The Couple that Prays Together

“The couple that prays together stays together.”  It’s a well know cliché to most of us but is it true?  Was it ever true?  Is it still true?  Can it ever be true?  The divorce rate in our nation has many of us wondering if anything can stem the tide of the tsunami of marital breakup in our land.  Our disillusionment is furthered by the numerous divorces within the churches across the fruited plain.  Are Christian couples just as much at risk for divorce as non-Christian couples?  Some would suggest so.

Three decades observing couples whose marriages withstand or fail to withstand the often fierce winds of contemporary culture has provided me some insight into the permanence and impermanence of marriage.  Like most of my readers I have witnessed the dissolution of the marriages of close friends; many of whom were actively involved in church.  Most of them continued to express strong, if not robust theological convictions throughout and after the divorce.  Quite a number of them continued to attend church with about the same frequency after the marriage ended as before.  Many report their spiritual activities to be similar to the time prior to the divorce.

I mention these spiritual and theological markers to highlight the fact that all of these things and more failed on occasion to preclude a divorce.  Each of these practices certainly increases the likelihood that a marriage will not end in divorce as an ever expanding body of evidence shows but in the end divorce manages to penetrate each of these veils.  (A number of these factors and studies are cited in a recent op/ed column by Glenn Stanton at http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=34656 ).

As a pastor for sometime in multiple states and cultures, I am surprised by two things when it comes to divorce.  I am shocked that more non-Christian marriages do not end in divorce and I am shocked even more that so many Christian marriages do end in divorce.  Perhaps the reader is asking if I am some sort of fatalist who does not believe that there is any reliable force to keep divorce away from your door.  Let me assure you I am no fatalist.  I am a man of faith.

In my years of experience, I have noted one predictor of marital permanence which significantly supersedes all others.  It is collapsed into a single line: “The couple that prays together stays together.”  I’m not omniscient and have done no elaborate longitudinal studies on the subject but I cannot never recall a couple who consistently prayed with each other coming to my office to discuss divorce.  While I have conducted no empirical studies on this subject others have.  (A recent study, “The Couple that Prays Together: Race and Ethnicity, Religion, and Relationship Quality among Working-Age Adults” can be found at http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/coupleprays.pdf )

If, indeed, praying couples keep the preying claws of divorce away why then do so few Christian couples consistently pray together.  As a man who failed miserably in this regard for years, I think I can offer some clues.  For one most of us never saw it modeled growing up.  Two, men often feel more vulnerable when praying with their wife than they are accustomed to.  Poor scheduling and discipline would be a third problem.  And no doubt the sins we refuse to forfeit would be a major reason why we don’t pray alone or with our mate.

I can offer no wiser counsel to any couple than to begin to pray together if you do not and if you do, keep it up!

This article originally appeared in The Daily Press.