When Religious Couples Pray

Keywords

family life, marriage and relationship education, religion

Abstract

Religious couples report experiencing their marriage as anchored, sustained, and sanctified in what I’ve described in my clinical research as a “couple-God triangle” that is invoked through prayer. This divine triangle conveys the couple’s view of God’s influence and investment in their relationship. James L. Griffith offered a metaphor for this unseen relationship:

"A therapist who tries to work with a religious [couple] without locating God in [their marital] system may find himself or herself in the position of the astronomers in the mid-1800s who were puzzled that their equations could not predict the movement [of the planets]."

Original Publication Citation

Butler, M. H., & Herring, H. R. (2019, March 25). When religious couples pray. Institute for Family Studies [online]. Retrieved from https://ifstudies.org/blog/when-religious-couples-pray

Document Type

Other

Publication Date

2019-03-25

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/7238

Publisher

Institute for Family Studies

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Family Life

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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