Michelle Goldberg wrote the article.  The noted author  once spent a couple of hours with me in my office doing research on her book about the Religious Right named, Kingdom Coming.  Michelle blames promoting abstinence until marriage as a cause of high divorce rates.  She thinks this leads to early marriages between couples who are not equipped to make it in the  modern economy.  Religious Right leaders have recently claimed that the cure for poverty is marriage.  Michelle thinks the opposite is true and marriage causes poverty.  She thinks responsible sex and waiting longer to be wed is what makes Blue states less likely to have the divorce rates of the Red ones.
     It is an interesting insight about government programs that Tea Party-types claim are ruining the modern family.  Government programs are seen as the enemy not friend of the marriages according to what is being concluded.  The Religious  Right trickle down economy gives young couples with limited education an impossible hurdle to work with in seeking to make it.  The Nation article is right that modern couples need both partners working to make it in today's pricey culture.  Homeschool moms, the role model for the Religious Right, is becoming increasingly more difficult to pull off.  Public schools provide a government program that keeps children while both parents seek to earn a living.
     Michelle's theory that abstinence teaching, no sex until marriage, is the cause for divorce does not connect with me as far as a logical conclusion.  Her theory reminds me of an older church member who told me he would never tell his teenage son not to drink, because that would only make him want to become a drunk.  We could conclude that teaching high school students that Meth is harmful only makes them more prone to become a Meth addict.
     I want to submit another reason why divorce is so high in the Christian community.  Much of it comes from the examples that are prominent in the Religious Right.  Jim and Tammi Baker's national divorce began a trend towards a who cares about divorce among ministers.  Baker hosts a daily show that often mixes a conspiracy-laden-join-the-militia-quickly with end of times warnings.  GOP power broker Tim Roberts, Oral Roberts son, is another example.  The modern user friendly church almost never mentions divorce for fear of being too judgmental.  Since more than half of the congregation has experienced such, bringing up such a painful subject is taboo.  
     Perhaps the most startling example is end of times wizard Hal Lindsey.  Hal has been married three times and is on his fourth wife.  Last time I caught a glimpse of Hal on Television he was telling his audience to leave churches who refused to teach his end of times theories.  Hal believes pastors who are not with him on his theories are cowards and false prophets.  Ironically the Bible teaches that prophets who make a prediction that does not happen are the false prophets.  Hal predicted the end of the world in the seventies.  He continually tells audiences Obama is seeking to make this a Muslim nation.  Hal was nurtured by R. B. Thieme, an anti-Semitic Houston preacher who wore a military uniform when he preached.  Even TBN banished Hal for a while because of his extremist statements on the air.    They told him he was too harsh on Arabs.  The TV preacher explained that the computer chip was a device to be implanted in each individual so the government could track them and keep up with who had the mark of the beast.  Just the other day Lindsey was suggesting Obama is paving the way for a world leader who is the long feared Antichrist.
       For years Hal taught that the Common market in Europe was the evil 10 member beast of Revelation.  This was proven untrue because there are now 27 in this organization.  He stated the Soviet Union would be the nation that birthed the Antichrist.  There is no longer a Soviet Union.  Interesting that Hall thinks he can predict with such accuracy, yet cannot foretell how long his marriages will last.  I submit it is examples like Hal, who has the microphone, that give a license to divorce that historically was frowned upon by Christians.
     Regardless of who gets the blame, the article, as many others, brings up the facts that divorce is higher among Christians in the nation.  As stated in the opening paragraph, "It's a puzzling paradox,".