Community Marriage Policies | Church Study | Interracial Marriages - 4/15/07

[Smartmarriages]

- CHURCHES TAKE ON MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND RELATIONSHIPS
- DOES YOUR COMMUNITY HAVE A MARRIAGE POLICY?
- HAPPY MARRIAGE BEGINS AT CHURCH DOOR, BGSU STUDY REPORTS
- INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES CELEBRATE 40 YEARS LEGAL!

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- CHURCHES TAKE ON MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND RELATIONSHIPS
Tuscaloosa News 
Apr 14, 2007
Mending marriages
Churches take on marriage, divorce and relationships

> Keeping marriages viable has been a hot topic among Christians for years. Yet,
> many unions continue to fail. Statistics show that Christians are just as
> likely to get divorced as anyone else. Fear of divorce is a driving force in
> drawing people to the church marriage programs.....

By Sarah Bruyn Jones
Staff Writer
On Jan. 31, 2005, city hall and church leaders united for marriage in
Tuscaloosa.

That day, church and city leaders joined to recognize a community marriage
policy. Basically, it was a pledge by about 70 pastors to offer more
marriage classes, workshops and lessons. The mayor designated the day as one
to honor marriage, and the pastors took the message back to their
congregations.

As it turns out, pastors are pretty good about sticking to their word.
During the past two years, marriage and relationship courses have been
springing up at churches throughout the area.

³It¹s seems like it¹s really caught on," said William Scroggins, director of
the Tuscaloosa Prayer Network and the leader behind the community-marriage
policy. ³I know quite a few who are doing different things, and I get calls
about it all the time."

Keeping marriages viable has been a hot topic among Christians for years.
Yet, many unions continue to fail. Statistics show that Christians are just
as likely to get divorced as anyone else. Fear of divorce is a driving force
in drawing people to the church marriage programs, said the Rev. Billy Gray,
associate director of missions for the Tuscaloosa County Baptist
Association.

³In a church, there is a natural built-in support system when the church is
doing what it¹s supposed to be doing," Gray said. ³So, we like to help
people through the church as much as we can. That¹s not to say we don¹t ever
recommend someone to a secular counselor. But when we¹ve got people in our
churches who help others to deal with problems, we try to do what we can."

Churches have historically helped guide families through relationship
perils. After all, Christians often refer to their congregations as a family
or home. Church is a place to resolve stresses and seek guidance, either
through prayer from God or by turning to a pastor, deacon or someone else in
the pews.

Recently, however, churches have been doing more to specifically talk about
marriage, divorce and relationships in general. Classes, sermons and support
groups have been developed to specifically talk about the pitfalls of
marriage.

Scroggins has helped train several people to lead the various classes, and
local retreats and intercongregational workshops are held occasionally.

³We felt one of the greatest ways to have an impact on the quality of life
here in our community was to strengthen our marriages, which leads to
stronger family relationships," Scroggins said.

While not all the programs are directly linked to the community pledge, the
idea of bringing frank talk about marriage to the pulpit continues to
spread. That¹s, in part, because pastors say they are seeing the need
firsthand.

³We know from our own experience that relationships are just so very
difficult," said the Rev. Ken Dunivant, pastor of First United Methodist
Church. ³It is the No. 1 issue on people¹s prayer requests."

Dunivant and his colleague, the Rev. Mary Bendall, who leads First UMC¹s
contemporary service, have set aside the next six Sundays to talk about
relationships in their sermons. It¹s the first time the two have set out to
establish a simultaneous sermon series, and they said relationships was the
obvious place to start. The series will kick off Sunday looking at the keys
to a healthy relationship.

Besides talking about healthy relationships between husband and wives, the
two also wanted to make the sermons relevant to others. So parent-child,
boyfriend-girlfriend and friend-friend relationships will all be covered.

Emphasizing practical steps in maintaining healthy relationships are common
themes of the church-based programs. Communicating with a spouse about
money, intimacy and daily tasks are keys to a healthy marriage. Beyond what
a secular marriage course offers, these practical steps to a successful
marriage are steeped in biblical principles, Gray said.

Scroggins said that Genesis 2:24-25 -- ³For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame" -- is the
Bible¹s ³foundational passage" on marriage.

³The word 'naked¹ you might think [of as] physical, but the meaning is also
emotional," Scroggins said. ³It¹s being transparent about who you are to
your spouse. Sharing your most intimate thoughts and feelings with each
other."

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- DOES YOUR COMMUNITY HAVE A MARRIAGE POLICY?

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- HAPPY MARRIAGE BEGINS AT CHURCH DOOR, BGSU STUDY REPORTS
Toledo Blade  
April 14, 2007
By DAVID YONKE
BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

> From 1980 to 1999, there were only 75 quantitative studies on religion and
> marriage or parenting. Since 1990, there have been approximately 300, . . .

> The BGSU researchers said couples who attend services regularly are less
> likely to divorce - 44 percent compared to 60 percent of non-attenders.
> 
> Their research also indicates that religious couples are 50 percent less
> likely to hit or be hit by each other, according to Ms. Mahoney.


BOWLING GREEN - People who go to church regularly have a higher rate of
marital satisfaction and commitment, better communication and conflict
resolution skills, and give their children more hugs and kisses than do
others, according to the research of two Bowling Green State University
professors.

Kenneth Pargament and Annette Mahoney, professors of psychology, gave an
update in a lecture to several hundred people in the BGSU student union
Tuesday afternoon. The report comes midway through a four-year study titled
"Sacred Matters: The Spiritual Dimensions of Marital and Family Ties."

