Baskerville: That is correct. And to be fair, though, this was happening even before “no fault divorce.” “No fault divorce” laws really just put the nails in the coffin. They just codified what was already taking place. Therefore, simply repealing “no fault divorce” and reinstating fault in divorce would not solve the problem.

The issue today has really become child custody: by shifting the battle into the area of children they turned children into political weapons. Because what happens is not only can one spouse unilaterally divorce the other, but she—and it is usually the mother—can take the children with her (or sometimes the father does it to the mother), but in most cases the mother can divorce the father, and without any grounds, take the children. She doesn’t have to give any reason. After that point the father’s contact with the children when it is not authorized by the government becomes a crime. He can be arrested for trying to see his own children without having done anything legally wrong. And this is what’s shocking: they just turned children into political weapons and political tools.

Mohler: I’ve been concerned for years about what I’ve called the divorce industrial complex. You really do a great job in your book in demonstrating how there is an entire pernicious economy based upon and encouraging and facilitating divorce.

Baskerville: It’s huge, that’s right. And what’s most important about it is this huge machine is government based. It’s not just private entrepreneurs in this case, it is government officials. It’s lawyers, it’s judges and it’s the huge social services bureaucracies … it’s a huge entourage that is not only profiting from divorce, but increasing government power over private lives in very dangerous ways.

Mohler: Professor Baskerville … you were talking about the fathers as victims of this and I think in that context that’s clearly the right way to talk about this. But ultimately, children are the victims of all of this.

Baskerville: Well, that’s exactly right. This is the main cause behind the epidemic of fatherless children—that 24 million fatherless children in this country are not that way because the fathers have abandoned their children, contrary to government and other propaganda. Overwhelmingly, it is because fathers are forcibly kept away from their children. Fathers who have done nothing wrong are forcibly separated from their children. We know that fatherlessness is the single greatest predictor of social and personal deviance among children, alcohol and substance abuse, crime and low educational attainment and yet we are told that fathers are abandoning their children. This is not true.

In addition to being one of Salem’s nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky  and recognized as one of America’s leading theologians and cultural commentators. Contact Dr. Mohler at www.albertmohler.com.