Illustration results for marriage
Staff Picks of Free Sermons and PRO Church Media
Facing Your Giants …
David and Goliath Preaching Bundle »
David and Goliath Video Illustration »
You Are God Alone Worship Video »
Dating Goes Golden: Internet research firm Nielsen// NetRatings says seniors are the fastest-growing group of online users. And many of them are looking for love or friendship on the Web. Some 26 million people visited online dating sites in January, and 18% of them, or 4.8 million, were over age 55. Date.com says sign-ups of members age 65 and up increased 78.5% from January ‘04 to January ‘05. Match.com, one of the biggest online dating sites, in January attracted 704,000 visitors age 55 or older, up from 606,000 a year earlier. (USA Today 4/15/05)
What’s Wrong With Same Sex Marriage, a new book from Crossway by D James Kennedy & Jerry Newcombe, is packed with revealing and insightful data that can help jolt many believers out of their complacency on this core cultural threat. Netherlands researchers (where homosexual marriage has been legal the longest) found “marriage” between 2 men lasts an average of 1.5 years and during that time the men had an average of 8 other sexual partners per year. In the U.S., 57% of heterosexual married couples report being faithful to their vows, not the other around as our media constantly implies. Why do homosexuals want all the legal entanglements of marriage? They don’t, what they really want is to make us like them and to open the door to all kinds of sexual chaos that may force acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle on everyone whether or not we agree with it. Michelangelo Signorile, a homosexual writer and activist states the real agenda; “It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats.” This vocal minority (3.2% of adults) is bent on forcing its views on the majority. In fact for about the last 10 years, this group has spent $200 million a year on litigation to destroy marriage as a man and a woman. (What’s Wrong With Same-Sex Marriage? Kennedy & Newcombe, Crossway, ‘04)
/
Professor H.W. Jurgen, a West German sociologist, claims that married couples chat with one another 70 minutes a day in the first year of their marriage. This drops to 30 minutes a day in the second year and then only to 15 minutes a day in the 4th. His research shows that by the eighth year, a husband and wife, typically, share hardly any small talk and become nearly silent with one another.
Barna research shows:
That divorce in the church is just as commonas outside the church. In the church 33%, outside the church 34%.
Also, the south is second in the nation in divorce. The south has a divorce rate of 35%, just behind the west (38%), and leading the Midwest (32%) and Northeast (28%).
Another striking percentage for us as Baptists is that we lead the nation’s major denominations in divorce rates at 29%. Protestant churches overall is at 25%.
The divorce rate amongst the generations is also a bit of surprise:
Seniors (73+) = 18%
Builders (53-72) = 37%
Boomers = 34%
Busters = 7% (Most of these are not old enough to
marry yet).
What does this say about marriage in America? Is it old fashioned. One scholar said that long term marriage commitment isn’t good for mode...
THE FALSE FOUNDATIONS IN THE KINSEY REPORT
Almost 50 years ago, Alfred Kinsey, a quiet Midwestern Zoology professor, published the 1st of 2 volumes that would shake American culture to its foundations. His 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male - like its 1953 sequel, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female - claimed to report the findings of a massive survey of American sexual behavior.
And what findings they were! In dry, scientific language, Kinsey declared that many traditionally forbidden sexual activities were commonplace: About 1/2 of all married men and one in 4 married women had had extramarital sex; 69% of men had been with prostitutes; 10 % of men had been homosexual for at 3 years; 40 to 50% of boys raised on farms had had sexual contact with animals.
What’s more, Kinsey claimed many of these practices could be beneficial. Premarital sex helped women "adjust" to marriage. Boys may develop "affectional relations" with their animal sexual partners.
The public - then sexually conservative by today’s standards - might not have accepted such information from just anyone. But Kinsey was a scientist and, impressed by the wonders of modern technology, Americans had grown to respect science deeply. And because Kinsey’s was a scientific study, says historian John D’Emilio of the University of N. Carolina at Greensboro, "The press had permission to write about the subject in a way it wouldn’t have before."
American culture shifted under the impact. The old sexual rules, supposedly hypocritical, began weakening. "If you discover that the desires you’ve been repressing are being acted out by millions," says historian Paul Robinson of Stanford University, "you are less inclined to repress them." Newsweek characterized that effect as "If it’s OK with Kinsey, it’s OK with me."
Today, in good measure because of Alfred Kinsey, we live in a different world. But were the things he said true?
In December 1995, nearly 50 years after Kinsey’s 1st report, the Indiana institute that Kinsey founded to carry on his work acknowledged that certain data had been misrepresented. Kinsey had written that 9 observers - some technically trained" - had found that children as young as 5 months were capable of multiple orgasm and, when "uninhibited," were "aggressive in seeking" sex. The truth, the Kinsey Institute now said, was that those data were supplied by a single observer - a pedophile who claimed to have sex with 317 boys....
In fact, many of Kinsey’ findings were based on flawed methods. And some are outright false. Nevertheless, prominent scholars who know this continue to promote Kinsey’s work....
