For more information about
the book:Something Happened on the Way to Happily Ever After, click on the
book cover below:
|
A Christian leader sent his monthly letter to a student of mine, and in this particular letter, he wrote:
Of course, this “statistic” came with an appeal to send this person money so he could help lower the divorce rates among Christians. My astute student wrote back and asked for proof of this outrageous statistic, and he cc'd me a copy of his email. In response to his email I wrote this email to him, and I thought I'd share it as a Coffee Talk: _____________________________________________ Dear Brad, Thank you for passing this along to me. The "statistic" of 1 divorce out of nearly 39,000 due to these things is simply silly: In fact, as you may know, conservative Christians have a higher divorce rate than do liberal Christians and even atheists! I stand amazed at the level of sheer ignorance (stupidity? propaganda? fraudulence?) that so many people display about statistics when it seems to suit their ideas and agendas. I also find it morally repugnant that Christians are some of the worst offenders of this sort of statistical misinformation. I have heard some preachers do little else in their “sermons” than list statistics. What is it about some Christians that they seem to love these wild, absolutely unfounded statistics so much? Are we that desperate? Do we not have truth? Do we need to make up and/or promote false statistics? We have a gospel to preach that comes from the God of truth . . . in Him there are no "shades" of light and dark; to over-inflate any aspect of the Christian life to make things sound good or to promote one's agenda is a sin against truth, and, thus, a sin against God. I appreciate you Brad for "searching these things out" and for confronting so-called Christian leaders when they use or promote these outrageously silly statistics and tactics. To me, there is small difference between someone promoting this outrageous claim of divorce statistics and those who tell you that if you send them $1000 God will make you rich. They are both a tearing of the fabric of God's truth that He has called us to preach, teach, and defend. Do I believe that these things are the "magic formula" that results in the outrageously silly statistic of 1 divorce out of nearly 39,000? Absolutely not. I cannot express how sad it makes me that some people who are considered "leaders" in the Christian church do not have enough personal drive for accuracy—or at least just good old common sense—to check these things out before they promote them. Instead, many of these "leaders" simply pass these things on as though they were true. Christian leaders should confront others who use these tactics. (This is what makes me proud of you. You do check these things out; you do not just pass them along as if they were true, and you do confront others who do these things.) Not only that, but it seems to me that anyone with a 6th grade education in math would see the fallacy of such an outrageous statistic. In my book,Something Happned on the Way to Happily Ever After: A Biblical View of Marriage, Divorce & Remarriage, I showed the utter foolishness of the 1 in 1,152 ratio that some people were then promoting . . . to determine such a statistic, they would need 100,000 (or more) test subjects and they would have to follow them for the lifetime of each test subject. Now, this new "statistic" that so-called Christian leaders are promoting is nearly 39 times more outrageous! A year ago, people were promoting this idea as 1 divorce out of 1,152. If it would take 100,000 or more test subjects to figure out the 1 in 1,152, how many more would they have to study to find the 1 in nearly 39,000? It would take millions of test subjects followed throughout a lifetime and check on every day to be sure that they kept up their prayer time. This is simply a logistic (and financial) impossibility. If any group has ever done such an enormous study as this—which would have taken about 60+ years to accomplish—why does no one know where this statistic even started? Short answer: Someone simply made it up. Again, note that a year ago this gossip (and that's all it is) was 1 in 1,152, but now left unchecked and unchallenged (worse, promoted!) by most Christian leaders, someone has embellished it even further to “1 in nearly 39,000.” What a sad triumph for the father of lies. Mark Twain wrote:
Again, Brad, thank you for your honest heart and integrity. Blessings, _____________________________________________ For a good resource on how to view statistics, see the book by Joel Best: Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists. ========== Reader Responses ========== Nice Coffee Talk, Ric. Right on the money (no pun intended). I do a lesson in one of my classes on Christian Urban Legends for the same reason. I remember reading a quote from John Murray, son of Madeline Murray O’Hair, saying, in effect, that people like his mother would make up such statistics just to make Christians look foolish. I wish we would take Jesus’ words to heart about being as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Ric, Here's the results of my research: born-again Christians who pray & go to church regularly, but do not marry, are less likely than the general public to get divorced. I know this research is accurate--it was compiled by a genuine expert on marriage--he's been married at least five times! (Phil, Thanks for the humor.)
|
