wfn.org | Born-again Christians as likely to divorce as other adults

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Note #6790 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

15-August-2001
01275

Born-again Christians as likely to divorce as other adults

by Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON - Born-again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as
adults who are not born-again Christians, Barna Research Group reports.

	Researchers found that 33 percent of born-again adults who have been
married have been divorced compared with 34 percent of adults not considered
born-again Christians who reported the same experience.

	The study also found that 29 percent of Catholics and 32 percent of
Protestants have been married and divorced.

	"More than 90 percent of the born-again adults who have been divorced
experienced that divorce after they accepted Christ, not before," said
George Barna, president of Barna Research Group, in a statement. "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."

	He said the people surveyed did not claim to be born-again Christians but
met the group's definition for them.

	The Ventura, Calif., research firm also studied trends in cohabitation. It
found that 33 percent of all adults had cohabited. Twenty-five percent of
born-again Christians had cohabited, compared to 39 percent of adults who
were not born-again Christians. Thirty-six percent of Catholics and 30
percent of Protestants had cohabited.

	The data on cohabitation is based on a national telephone survey of 1,005
adults in February and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage
points.

	The marriage and divorce figures, which have a margin of error of plus or
minus 2 percentage points, are based on a combination of seven samples of
adults totaling 7,043 who were interviewed by telephone between January 2000
and July 2001.

	In 1999, the research firm conducted a study that found that born-again
Christians had a slightly higher rate of divorce than those who are not
born-again Christians.
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