"All you need is love." That's what they tell us. I did a search on the question of marrying someone of a different religion and found piles of commenters who assured us, "All you need is love." Really?
A guy I know is planning to get married, perhaps this year. She: A Roman Catholic. He: A "Hindu" who believes that religions are primarily a function of power and control and no religion is real. But she (and her mother) have stated categorically that she cannot marry him if he doesn't convert. His solution? Well, he loves her, so he'll go through the necessary Catholic steps to marry her. Does he believe any of that stuff? Don't be silly. What's belief got to do with it?
Earlier this year a couple hit the news because of a battle over religion. She was Jewish and he was Catholic, but they agreed when they got married to raise the kids Jewish. After the birth of their daughter, however, he became concerned that she wasn't baptized. He was worried. Naomi Riley of The Washington Post reported that he told her, "If, God forbid, something happened to her, she wouldn't be in heaven."
Come on, folks! All we need is love! Can't we all just get along? Maybe not. Between 1988 and 2006, the number of mixed-faith marriages went from 15% to 25%. The rest of the statistics are, well, frightening. We used to hear, "The family that prays together stays together." Turns out it's a truism. One study reported that "if members of two mainline Christian denominations marry, they have a one in five chance of being divorced in five years. A Catholic and a member of an evangelical denomination have a one in three chance. And a Jew and a Christian who marry have a greater than 40 percent chance of being divorced in five years." Mixed-faith marriages have a much higher chance of divorce than others. And that's a bad thing. Apparently love is not all we need.
What's all the hubbub about, bub? Well, I'm sure there are several issues. People who actually believe in their professed religion will actually believe in their professed religion. People who merely profess a religion but not actually believe it won't. So there's a factor. It seems that conservative Christian denominations have a more powerful draw on the belief system, giving them both a higher likelihood of remaining married if they are in agreement and a higher likelihood of divorce if they are not. So the strength of the faith is an issue. I would think, also, that questions of eternal condition, like the guy in the news item above, would have an impact. "We love each other so nothing else matters" may go okay for a while, but what about when there are children and their eternal condition is in question? That could be a problem.
The question that never seems to be asked in the question, "Is it okay to marry outside of ones faith?" is the question of truth. It appears as if the idea is that love trumps truth. If "all you need is love", then truth is irrelevant. You see, if there is a God and if there is valid religion, then there is truth here to be considered. The whole "all religions are valid" thing won't fly. Christianity at the least will be null and void if that is true because Christ (the root word for "Christianity") claimed "No man comes to the Father but by Me." Either He was right (nullifying all other religions) or He was wrong (affirming the exclusivity of Christianity). Beyond that, logic dictates that two or more claims to being the exclusive religion of truth cannot be valid. It may be that all such claims are wrong (and no religion is, therefore, right), but it cannot be that all (or more than one) are right. That just won't work.
To me the biggest question is the question of truth. "How we feel about each other" is only vaguely relevant because feelings change. "How we think about each other" may be more relevant, but it doesn't even come close to the issue of truth. "What does he/she see as true?" becomes vitally important in small ways and in large ways. If she believes that 2+2=4 and he believes that 2+2 is an unknown quantity that varies, he had better not be keeping the checkbook. That is a small thing that could quickly escalate to disaster. But the eternal condition of my spouse or my children ... that's a really big thing. Eternity matters. And no amount of "love" is going to alter that. No, the answer is not "All we need is love." The answer is "What do you believe is true?" If you cannot agree on basic truths about what constitutes morality and what determines where you spend eternity, there will be trouble. The larger the truth issue, the larger the trouble. And the truth about God and your relationship with Him is the largest truth to consider.
2 comments:
This the scenario of the college campus or seminary exchange:
Professor: There is no such thing as truth.
Student: But isn't there one truth? Isn't that statement true?
Professor: OK, there only one truth and which is that there is no truth.
Student: Doesn't that make TWO truths? 1, there is only one truth, 2. there is no truth?
These marriage statistics you cite are what happens when one tries to live his life living from the perspective of the Rajah standing on his balcony looking down with all seeing eyes on the blind priests feeling around on the elephant. They go into marriage thinking that their religion is one of many roads to God. I've heard it said more than a few times lately by parents that they were going to raise their children in both religions and then let them decide. This is clearly a perspective that sees itself exalted over religions and which one is a matter of what one chooses to descend into. But when they do, be sure that, for them, there is the "higher truth" that trumps all claims of truth by that religion, especially as it applies to right and wrong and exclusivity. All one is left with is rituals, hence the poor man who was worried about his sons salvation as if splashing or submerging him with water would take care of that; kind of like i before e except after c can determine if a word is spelled correctly or not.
I was working with a guy a few years ago who was going through this very thing. Him and his wife embrace the words of the spirit of this age and married; him being Catholic, her a Jew. He said he thought that it would make their marriage stronger because of their diversity. But then a child came into the picture and he is going to loose his wife and child with great anguish because all of the sudden for both of them diversity is taking a back seat to truth.
When I hear words like interfaith", especially when it is applied to marriage, I normally interpret that as "intra" faith, that is, faith in one's self and his ability to stand on the balcony and judge religions rightly and truthfully as blind and stupid, unlike himself.
Yes, truth is irrelevant. All we need is love.
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