The pair are looking into how "a sense of sacredness" can affect 175 couples
making the transition to parenthood by having their first child. The
research is supported by a $1.2 million grant from the John Templeton
Foundation.

Mr. Pargament, who joined the BGSU faculty in 1979, and Ms. Mahoney, who
came to the university in 1994, have been conducting pioneering research in
the scientific study of spirituality's impact on human beings.

Previous studies have included research on such topics as spirituality and
its effect on mental health, mortality, and health and healing.

A 2005 study of college students, for example, showed that those who
perceive their bodies to be "temples of a spirit" have healthier lifestyles,
including less alcohol and drug use, better eating habits, and more regular
exercise.

And church attendance has been proven to be a predictor of mortality, Mr.
Pargament said. Caucasians who go to church one or more times a month live
an average of seven years longer, while African-Americans add an average of
14 years to their lives by going to church regularly.

But spirituality can have a negative impact as well, he said. People who
feel that an illness is the result of punishment from God, or that God has
abandoned them, face an increased risk of dying.

The subject of spirituality and interpersonal relationships has been largely
overlooked in academia, Ms. Mahoney said. From 1980 to 1999, there were only
75 quantitative studies on religion and marriage or parenting. Since 1990,
there have been approximately 300, of which 70 percent referenced Mr.
Pargament's work.

Yet despite the lack of extensive research, religion and spirituality are
"pretty significant" factors in the lives of Americans, with 50 to 60
percent attending services at least once a month, Ms. Mahoney said.

She cited a comment from one interviewee to illustrate how important
religion is to some people: "To me, it would be like being inside a room
with no air, not to have God in a marriage," the woman said.

The BGSU researchers said couples who attend services regularly are less
likely to divorce - 44 percent compared to 60 percent of non-attenders.

Their research also indicates that religious couples are 50 percent less
likely to hit or be hit by each other, according to Ms. Mahoney.

At the same time, divorce is often more stressful to people who attend
church regularly than to non-attenders.

"Equating the union of marriage with the union with God can be devastating
for people going through a divorce," one researcher said in a 1985 study.
"If the marriage has been a metaphor for union with God, then the obvious
sequel is that the divorce symbolizes separation from God."

Mr. Pargament quoted another woman, interviewed for a 2001 study, whose
child was diagnosed with autism as saying, "If there is a God looking out
for us, he certainly is cruel."

The current BGSU study seeks to assess the "perceptions of sacredness" of
new parents, asking them if they agree with such statements as: "I see
evidence of God in nature and creation" (78 percent responded
affirmatively); "I see God's presence in all of life" (75 percent); "I
experience something more sacred in life than simply material existence" (76
percent), and "I see my life as a sacred journey" (55 percent).

The professors' longitudinal study, which involves a series of observations
over a long period of time, includes both self-reporting by the couples and
in-home interviews, questionnaires, and direct observations of marital and
parent-child interactions at four points: the third trimester of pregnancy
and then when the child is 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months old.

The study is showing that people "are motivated to preserve and protect the
sacred" and "to invest their resources in the sacred," Mr. Pargament and Ms.
Mahoney said.

But Ms. Mahoney added that "the research is still embryonic."

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- INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES CELEBRATE 40 YEARS LEGAL!
AC - Associated Content|The People's Media Company
Interracial Marriages Celebrate 40 Years Legal!
By Summer Banks 
April 13, 2007
        
In 1967, the Supreme Court made a ruling heard around the world. The Loving
couple was at the forefront of this change, spear heading the fight against
a Virginia law making interracial marriages illegal. Thanks to the Supreme
Court, the law was changed and for the first time since June 12, 1967,
interracial marriages are a rarity no more.

When the Census Bureau tallied the number of interracial marriages in 1970,
the still "taboo" lifestyle only birthed 65,000 reported marriages. From
then until now things have changed a little.

"The racial divide in the United States is a fundamental divide. . . But
when you have the 'other' in your family, it's hard to think of them as
'other' anymore. We see a blurring of the old lines, and that has to be a
good thing because the lines were artificial in the first place," says
Michael Rosenfeld, a Stanford University sociologist.

Moreover, the "blurring of the old lines" has certainly lifted the "taboo"
from the 1970's. When the Census Bureau revisited the topic of interracial
marriage again in 2005, the number had grown to a whopping 422,000 couples.

We must remember these numbers are representative of Black-White marriages
only and when other forms of interraciality are added to the marriage count,
interracial marriages make up more than 7% of America's 59 million unions.

The boundaries in 1967 were very rigid and Sidney Poitier's film "Guess
Who's Coming to Dinner" tried to use a comedic approach to lessen the
rigidity of those lines.

Through time, society has become more accepting of those in interracial
marriages, but couples know they still face more adversity than some same
race couples do.

When Kim Stamps (white) married her husband, Al Stamps (black) her mother
offered her a little advice. "She told me, 'your life is going to be harder
because of this road you've chosen. It's going to be harder for your kids.'"
After years of marriage, Kim Stamps now agrees with her mother, "She was
absolutely right." Husband Al Stamps is all too familiar with the judgments
placed on him and his wife in public situations, "I'm always cordial, he
said". I'll wait to see how people react to us. If I'm not wanted, I'll move
on."

The inevitable result of an increase in interracial marriages is the birth
of multiracial children. With 6.8 million people describing themselves as
multiracial in the 2005 Census, we can only hope the next 40 years will
bring us as much positive change as the last 40.

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