What can faith communities do to promote healthy marriages?

One of the social institutions that can do a huge amount of good for many people is in decline, and that diminishment is exacting a serious toll on families.

I'm talking about marriage, and today I want to share with you a few thoughts about it from an Orthodox Jewish man who wishes that Christian churches would put more resources and energy into promoting marriage and helping married couples stay married.

I'm certainly aware that in some Christian branches the idea of marriage is, well, problematic at best. It's based on the concept that women should be subservient in a marriage and that the primary decision maker in almost all cases should be the man. For starters, notice that this view makes zero room for same-sex marriage. That, of course, is due to a strongly held and widely practiced misreading of what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. You can read my essay on that subject here.

But many other branches of Christianity -- and many other faith traditions -- hold marriage in esteem and promote the idea that it can be and should be a balanced, loving partnership between two people who are committed to the union and to any children that the union produces, either biologically or by adoption. The trouble is that many churches spend few resources on helping members keep marriages strong, writes Seth D. Kaplan in his new book Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One ZIP Code at a Time. The book will be published Oct. 17 but can be ordered now.

"Churches -- and other houses or worship -- have long viewed the promotion of healthy relationships and strong marriages as a core part of their mission," Kaplan writes. "Moreover, they are uniquely positioned to accomplish this work because of their role in creating community and a sense of belonging around their values and norms." However, he asserts, "few churches have a coherent strategy for strengthening (marriage) among their members." (Is that true of your congregation, if you have one?)

Kaplan quotes J.P. De Gance and the marriage-support non-profit organization he created, Communio, as saying that "80 percent of evangelical churches, 82 percent of Catholic parishes and 94 percent of mainline churches report spending zero percent of their budgets on marriage ministry."

Kaplan notes that Communio clearly is rooted in Christianity, though he says that "its work is highly practical -- and data-driven. The evidence showing that healthy marriages contribute to the health of a social habitat, combined with the fact that churches have a presence in almost every neighborhood in the country, means that Communio's approach has the potential to help millions of families -- at very low cost -- while also sending positive ripple effects across countless neighborhoods."

Yes, there are good reasons for some marriages to break up (abuse and faithlessness among them) and Kaplan is careful not to suggest that every marriage can or should be saved. But if your faith community isn't doing what it might do to help marriages be strong and generative, perhaps Kaplan's suggestion of looking at Communio or some other type of marriage-support effort makes sense.

There is much more in Kaplan's book about how fragile communities can be strengthened, but one of the most helpful parts of the book is his description of his family's own strong neighborhood and the synagogue there to which his family belongs. One result, he writes, "is a sense of truth, willful interdependency and security that is too often missing in contemporary America."

One primary problem, as he correctly notes, is this: "Whereas the American Dream was once about developing a social order in which every person's potential could be fulfilled, today it has more to do with individual success, material gain and social mobility. . .Instead of seeking a life that is both socially and materially rich, we tend to prioritize only the material -- a more lucrative career, a bigger house, greater individual freedoms -- and many of us see our fellow citizens as holding us back from that material success. . .How can we reorient various spheres of our lives so that we think more in terms of 'we' and less in terms of 'I'?"

Good question. Let's work on some good answers.

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A HATEFUL BILLBOARD'S LOGICAL ERROR

HARRISON, Ark. -- As we drove through this town in northern Arkansas last week, after visiting friends in Heber Springs, we passed by the billboard pictured below. I didn't stop and take a photo because of traffic, but I did find this photo of it online, along with some stories (such as this and this) from a few years ago about how lots of residents of Harrison are appalled by this and a previous similar sign because they say it doesn't accurately represent their thinking. The people behind putting up the sign are members of the Ku Klux Klan or its related off-shoots.

What are we to make of the billboard's argument that it's not racist to love "your people"? It's pretty obvious that in this case "your people" are white and are lovable because they're white. Why is white so lovable? Because of the old scourge of white supremacy, which insists on the inferior -- even subhuman -- status of anyone who isn't white. The white people referred to on this billboard are loved because they aren't people of color. Which, of course, refutes the billboard's argument about what's racist and what isn't. I hope people of faith in Harrison are talking about this and doing what they can to expose the racist thinking for what it is, even if they've been unsuccessful in getting the hateful billboard removed. And I hope the little girl pictured here grows up to realize the despicable way in which she was misused.

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P.S.: If you missed my latest Flatland column when it posted on Sunday -- it's about the importance of art to religion -- you can find it here.

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ANOTHER P.S.: Here's a much more inspiring photo than the one just above. It describes an upcoming "Turkic Food and Art Festival" sponsored by the Dialogue Institute of Kansas City, an organization dedicated to interfaith and intercultural understanding. It's free, but you need to register here.