There’s an attempt today to shift the stigma to the other foot. If the shoe fits, that is if you fall into the criterion of those who refuse to celebrate divorce, you will like those of previous decades be forced to wear the stigma.

While attention regarding attacks on marriage is currently and for good reason focused on the White House as wide spread suspicion suggests President Obama is considering endorsing same sex marriage (the only things standing in the way being the President’s evolving position and perhaps more importantly the “political cost” of making such an endorsement), we must not overlook another assault on marriage which surfaced this week.

This assault also carries comparative potential for producing devastating results on both the institution and practice of marriage as well as the foundations and fabric of our society – the celebration of divorce.

Celebrity news reports this week reveal that a pair of celebrities, Jack White, front man of the now defunct White Strips and his British model/singer wife Karen Elson are divorcing after six years of marriage. Rather than expressing sadness and shame in regard to this impending divorce, the couple is announcing they intend to celebrate their divorce and even throw a party for it, complete with “dancing, photos, memories, and drinks…”

It wasn’t too long ago, as many who have grown up in this country can attest, that divorce carried with it a stigma no one wanted stuck anywhere near them – not upon their friends, nor upon their family members, and especially not upon themselves. This societal stigma, unlike the “cooties” which school-aged children used to playfully attach to one another, was considered quite serious, for everyone knew that such a stigma normally carried significant personal, familial, relational, ecclesiastical and social consequences. Once attached (regardless of whether biblical grounds were taken into consideration regarding the divorce or not) this stigma was near impossible to shake.

But oh my, how times have changed!

If Jack White and Karen Elson’s example is any forecast of things to come, a “positive spin” is going to be applied to divorce so that rather than divorce being something we should hate as God does, divorce is going to be held out as something society should celebrate.

Take for example the couple’s party invitation in which they invite guests to come and “celebrate together this anniversary of the making and breaking of the sacred union of marriage”, and their press release which speaks so glowingly of the time the couple will “continue to spend both separately and together” in the future that one reporter using a double entendre concluded her article by saying “If only all divorces were this much fun.”

However, the change doesn’t stop with this. Rather, the couple’s un-nuptial party is said to be off limits to “plus ones or dead beats”, the latter I suppose forming a new stigma to be attached to those who refuse to go along with or adopt the new attitude of celebrating divorce, and based on their beliefs and actions (or lack thereof) will become the ones ostracized as social outcasts.

There’s an attempt today to shift the stigma to the other foot. If the shoe fits, that is if you fall into the criterion of those who refuse to celebrate divorce, you will like those of previous decades be forced to wear the stigma.

But before receiving invitations to such parties and being confronted by personal friends to adopt such an attitude, shouldn’t we stop and ask ourselves “Is this really the direction we think society should go?” Is the “breaking” of the sacred union of marriage something we should be celebrating?

Sure, we’ve all been faced with how to respond in those unfortunate situations where divorce has occurred – do we stand off from the individuals affected as if they have contracted some sort of all-encompassing plague or do we come alongside and help the individuals pick up the pieces and make the best of the situation moving forward? But is there not a far cry between acknowledging the destructive nature and consequences of divorce while displaying love to those involved in its destructive web and exclaiming that divorce is something to celebrate?

What about all the consequences to society itself, not to mention the individuals and families affected, which will increase if and to the extent people begin to celebrate divorce? Do we not possess enough data already on the devastating effects of divorce to help us forecast where this will take us? Do we need additional children living apart from one or more of their parents, additional drops in income, additional people with behavioral, health and emotional problems, etc.? What about the additional effects which will result from even more divorces?

Times have changed. Not only has divorce become common place – not just in society but even among many professing Christian families, and not only are law firms now advertising free divorces to attract new clients, but if a new attitude of “celebrating divorce” is embraced, what we’ve experienced thus far will pale in consideration of things which are to come.

What’s interesting is one does not even have to be a Christian to read the writing on this wall, but as long as we as a society continue to idolize and exalt self-interest, personal happiness, and individual rights above all else, vision will be blurred and many will not care to read what is written.

I liken what’s taking place in our society on some levels to the description some have used to describe the damage which was occurring as a result of the record rise in flood waters associated with the Mississippi River. Witnesses and commentators said it was like watching a disaster taking shape and playing out in slow motion before their very eyes.

As we all know, disasters occur not only in the physical realm, but in spiritual and societal realms as well. The question then is: “Will we sit back, mindlessly adopting the attitudes of others, and do nothing while the disaster plays out before our eyes?” or will enough people stand up and change the tide while there is still time?

Tim Muse is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is servng as pastor of Brandon Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Brandon, Miss.

[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]