»Why the prohibition of divorce is unfair«

Divorce rates among conservative Christians were much higher than for other faith groups, and for Atheists and Agnostics.
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George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented: "While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages."

Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. They found some new information as well: that atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rate of all. George Barna commented that the results raise "questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families." The data challenge "the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriage."

Michael Inglis, a member of the Unification Church staff conducted a survey of some of the couples who were married in two mass marriage blessing ceremonies during 1982. One was in New York City and involved 2,075 couples; the other was in Seoul Korea and involved 6,000 couples. In many cases, the founder of the church, Reverend Moon, paired up the couples. Participants in the study were chosen from among those individuals who had worked in the U.S. If the 294 subjects, 48% were American citizens, 24% Japanese, 14% Europeans, and 14% other. Inglis found that:

•	82.6% were still married to their original partner.

•	17.4% were divorced from their original partner.

Data from the Unification Church compares very favorably with those from all other faith groups. This is in spite of two known stressors:

•	Most of the couples had known each other for a very short period before marriage.

•	The couples averaged 2.52 children, compared with 1.6 for all Americans. Children are a stress factor in marriage.