by Dennis and Barbara Rainey

James 5:16 (KJV)
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.

Hundreds of thousands of marriages are dissolved each year in the courtrooms of our land under relatively recent laws called "no-fault divorce." This is the thoroughly modern and practical way for two people to wash their hands of a marriage and terminate all responsibility to one another.

It's cleaner, faster and easier than in the old days, when the courts attempted to establish responsibility for the breakup of the marriage. Now, if no one is at fault, no one can be blamed. If neither party was wrong or wronged and both want out of the relationship, then shouldn't two people be allowed to dissolve their relationship?

It all sounds perfectly rational, but it should raise questions for Christians. Marriage was established by God for our good and His glory. Marriage occurs because of a covenant between a man, a woman and God. If (in man's mind) accountability is removed, then marriage vows are reduced to meaningless words. Commitments become conditional, temporal bargains.

Furthermore, if it's no one's fault that the marriage failed, are we also saying it is no one's responsibility to make the marriage work? The permanence of my marriage vows to Barbara motivates me to be responsible for the health of our relationship. It's for life. No excuses.

A society that allows for no-fault divorce cannot escape the long-term consequences of its no-responsibility marriages. Most people will say they "believe in marriage." The facts suggest that our society believes in marriage like Zsa Zsa Gabor, who said, when she married and divorced for the eighth time, "I really do believe in marriage."

Someone is "at fault" here. The cure for our nation's divorce epidemic is a vaccine of biblical accountability and godly responsibility to keep our covenants, vows and commitments.

Prayer:

That you can model the kind of commitment and responsibility that will communicate to your children the permanence of marriage and its vows.

Discuss: Tell your spouse today that you'd marry her or him all over again. Reaffirm your love and commitment by telling him or her: It's still 'til death do us part!

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