Fundamentalists: Fix Your Own House Before Telling Others How to Marry!

[BurtWorm]

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/divorce1.htm

The nation's largest Protestant evangelical denomination has announced a new effort to fight divorce by encouraging so-called "covenant marriage" among born-again Christians, and redoubling its efforts in the culture battle over homosexuality, single parenthood and what it considers other signs of moral lapse.

The Southern Baptist Convention, representing 16 millions members, wrapped up a two-day conference last week at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. Nearly 10,000 delegates approved a slew of resolutions, including declarations against euthanasia, human cloning and internet porn. At the top of the group's wish list, though, was a resolution urging that couples seeking to wed participate in "covenant marriage" wherein they formally agree that if they become estranged, they will undergo intensive counselling before consenting to a divorce. The measure was crafted by the SBC Council on Family Life reporting on "Great Commission Families." It says that the solution to a wave of divorce throughout the denomination is adherence to "scriptural principles of moral purity and marital fidelity," consistent family time" and "faithfulness in the ministries of... (The) local church."

Along with supporting covenant marriages, the report also called for Christian families to exercise greater financial responsibility by increasing their contributions to local churches, and encouraged SBC members to "evangelize and disciple everyone, beginning with the family."


BIBLE BELT BANGERS "PUT ASUNDER" MORE THAN NATIONAL AVERAGE
The declaration affirming support of legal status for covenant marriage arrangements comes amidst news reports on the rampant wave of divorce in the nation's "Bible Belt" region. Census data and other findings have revealed that the divorce rate in states which are bastions of fundamentalist Christianity are roughly 50 percent above the national average. It has led to concern, and even grandstanding from church leaders and politicians.

[Lindacooks]

1. Repukes never fail to amaze me

in their quest to poke their goddamn noses into every part of our personal lives. And it also figures that conservative 'Christians' have a divorce rate above the national average. That's like this kid in my area who was convicted of making a beer bong and helping a girl get drunk; she died in a car crash as a result.

And guess what 'program' he is using to help control his alcoholism? Yep, a 'Christian' program. Of course, he was arrested AGAIN on drunk driving charges just a few weeks ago while on the program, so you can see how well that works.

And I think it's the BIGOT BELT, not the Bible Belt.

[Malva Zebrina]

2. strange that all these divorces occur in the bible belt regions

but what really has me interested is that these divorcing couples need to be "counseled" by religious persons, before finalizing a divorce.

With what we have seen of the faith based initiatives of Bush, re counseling and marriage counseling, I suspect that these initiative by the SBC are nothing but platforms that are engineered in order to get tax payer money to support their church. They are after the faith based government welfare money,.