Community Marriage Policy Takes Aim At Divorce

May, 1997

It's about to get a little harder to get married, but if a new Twin Cities marriage policy works as intended, people will also be less likely to be divorced.

On April 3 leaders of about 30 Christian denominations, as well as the Jewish and Muslim communities in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, came together to sign the Twin Cities Community Marriage Policy.

The policy is part of a nationwide trend in which communities are adopting "marriage policies" -- uniform standards and programs designed to strengthen marriage and combat divorce. A couple who wishes to get married in a participating church will have to meet the terms of the policy first.

The Twin Cities area is the largest community to adopt the plan so far.

Among other things, the policy requires engaged couples to go through at least four months of marriage preparation, including a premarital inventory designed to spot areas of future conflict. That emphasis on premarital counseling is designed to cut down on divorce by preventing bad marriages.

Participating religious organizations also agree to:

The policy is the brainchild of Michael McManus, a syndicated religion and ethics columnist who founded the Marriage Savers Institute with his wife, Harriet. About 50 other cities nationwide have signed similar agreements in recent years.

"I'm convinced that if you sign this policy you'll see the beginning of a new day for marriage and divorce in the Twin Cities,"McManus told the religious leaders who gathered for the signing. "Given the breadth of your commitment, I predict you will see as much as a 50 percent drop in divorce in five years."

Though that sounds impossibly ambitious, other cities around the nation have seen significant declines in divorce rates since adopting a marriage policy.

Bonn Clayton, a layman and former moderator of Colonial Church of Edina, headed the committee that brought Marriage Savers to the Twin Cities. He explained, "Divorce is such a horrendous problem in our society. Divorce rates in the U.S. are double what they are in Europe. That's in the face of the fact that 43 percent of the people in the U.S. go to church every Sunday and only 10 percent go to church in Europe. Churches can do a lot to solve that problem, since 75 to 80 percent of all marriages take place in churches. If we ask people to take a marriage preparation course and we do that in consensus, then some of the people who go through that course will not actually get married, and all of them will understand marriage a lot better and learn how to resolve conflicts."

Chuck Rehman, church relations director for the Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals, expressed an initial concern about the policy because it contained no definition of marriage -- a potential problem in a time when same-sex marriage is being debated across the nation. At his urging, the document was modified to include a reference to "the marriage bond of husband and wife" and to God's plan for marriage as laid out "in Scripture" -- language which makes it clear that the document does not endorse same-sex "marriage."

That wording change set Rehman's concerns to rest. "I think it's an absolutely excellent way to go," he said. "But it's really contingent on whether pastors will do it. It will only make a difference if the pastors get excited about it."

Tom Prichard, executive director of the Minnesota Family Council, agreed. "Local churches need to sign on and be involved in the process. The real in-the-trenches work will be at the community and neighborhood level. Churches have to see the value of it and buy into it as a congregation. You need people who will catch a vision for this and push it in their communities."

Now that the denominational leaders have signed the policy, individual churches are being asked to sign. About 300 churches have already signed on, but Clayton said his work will continue until all area churches agree to participate. "We're not going to stop until we get them all," he pledged.

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