“If the church is the American institution that has the power to save marriages, why isn’t the black community in better shape? Why, given that members of black churches have the highest rates of church attendance and proclaim some of the highest levels of belief, are the marriage rates among the lowest?”

How did we go from “Straight Outta Compton” to the “War Room”?

In one weekend, the top movie at the box office went from one that glorifies sex and violence to one that glorifies traditional marriage and God. These movies — the one that tells the history of the rap group NWA and the other that tells the story of the religious journey of a woman to save her marriage — surely represent the ideals competing for the hearts and minds of Americans. Particularly African-Americans.

While there are plenty of people who went to see “Straight Outta Compton” who have no interest in pursuing a life of thuggery, there are few people who went to see “War Room” unless they were Christian, interested in becoming Christian, or dreaming of a happy marriage and family life.

When the movie opens, Elizabeth and Tony, an upper-middle-class black couple, are fighting about the three things couples fight about most — money, time and children. She wants to help her sister financially. He does not. He spends all his time on the road or at the gym. She wants him home. He wants their daughter to play a real sport like basketball. She says it’s OK for the girl to be on the double-dutch team.

Then Elizabeth meets Miss Clara, an older woman who says she is going to teach Elizabeth to “fight the right way.” Elizabeth, Miss Clara says, has to surrender herself to God and let God do the fighting for her. She has to stop criticizing her husband and start praying for him. The War Room is a reference to the closet Miss Clara has where she goes to fight her battles with God and against God — to pray.

In a miraculously short amount of time, the couple goes from bitter and disconnected to loving and prayerful. But it’s not simply divine intervention that gets them there. There are social factors too. For one thing, it’s true that couples who pray together stay together. According to Brad Wilcox, head of the National Marriage Project, husbands and wives who attend church regularly together are a third less likely to divorce than those who don’t.

According to a 2010 article in the Journal of Marriage and Family, not only is it beneficial for couples to spend time together regularly, but praying together also seems to help spouses forgive each other more easily — another significant factor in marital happiness.

It’s also true that the church community helps. “Sharing religious friends [goes] a long way towards explaining why more religious couples are happier,” says Wilcox.

Indeed, the movie should probably have emphasized this aspect even more. Tony has one friend who is always encouraging him to go to church and telling him to remain faithful in his marriage. But there seems to be no one else in his life reinforcing this. And while Elizabeth seems to have one mentor, her advice is dubious — spending her time praying alone in a closet is not, sociologically speaking, the key to success.

Read More