The other day, a good friend of mine in the music scene gave me a call. After we finished catching up on news about family and friends we started talking about the temptations he has encountered being a happily-married Christian man with children in the music industry. The conversation later went into the divorce rate amongst high-profile gospel artists. He first told me about Yolanda Adams and her recent divorce. Thinking that he was talking about her divorce from a few years ago, I said “Yeah, I know about that.” But later in the conversation I came to realize that the divorce he was referring to was to her second husband after just a few years of marriage. Then my friend informed me that Fred Hammond was also recently divorced. “Fred Hammond, too!” I thought to myself. So later that evening I decided to do a search to see what other gospel artists had also gone through divorce since they became saved. The image above is are just some of the well-known gospel artists out there who have also gone through this similar situation.
Now please keep in mind that divorce is not something just regulated to gospel artists. In fact, the divorce rate in the church in general is on par with the divorce rate outside of this institution. Unless we get a handle on this trend and are willing to face it for what it is, then it would be foolish for us as Christians to expect the world to see the value of strong, Godly families.
Below is a link to an article that I think that you will enjoy reading at your leisure. This article goes into more detail of this issue that I hope you will find informative.
Why can’t Christians stay married?
Here are some other interesting articles…
Don’t Believe the Divorce Statistics: Why your marriage has better than a 50/50 chance
Bible Belt Battles High Divorce Rates
I think that the first article really nailed it by making the assertion that many Christians view marriage as a fulfillment of “Christian duty” and not a joining together of two different people who can and will get on each other’s nerves from time to time. Holding hands in the pew is one thing, but when the time comes when brah-man wants to have long, hot sex while sistah-girl is too tired–all the scriptures in the world ain’t gonna help. Neither will all of those “Breakthrough” tapes in your car. All those messages about how the wife is supposed to submit to her husband will go right out the window. Fortunately for my wife and I, we had friends who had been married for YEARS who took the time to mentor us before we became married. We saw them when they argued as well as times when they had to deal with stressful family issues. It was like having our very own backstage pass to a marriage. Without having those kind of living examples in our lives, I don’t know how we could have made it this far.
