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Spiritual divide: Different levels of religious fervor can strain a marriage
Tuesday, August 29, 2000 By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Byron Frances, 38, of Beltzhoover, shares the same Christian faith as his wife, Gertrude, but not the same level of commitment. He goes to church when their 6-year-old son, Adam, is in a children's pageant.
That's only once or twice a year.
"I'm already saved," said Frances, who was baptized as a child at a Methodist church in Kentucky and believes God allows people to operate on their own free will.
"I see no need to sit in church every Sunday," he said. "Besides, I don't like all the singing."
Gertrude Frances, 37, grew up a Baptist and values the relationships and comfort she finds at Trinity Baptist Church in Lawrenceville. She rarely misses a Sunday worship and said she has become used to "the lonesomeness" of not being able to share her faith with her husband. The real pain, she said, comes from having to see her son in church without his father.
"I just pray," she said, "that one day my husband will be more a part of my spiritual life."
From the beginning of the Christian church, there have been admonitions that religious divisions can strain marriages. The apostle Paul spoke of the dangers of "unequally yoked" relationships, warning Christian believers not to entangle their lives with nonbelievers.
The problem is one that confronts many faiths.
In the Muslim community, to build solidarity, couples are encouraged to see eye-to-eye on the Islamic holy book, the Koran, and accept the same rites and circle of friends. The Koran even tells them it is better to marry a slave than an unbelieving man or woman.
The issue is an important one in the Jewish community, too, and many rabbis and Jewish parents encourage their children not to date non-Jews. Many believe a shared faith makes it easier for families to bond and to continue the 3,800-year-old traditions of Abraham.
In fact, the new Democratic vice presidential candidate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, has said in interviews and his memoir, "In Praise of Public Life," that part of the reason his first marriage failed is that he became more interested in living an observant Jewish life than his first wife was.
But in a society that embraces interfaith marriages, new-age spirituality and same-faith couples who possess different levels of religious fervor, the landscape is changing for discerning who's spiritually compatible.
"It's definitely a tougher call today," said James Furrow, assistant professor of marital and family therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., because the lines have blurred on what constitutes being "unequally yoked."
He said most clergy now probably focus on whether couples possess shared values on the "importance of religious traditions and how that importance will be reflected in participation."
Furrow, a marital counselor for 15 years, said the shared faith is important because when dissatisfaction creeps into a marriage, any religious differences can become exaggerated.
That's when couples are likely to end up labeling each other as "pious" or "damned," he said.
Divorce rates similar
There is work to be done. A 1999 survey of almost 4,000 people shows that divorce rates among some believers slightly outstripped those of average Americans.
The statistics, from the Barna Research Group in California, found that 27 percent of born-again Christians are now or have been divorced, compared with 24 percent of other Americans. For Baptists, the number was 29 percent, and for those in nondenominational churches the figure was 34 percent.
Those numbers distress Carolyn Driver, a honey-voiced woman who heads her own Christian leadership and training ministry in Tyrone, Ga. Driver believes the information suggests two things: that people who already are divorced are finding their way into churches, or that churches are deficient when it comes to preparing people for marriage.
She has written about the practical ways spouses at opposite ends of the religious spectrum can help themselves, and her ministry offers a six-part counseling series for engaged couples. She feels churches should be more involved in helping couples before they tie the knot, a proposal that may have helped Driver to work out some of the issues in her own marriage.
Driver, a former atheist, said she neglected her own husband and marriage when she embraced the Holy Spirit after attending a black Pentecostal church in Atlanta in 1979. Driver said that when she first found the Lord, it was not uncommon for her to devote 60 to 80 hours a week to the church, and if there was a Holy Ghost meeting within a three-hour drive, she was there with her "Bible, notepad, pen, tape recorder and highlighter."
Driver has been married for 29 years, and her husband, Larry, doesn't share her spiritual passion. After years of leaving Bible literature around the home, nonstop talking about Jesus and badgering, she finally determined that he was "God's problem, and God would take care of him."
A growing number of churches across the country are trying to help couples keep it together, and some are making premarital counseling mandatory.
The divorce rates show that the value of marriage in this country has declined, said Furrow. By establishing marriage policies, "churches are saying we support marriage and want people to understand what it takes and to understand that God plays a role in strengthening it.
"By helping couples identify problem areas, the churches are providing a stepping stone and giving them a picture of what a successful marriage can look like," Furrow said.
Marriage savers
James Leckie is chairman of Family Guidance, an evangelical Christian group in Sewickley. He helped to organize a marriage saver program in at least 20 local churches. Among other things, the churches pledge not to marry couples who have different religious values. They believe to marry couples with sharply different levels of religious feeling launches them into troubled waters.
"Even a struggling believer is considered a believer," said Leckie, "but when you have couples who don't share the same religious values, there will be conflict when it comes to raising the kids, family economics and other issues."
The discord also can strike couples who thought they had the same level of faith. Brenda Harris of the North Side met her husband, J.C., in a Baptist church. They wed in 1991, but six months later, Harris realized they were worlds apart. Any time she'd play her spiritual music, her husband would say, "There you go, playing that mess again."
"My husband," she said, "was under the Word of God but not convicted by it."
The Harrises separated two years ago. Brenda Harris prayed for her marriage to work out. She resorted to Bible study with her friends. Her husband never participated. She sought counsel with clergy but said her husband dismissed the pastor's efforts, saying he didn't "have time for that."
"I've forgiven as only a wife can do," she said, but the "lack of Christian companionship left me lonely at times."
Husbands who aren't as intensely spiritual as their wives also can feel the strain and sense of isolation. Byron Frances was afraid he had lost his wife to religion.
"When my wife rediscovered the church, she found it all," he said of the early days when she was on her church's choir and usher board and went weekly to Bible study.
"I was glad she found somewhere to be comforted," he said, "but before our son was born, I worried I could never give her what she needed."
It can be lonely and sad being married and having a spouse in a different spiritual place, said Driver. Many will fill the gap by overreaching on activities at the church. Sometimes it's better to pull back and give some of that time to the partner, she said.
"Too often, couples are in competition with Jesus," Driver said.
There are a lot of places couples can turn to for help. The Internet has given birth to a flowering of Christian singles clubs, and seminars to renew couples' spiritually are on the increase. Books, tapes and support groups for people with different spiritual values are on the rise, and many churches want to create stronger men's ministries. National groups such as Promise Keepers are drawing thousands of men with a message of being closer to their wives and families through religion.
Nontraditional spiritualists, such as black minister Iyanla Vanzant, are trying to ease the burden, too. Like many, she encourages couples to engage in mutual respect and appreciation as the basis for being equally yoked.
In her view, truth, trust, patience, honor and faith are the cornerstones of building relationships with each other and with God -- not how often someone attends church or his fervor in worship.
Changes will not happen overnight, said Leckie, but churches must be more involved with marriage preparation, starting with educating children on what marriage is all about.
And while Byron Frances hasn't embraced his wife's high-powered spirituality, he's encouraged to know she's not giving up on him.
"I believe I'll get into heaven," he said. "It's good to know my wife is praying I will."
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