Abusive Relationships and the Culture War on Marriage

Keeping people in abusive relationships is not the way to fight a culture war on marriage.

I continue my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce. We look at how churches and other pro-marriage organizations seem to focus on the statistics of divorce - instead of the underlying reasons for it. We also take a look at the common misconceptions about the result of divorce - including the impact of ending an abusive marriage has on children.

Excerpt

Reuel Sample:
In the Old Testament, we see an outlet for divorce. We see laws that are in the Talmud and other places for both men and women to get to get out of an abusive or unfulfilling marriage. So why are churches so reluctant to embrace this idea today?

Gretchen Baskerville:
Yeah, I think part of it is that we have made divorce a culture war issue. And, you know, we've had other culture war issues in the past, but today it is a culture war issue.

Reuel Sample:
Now when you when you say culture war, you're basically saying that we as Christians have have drawn the line at the sanctity of marriage is that is that Christians are committed to marriage, they're committed to keeping things going and that's what separates us from them.

Gretchen Baskerville:
Right. It's sort of this litmus test, and because some of some leaders in Christianity, I don't know if you want me to name names have actually gone public and said, Listen, our divorce rates need to be lower than the rest of the world, and they just aren't, you know, they don't look good. And how are we going to prove that Jesus changes lives if we don't divorce less? And so this one particular Christian leader, you know, basically made it made a big deal, made divorce to be the evidence of moral decay, not the things that cause divorce. And my response to him, I I didn't reach out to him directly, but my response to that is OK. If serial adultery, if sexual immorality, if physical violence, if emotional abuse, if family crushing addictions all ended tomorrow. We know mathematically that the divorce rate for Christians would drop in half by next year. I mean, it's it's very simple. We've already discussed that about half of divorces in the United States today are for genuinely life saving reasons, those incredibly serious reasons. So if we, as Christians want to say, Hey, we God makes a difference in our life, faith makes us better people. Ok, let's see it happen. Let's see those marriage endangering sins disappear because I guarantee our divorce rates