Ethics & Religion

This column is written in the middle of a paradox. America is the most religious modern nation, with 68% saying they are members of a congregation and 43% attending in any week, according to Gallup. Yet the U.S. is also the least ethical nation, with the world's highest divorce rate, highest teen pregnancy rate, highest murder rate. My goal in writing Ethics & Religion is to provide a weekly answer, suggesting how Americans can take their faith, and use it to raise the ethical standards in their families, churches and communities.

For example, I have written a number of columns outlining what some churches are doing to prepare couples for a lifelong marriage, to enrich existing ones or save troubled marriages. A column on June 25 described a "Marriage Encounter" weekend which has helped four out of five of 2 million attending couples to fall back in love, for example. My May 6 column stated that Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride, made a mistake in moving in with her fiance. Of the 5 million couples who cohabit, 2.25 million will break up short of marriage and those who marry are 50% more likely to divorce than those who never lived together. Living together is the worst possible marriage preparation. However, the column outlined a better way to test the relationship by taking a premarital inventory in which couples react to 156 statements such as: "My future spouse sometimes puts me down...My family approves of my future spouse." If the couple meets with an older couple in a healthy marriage to discuss these issues, 18% decide not to marry. But of those who married in one church after meeting with mentors, only 3% divorced in a decade.

On June 18 I wrote about "Lessons from the Jackson Trial." Michael Jackson pledged he would never sleep with boys again. I quote Pat Truman, the former U.S. Justice Dept. Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section as saying, "A pedophile cannot be cured. There is no one who has shown that there is any treatment - even if you castrate him - that will stop a pedophile from going back to molesting children." The column advised parents what to do. In another column (May 14) I ask, "Can the ACLU, the National Association of Evangelicals, American Jewish Committee, and the National Council of Churches agree on anything? Yes - that the Bible ought to be taught in public school..."

Other recent columns assessed the new pope, Benedict XVI, and reported how Pope John Paul fought communism. I praised Newsweek's cover story with evidence of the Resurrection.