The Great Divorce Controversy Book

This text 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 leading nation of the west, the United States of America, has the highest divorce rate in the civilised world, and England the highest rate in Europe. In the past decade, almost 12,000,000 American and 1,500,000 English families have experienced divorce, involving countless millions of children in the heartbreak of a broken home. This book 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 continue to the present day. These debates demonstrate the change of ideas that have led to the growth of mass divorce in England and America. Evidence of the effects of divorce on children, men and women is presented and discussed, by an author that understands the principles of assessing the quality of the 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 in 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 teachin The author points to 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 possible for Britain and America to turn way from mass divorce? This book deals with these questions head on, arguing that the Christian Church needs to re-examine its teaching about marriage and divorce in the light of biblical truth.Read More