If you’re new to my blog, read this first. I’m a committed Christian who started leading Christian divorce recovery groups in Evangelical churches in 1998. I write about “life-saving divorces,” those divorces that are for very serious reasons. “Life-saving divorces” make up nearly half of divorces in the United States. Read the definition HERE. If you want to know why you should have a nuanced view of divorce, see THIS. And here is the biblical rationale for condoning life-saving divorces. Although I believe many divorces are treacherous and/or sinful, I believe a loving God gave divorce to protect the lives of his beloved people, who are made in his image, by allowing them to get out of destructive marriages.
There Is No Divorce Crisis. There Is a Marriage-Endangering Sin Crisis.
UPDATED August 19, 2025. Despite what many Christians have heard for decades, we do not currently have a rising divorce crisis in the United States. The divorce rate is lower than it was 55 years ago. The historical high point was in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
At this point, someone usually responds, “Of course the divorce rate is lower. Fewer people are getting married.” It is true that the marriage rate has declined. However, that fact does not explain this particular measure of the divorce rate.
The graph commonly cited by demographers does not divide divorces by the total U.S. population. It divides the number of people who divorced in the past 12 months by the number of people who are currently married.
The divorce rate = [(number of women divorced in the past 12 months) / number of currently married women] × 1000
In other words, this measure looks only at married people. It asks: “Of those who are married, how many divorced this year?” A decline in the marriage rate does not automatically lower this calculation.
Another common response is: “Well of course divorce is lower. Fewer people are getting married.”
That objection would be valid if the divorce rate were calculated by dividing the number of divorces by the total U.S. population. But that is not how this rate is usually calculated by demographers.
This particular measure divides the number of people who divorced in the past 12 months by the number of people who are currently married.
In other words, it asks:
“Out of those who are married, how many divorced this year?”
So even if fewer people are marrying overall, that alone does not reduce this specific divorce-rate calculation. The measure already isolates the currently married population.
Cohabitation trends and delayed marriage certainly affect the broader family landscape. But this statistic is not measuring cohabiting couples or unmarried breakups. It measures legal divorces among legally married individuals.
So if the divorce rate has declined among the currently married, what explains that?
There are many contributing factors: people marrying later, higher education levels, greater economic stability, and more selective partnering. But what remains consistent is this: divorce most often follows serious, marriage-endangering behavior — adultery, abuse, addiction, chronic deception, abandonment, and destructive conflict patterns.
That is why I believe we do not have a “divorce crisis.” We have a marriage-endangering sin crisis.
If adultery stopped, if abuse stopped, if intimidation and coercion stopped, if severe addiction and financial betrayal stopped, the divorce rate would drop even further.
Are there immature or selfish divorces? Yes. Some people abandon covenant lightly. Scripture condemns treachery. But a significant portion of divorces involve serious, documented patterns of harm. When nearly half of divorces involve adultery, abuse, addiction, abandonment, or severe neglect, that is where pastoral energy should focus.
You cannot reduce divorce merely by condemning divorce.
If you wish to reduce divorce, you must reduce unsafe marriages.
We have a “marriage-endangering sin” crisis. We have an adultery and abuse crisis. If every spouse stopped committing adultery, using violence or intimidation to get what they want, squandering the family rent and grocery money, and abusing drugs or alcohol, our divorce rate would drop like a rock.
Now let me be clear: Are there frivolous immature divorces? Yes, some people divorce because they are merely bored with married life. Are there treacherous divorces where one spouse runs off with their lover or decides to go back to the single party scene? Yes, of course.
But our Evangelical divorce rates will automatically drop when destructive sinful behavior in marriages drops. If half of divorces in the U.S. are due to a pattern of adultery, sexual immorality, physical abuse, emotional abuse, severe addictions, abandonment, or neglect, then that is the place to start. We need to discourage people with major marriage-endangering sins from marrying. They need to come before the Lord and work on their issues and prove themselves to be safe and reliable mates, rather than hoping that marriage will automatically change them. We need to educate young people to identify and avoid potential spouses, even fellow Christians, who have serious problems such as abuse, intimidation, coercion, addiction, or sexual immorality. We also need to permit them to speak up about new or escalating marriage-endangering sins that emerge during the marriage.
Our churches need a nuanced view of divorce. We need to accept that some divorces are life-saving divorces for very serious things that are condemned in the Bible and given as valid reasons for divorce. If we do not, we will continue to see Christian divorcees and their children leave because our churches aren’t safe for them. And so many have already left that sociologist and demographers can already see it in church attendance date. Click here for my article and an important graph on the topic.
You cannot reduce divorce merely by condemning divorce.
If you wish to reduce divorce you must reduce unsafe marriages.
The divorce rate. People always say, “Well, of course the divorce rate has dropped! Fewer people are getting married.” And while it is indeed true that the marriage rate has dropped, that does not affect this graph. This graph looks only at those who are (or were) married. and compares it with those who’ve gotten divorced. This graph is showing percentages of married people who’ve gotten divorced in a particular year, not the percentage of the population. How is the divorce rate calculated in this diagram?
The divorce rate = [(number of women divorced in the past 12 months) / number of currently married women)]*1000
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