When Kinsey took a sexual history, he was far more likely to "find" sexual activity than were his own colleagues - reporting 2 to 3 times as much premarital intercourse and 4 times as much homosexuality as they did. Says historian James Reed of Rutgers University, "Kinsey was a man who very much wanted to find sexual activity."
Even more troubling was Kinsey’s collection of child pornography. According to a 1981 letter from Kinsey colleague Paul Gebhard to researcher Judith Reisman, Kinsey obtained photos and film of children engaged in sexual acts from adults who had had sex with them. Kinsey never notified law enforcement of the existence of any of these pedophiles.
Kinsey claimed to be a neutral scientist who had no agenda. He wrote in his 1st volume that he aimed for "scientific fact completely divorced from questions of moral value and social custom." His claim was false. "Kinsey had views, and they’re in his books," says sociologist John Gagnon, a former president of the International Academy of Sex Research, who joined the institute after its founder’s death in 1956. Kinsey believed that sex was a simple, biological reaction to stimuli with no moral, spiritual or psychological dimension. Only "inhibitions" imposed by society, he claimed prevented everyone from enjoying equally a variety of "outlets."
"It is not so difficult," Kinsey wrote in his 2nd report, "to explain why a human animal does a particular thing sexually. It is more difficult to explain why each and every individual is not involved in every type of sexual activity." In his declared opinion, there was no moral difference between one sexual outlet and any other.
It is not surprising, then, that the Kinsey Reports contain graphic description of young children under prolonged sexual stimulation by a pedophile including the children’s screams and struggles to get away. Yet Kinsey concluded that the children "derive definite pleasure from the situation."
The survey respondents on whom Kinsey based his conclusions were grossly unrepresentative of the general population. About 75% of his male respondents volunteered to take part, for instance. Using Kinsey’s data, psychologist Lewis M. Terman of Stanford University reported that such volunteers are anywhere from 2 to 4 times more active sexually than nonvolunteers.
Kinsey’s sample also included prison inmates. Pomeroy wrote that by 1946, the team had taken sexual histories from 1400 convicted sex offenders. Kinsey never revealed how many he included in his total sample of 5300 males; he did acknowledge that his 1st volume included "several thousand" male prostitutes.
THE FALSE FOUNDATIONS IN THE KINSEY REPORT by Rachel Wildavsky in R.Digest 4/97 p. 59 ff.
Rob Morton
1. The 1990 Kinsey Report states that around 50% of all married
people will commit adultery during their lifetime.
a. The number is usually about 5% higher among men.
b. Women are less likely to commit adultery but not by much.
2. Some other studies propose even higher numbers than the ones given
above claiming that the adultery rate is around 70%.
a. I find that number hard to believe.
b. I don’t think it is 70% and I find the 50% number a little hard
to swallow as well.
c. Whatever the number it is too high.
3. An article in a 1997 issue of Newsweek magazine noted that various
surveys suggest that as many as 30 percent of male Protestant
ministers have had sexual relationships with women other than
their wives.
HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4. The Journal of Pastoral Care in 1993 reported a survey of Southern Baptist pastors in which 14 percent acknowledged they had engaged
in "sexual behavior inappropriate to a minister."
5. A 1988 survey of nearly 1000 Protestant clergy by Leadership magazine found that 12 percent admitted to sexual intercourse outside of marriage. The researchers also interviewed nearly 1000 subscribers
to Christianity Today who were not pastors. Of those 1000 people, 23 percent had engaged extramarital sex
6. The numbers are both good and bad.
a. Good:
i. The level of adultery within the church is half of what the
national level is.
ii. The level of adultery among ministers is 1\5th of the
national level is.
b. The Bad:
i. 1 in every 4 Christians has committed adultery.
ii. 1 in every 10 ministers has committed adultery, thus
ruining their ministries and tainting the church.
Something is radically wrong with homes today. The family is under fire and home life is disintegrating. Year by year the stress put on marriages grows greater. In 1870 there was one divorce for every 34 marriages. By 1900 it was one in five, and by 1950 it was one in three. In the past few years there has been virtually one divorce for every two marriages.
Recently, a survey was made of 200 married adults in regards to forgiveness (1). The researchers were wondering how one’s ability to forgive others would affect their marital satisfaction and personal well-being. The results were astounding! This research suggests that there is a huge relationship between marriage satisfaction and forgiveness. In fact, it appears that as much as one third of marriage satisfaction is related to forgiveness. Not only does the ability to forgive impact the marriage relationship, it was significantly related to personal emotional distress. As forgiveness ability went up, individuals reported fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and fatigue! These results...
For many, marriage vows are unimportant. A study cited in a recent edition of Time Magazine indicates that cohabitation before marriage is on the rise, up from 10% in 1960 to 50% 1998.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 73% of Americans, under age 45, believe that life spent with the same partner is both unusual and unnecessary.
