understand is that the study really is not about distinguishing the divorce rates of Protestants who call themselves Evangelicals and those who don’t. Rather, it’s splitting all Protestants into two groups: 1. Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, non-southern Baptists, etc. 2. Evangelical Free, Missionary Alliance, Sovereign Grace, most Charismatic and Pentacostal Churches, etc. (and, apparently, Southern Baptists) It’s then adding a third group, the people who self-identify as agnostics and atheists. It doesn’t bother to mention the divorce rates among Catholics, Jews, Moslems, or any other religious groups. Furthermore, it doesn’t distinguish between people who regularly attend church and those who essentially never attend church but who claim to be a member of some denomination. Princhester writes: \> This may well be right but the next step is to consider whether evangical \> religion affects these factors. It may well lower marriage age, for example. Yes, you’re right, but this is the **next** step. It’s not covered in this study at all. The causation could go the opposite direction. Perhaps people who are below average in income and education tend to join the churches in the second group above. Perhaps people who are above average in income and education tend to join the churches in the first group above. Perhaps it’s income and education that determine divorce rate. Furthermore, geographic factors might determine divorce rates. For instance, suppose we looked at suicide rates over a group of people that lived in Japan and the U.S. We could find a correlation between being a Buddhist and committing suicide. It would be a false correlation. The real causation is that the Japanese tend to have a higher suicide rate and that the Japanese are more likely to be Buddhists. Again, I’m not disagreeing with any of the opinions expressed here. They may be correct. It’s just that the survey quoted by astro isn’t necessarily relevant to them. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/25 "2008-10-27T08:20:10Z")
Princhester writes: \> Is this wrong? If I think I belong to a religion do I not if I don’t go to its church? \> I’m not sure that all religious people would agree, and I don’t know what \> authority exists to say who is right. The problem is that some people here are interpreting the study quoted by astro as if it’s saying that the more one attends certain churches, the more likely one is to get divorced. The study proves no such thing. The study only distinguishes what church one claims to belong to. There are a **lot** of people in the U.S. who claim to belong to a denomination but who never attend church. The study says nothing about whether actually attending services has any relevance to the divorce rate. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/26 "2008-10-27T10:01:27Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > The problem is that some people here are interpreting the study quoted by astro as if it’s saying that the more one attends certain churches, the more likely one is to get divorced. Who is saying that precisely? You and Dangerosa are the only ones talking about this evangelical/churchgoing distinction, and neither of you are suggesting what you just said. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/27 "2008-10-27T13:02:05Z")
> [@Lucretia](#): > > Conservative Christianity not only declares that the only proper place for sex is within marriage, which results in people getting married who really only want to have sex… That kind of mentality is pretty much how I explained to my relatives how come so many people in American movies (and American reality) are divorced by the time they’re 30, from the wisdom of my 25 years of age and a few months living in the USA: “Well, see, here if you want to bed each other and you can’t wait, well, you go and sleep together, k? They don’t. There, kids who have known each other for three months in college decide they can’t live without each other but how are they going to have sex without being married, no no! So they go and get married, and then often what happens is, as soon as the pink mist disperses, they go and get divorced. And if they’ve been lucky, they don’t have one or three kids to deal with…” “Gee, sounds like the 24-hour marriages at the time of the '36 Civil War!” “Pretty much, only with more paperwork.” ---
**Author:** ![Lucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/13edae/32.png) [@Lucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucretia)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/28 "2008-10-27T13:46:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “Well, see, here if you want to bed each other and you can’t wait, well, you go and sleep together, k? They don’t. There, kids who have known each other for three months in college decide they can’t live without each other but how are they going to have sex without being married, no no! So they go and get married, and then often what happens is, as soon as the pink mist disperses, they go and get divorced. And if they’ve been lucky, they don’t have one or three kids to deal with…” To be fair, I really think people that actually live the ‘no sex before marriage’ rule are a fairly small minority here. It’s only in the strictest of various religions that you’ll find a majority of people who don’t sleep together outside of marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/29 "2008-10-27T14:04:50Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Is this wrong? If I think I belong to a religion do I not if I don’t go to its church? I’m not sure that all religious people would agree, and I don’t know what authority exists to say who is right. I would say that there are levels to belonging to a religion, and that people participate with differing levels of commitment. For instance, in our household “we” are Unitarians. I’m a fairly committed Unitarian (as such things go) in that I teach Sunday School - I’m not a really committed Unitarian in that I don’t spend a lot of my free time trying to remake the world according to Unitarian principals. Brainiac4 is a Unitarian in that several times a year he goes to service with me, and when asked his religion says “Unitarian” or “Atheist” depending on his audience. There is certainly a correlation between religious faith and living the values of that faith - but its less than 100%. I know a few Buddhist non-vegetarians, practicing Jews who don’t keep kosher, Catholics who don’t bother with the whole Lent thing (and a ton of Catholics who practice birth control). Checking a mark on a survey form is easy. Showing up in church a few times a year isn’t much harder. Living the complete set of values of nearly any faith - very difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/30 "2008-10-27T14:27:33Z")
> [@dre2xl](#): > > It’s made all the worse that women are pressurized to marry young and have babies young. Well, it _does_ help with making them look thin, but all that PSI can’t help their baby-making chances any. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/31 "2008-10-27T14:55:14Z")
> [@Lucretia](#): > > To be fair, I really think people that actually live the ‘no sex before marriage’ rule are a fairly small minority here. It’s only in the strictest of various religions that you’ll find a majority of people who don’t sleep together outside of marriage. Yeah, but often those who think like that end up getting divorced pretty fast, in the USA and in what was my limited and shocked experience at the time. And in Spain those who are that strict do not get divorced - period. The combination of “you can’t have sex without being married” + “divorce is ok” isn’t something you run into in Spain. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/32 "2008-10-27T19:18:25Z")
It seems to me that it would be meaningful to know the marriage rate. Offhand, one might expect that evangelicals would marry more readily than atheists; that is, they’d be less likely to shack up. Thus, the overall rate of failure of committed relationships might not be that different. It’s just that fewer of those relationships were marital among the atheists. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639/33 "2008-10-27T20:58:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Yeah, but often those who think like that end up getting divorced pretty fast, in the USA and in what was my limited and shocked experience at the time. And in Spain those who are that strict do not get divorced - period. The combination of “you can’t have sex without being married” + “divorce is ok” isn’t something you run into in Spain. I think you’re going to need some hard numbers to back up such a huge generalization. As long as we’re in anecdote-land, I can counter with the fact that I know a heck of a lot of people who waited until marriage, and the vast majority of them aren’t divorced and are happy. (Take, for example, the 14 couples I knew who got married the same year I married my husband, 1996. One is divorced, because of the wife’s severe mental problems–she did the leaving. The rest are still together and apparently fine.) Of course, all those couples were highly educated, so that might be more important in all cases. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evangelicals-have-the-highest-divorce-rates-atheists-the-lowest/469639.md?page=1)