Most times when Christian podcasters take up a topic like this we tend to get preachy about not entering into an unequal yoke, where you have a Christian marrying a non-Christian. While we fully agree with the truth of Scripture on that subject, in this episode we want to look at this issue more from the perspective of how to best face this issue as a couple when you find yourselves in a marriage where you don’t share your religious values, or even don’t share convictions about your faith to nearly the same degree. 

Religious Values Are Good For Marriage

Just as a quick disclaimer around terminology — we are born again Christians who believe that salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. We believe that Biblical Christianity is a faith, not a religion. In other words, the blessing that God has for Christians comes through faith in Christ, not through a set of religious practices, law-keeping or following a set of rules. Which translates into the fact that we don’t think of our faith as a religion, nor do we normally call our faith-based practices “religious practices”. 

However, in the research literature, nearly all studies lump anything to do with God or faith under this term “religion” or “religious views” or “religious practices”. So for the sake of keeping things simple, we are just going to roll with the most commonly used terminology in the research journals.

To start off then, there is strong evidence that religious views and spirituality have positive effects on marriage. There are a number of reasons for this[i]:

Christianity promotes positive values like love, faithfulness, patience, forgiveness and kindness, all of which are good for marriage

Christianity also encourages positive behaviors, such as putting your spouse's needs before your own, resolving conflict positively, and regularly connecting through joint prayer and church attendance

Christianity teaches that marriage is sacred, meaning that those with religious beliefs are more likely to remain faithful and committed to the marriage over their whole life

Christians often have stronger support networks than non-Christians (from their church communities), giving them more people to turn to for support and guidance

All of this means that when both spouses are of the same faith, and both place high importance on their religious values, marital satisfaction is normally high[ii].

When Your Religious Beliefs Don’t Align

Misaligned values can occur when one spouse is very committed to their faith and the other isn't, when one spouse is religious and the other isn't, or when spouses are committed to different religions. All of these situations can impact the marriage, but probably not for the reasons you would expect.

Reduced Positive Behaviors

Now just note as we go through this that we are dealing with studies of the general population. So I’ll say something like, non-religious people will probably display less actions that are good for the marriage. Note the tentative language: “will probably”. Please don’t be offended if you are non-religious — we are reporting on statistical issues here and you may well be an exception. We acknowledge that there are highly religious people who are terrible marriage partners. And we acknowledge that there are non-religious people who are devoted, loving and magnificent spouses. 

We aren’t making global statements. We are just pointing out general trends in a population. If you are an exception, great. If you are not, I hope you’ll make some room to consider what the research is saying and think about how you might apply this thing to your marriage, as we do to ours.

Generally, spirituality leads to attitudes and actions that are good for marriage. If one spouse is non-religious or less committed to their faith, they will probably display less of these attitudes and actions.

This was tested by a research study in 2015[iii],