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Christian Living

Family Matters 11/17/11

Kim Kardashian’s Divorce: A Symptom of a Deeper Problem


I’ve been blogging about the Kardashian divorce for the past week, not because I am personally fascinated with this couple, but because so many people follow the comings and goings of this reality TV star family. 

For those of you who don’t know, reality star Kim Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries this summer. Kim recently filed for divorce after only 72 days of marriage. The wedding boasted a bridal registry of $172,000, cost upward of 10 million dollars, and was televised in a two-hour special on E!

Social media chatter has some sad and others angry with Kim for giving up on her marriage so quickly. Some feel betrayed and wonder if this was only a publicity stunt. ABC News reported that thousands of people are even signing an online petition asking E! to remove their lineup of Kardashian TV shows because they’ve had enough. 

The reason people are outraged is because Kim crossed a line that even the most forgiving find hard to swallow. Marriage is a sacred act, not to be entered into lightly. So ending a marriage after 72 days with no apparent good reason sends the message that marriage is like shopping. Try it on. Buy it. Don’t like it? Return it.

Whatever the true reason for Kim’s quick divorce, her actions and others who jump out of marriage treats the marital covenant as a simple contract that can easily be broken.

Some divorces are the result of fixable problems. People do not take the time to go to premarital or marital counseling to work through emerging problems. They don’t pray together asking God to change their hearts and work on their part of the problem.

Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia Brad Wilcox tells us that regular church attending Christians do fare a little better at staying married than the unchurched (Read more on USAToday.com). He found that people who attend religious services several times a month were about 35 percent less likely to divorce than those with no religious affiliation. Still the numbers are too high.

So I’m not so much pointing the finger at Kim as I am suggesting that she represents a deeper problem: marriage is no longer viewed as a covenant, an unbreakable promise established for life even though that is God’s perspective.

In my home, we are having conversations about what marriage really means. We are contrasting the Hollywood attitude towards marriage to a biblical view. And we are encouraging our young adults to cultivate a biblical perspective, not a pop culture position on marriage.

Use this opportunity to talk to young adults about the state of marriage and divorce in our culture. Pray for Kim and her family to make better decisions and honor the sanctity of marriage—a prayer we can all say over our families as well.


Dr. Linda Mintle is author of I Married You and Not Your Family, a book that talks about the 10 common lies that lead to divorce. Get it today to divorce proof your marriage. For more, go to www.drlindahelps.com.

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