The Baptists are buzzin'. Last week, I saw a study which grouped divorce rates by religious affiliation. The study said members of the Southern Baptist Convention are the most likely to find their marriages ending before death do they part. More than 30 percent of all Southern Baptist unions end in divorce.

The group with the lowest divorce rates? Atheists and agnostics at right around 20 percent. Gotta love it.

Southern Baptist honchos, using their annual hoedown to focus on "the marriage crisis" (a phrase that in recent years has had more to do with homosexuals than divorce), gave lots of excuses for their poor showing. First, they correctly pointed out that Southern Baptists tend to get married younger than members of other denominations. In general, the age of (first) marriage decreases in relation to the increasing conservatism and fundamentalism of the denomination. Methodists, for example, generally marry much later than Southern Baptists. Statistics also show that people who marry in their teens are much more likely to get divorced than those married later.

The Southern Baptists have another good point. Couples who live together and break up weren't considered "divorced" by the study. I'm with the SBC on this, too. I've had a number of friends who broke up with longtime boyfriends or girlfriends, and the short-term emotional impact was similar to divorce. Now, looking long-term, especially financially, there are significant differences. Still, these early failed live-in relationships are probably quite similar to Southern Baptist early failed marriages, so I think they ought to be seen as equal in the eyes of such a study.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but up to this point, I'm down with the SBC. But we gotta talk about their "solutions." That's where we part ways.

Basically, the Southern Baptists say couples and families should pray together more and that more Southern Baptist couples should enter into "committed" marriages.

Actually, I agree with the prayer initiative. If you're religious and believe in prayer, then praying with your family should help bring you closer to your spouse and children. It can't hurt, anyway.

As for the committed marriages, well, I think those are just absurd. Again, the concept is fine. The idea is that couple promise not to get divorced unless there's a really serious problem (an affair, abuse or some other truly dire circumstance). You know, that's what I thought regular marriage was about.

I think these solutions are a misinterpretation of the problem. In fact, they don't even begin to address the problem. The reason Southern Baptists and members of other conservative denominations get married early is that most kids want please their parents. Yes, even "out-of-control" teenagers want to make mom and dad happy. But this desire sits crossways from another, more primal urge. Just about all (okay, let's say "all") kids want to have sex. They want be good Christians. And you can have all the sex you want and still be a good Christian if you're married.

Those of us who are married recognize the absurdity of that last statement (after all, you're married to another person who has ideas of his or her own). It's the other person part of the equation that makes me a firm believer in living together before marriage. Moving in with a person for the first time is highly traumatic. Every person has different ways of keeping house, cooking, cleaning, eating and sleeping. And, yes, sexual compatibility is important, too. But all those other things are real issues. Even two perfect people have to make adjustments. Compromise. Learn what it's like to live with another person. A person who's a bit more than just a roommate.

As most of you know, it's really hard. You gotta work your butt off. Marriage should be fun and fulfilling, but it's also a daily struggle. Every single day, the other person will do something you don't like. You've gotta learn to accept that the other person is another person and has different ways than you. I've been living with Barbara for almost eight years, and I'm still getting used to some things. That's just the way it is. There is no magic bullet to create a successful marriage. And marriage itself isn't a panacea for the social problems of our society. Some people are better prepared for matrimony than others.

The thing is, marriage requires maturity. Very few 18-year-olds have the life experience necessary to get married these days. People need to prepare for marriage. Living together is a trial by fire. I'm generally in favor of that kind of immersive training. And if the results are better, more solid marriages (or conversely, the prevention of bad marriages), I don't see how anyone, including astonishingly sanctimonious Southern Baptists, can look down their noses at such "test runs."

Jon survived two years of living in sin and has been married for five and a half years.