The Great Divorce Controversy

The Great Divorce Controversy deals with one of the most contentious issues of our time, the growth of mass divorce in England and America. Family breakdown has reached epidemic proportions in most countries of the western world. The USA has the highest divorce rate in the civilised world, and England has the highest rate in Europe. In the past decade almost 12 million Americans and 1.5 million English families have experienced divorce, involving millions of children in the heartbreak of a broken home. While there has been a plethora of books on the subject, this work is unique in that it deals with the issue from the widest possible perspective, searching for the ideas and attitudes that underlay the move to mass divorce. The historical context of the growth in divorce is described through a series of controversial debates in parliament and the Church which started with the Divorce Act of 1857, and have continued to the present day. These debates demonstrate the change of ideas that have led to the growth of mass divorce in England and the USA. Evidence of the effects of divorce on men, women and children is presented and discussed by the author who understands the principles of assessing the quality of research. A further strand in the debate is an examination of biblical teaching as it relates to marriage and divorce. From this large body of evidence Dr Williams is able to draw certain conclusions. He argues that a major factor is the move to mass divorce has been the changing view of marriage and divorce that flowed from the Reformation, which emphasised the secular nature of marriage and permitted divorce for adultery and desertion among other things. This new teaching, the Protestant doctrine of divorce, led to a weakening in the Church's understanding of the meaning and purpose of marriage. Other influences are an increasing acceptance of the sociological analysis of marriage, the encouragement of psychological theory to view divorce as an opportunity for inner psychological growth, and the exhortation of feminism that women should flee from oppressive marriage relationships. The author points out the grave social and personal problems caused by divorce, and demonstrates the falseness of the once popular view that parents should divorce for the sake of their children. Can the current trend in mass divorce be reversed? Is it possible for England and the USA to turn away from mass divorce? The Great Divorce Controversy deals with those questions head-on, arguing that the Christian Church needs to re-examine its teaching with regard to marriage and divorce in the light of biblical truth.