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Split-Religion Marriages and Conversions
When I was a young teenager, my dad got pulled into the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults when a neighbor asked my dad to sponsor him through the process of conversion. The man’s wife was Catholic, so he was considering the Church’s beliefs with charitable patience. My father has participated in RCIA ever since, in varying capacities.
These days, one of his favorite TV programs is The Journey Home in which host Marcus Grodi interviews converts to Catholicism about their conversion experiences. Baptists, Lutherans, Mormons, Jews, housewives, lawyers, scientists, preachers — The show is fascinating because of the endless variety of origin stories, which provide insights and nuances which cradle Catholics like myself often have never considered.
A common theme in conversion stories is marriage or courtship to someone of a different faith. My siblings all married individuals of different theological backgrounds. Thus far, these have not resulted in any conversions, one way or the other. Best I can estimate, that general scenario of an ongoing theological difference seems as common among marriages as are conversions of one spouse to the other’s faith… or abandonment of faith altogether (surrender).
There are certainly degrees of separation and pressure to convert in marriage. Lutherans and Catholics, for example, are not as far apart as Baptists and Catholics. But even spouses who generally agree might run into significant hurdles in regard to the raising of their children; such as in regard to the timing of baptism (infant or adult), the importance of worship with a community, the roles of priests and preachers, or the centrality of the Eucharist.
The Ricochet community includes many mixed-religion marriages and conversion-through-marriage stories. I would love to hear them. What factored into your decisions? On what were you willing or not willing to bend? How did the relationship with your spouse change your views? How did your religious beliefs shape your relationship?
I would also be interested to hear stories from individuals whose faith was strengthened, rather than altered, by marriage and similar relationships.
Published in General, Religion & Philosophy
Manny, are you at all familiar with the Association of Hebrew Catholics?
My children consider themselves completed Jews, or Jewish Catholics.
It sounds like we have similar interfaith marital experiences. As I said above I was not devout when I married. But I would second what you said. If one or both parties are devout, I would not recommend it either. Even with accomodations it poses difficulties and limitations. On the other hand, understanding Judaism from the inside has enlightened my Christianity. But it sounds like your family has made it work as well.
No I wasn’t. Thanks for that. I’ll have to explore it. My son is only five. Perhaps as he comes of age he will too.
Aaron, Good topic. I’m a cradle Catholic, and during the course of our marriage my wife has become Catholic. She was in the Methodist Church when we met, although her family, while believing in God and Christ, would go to the closest protestant church when they moved, and the moved several times between birth and age 12. The only church my MIL would not attend is Southern Baptist.
At the time of our marriage my Catholicism was lukewarm, at best, but I knew I wanted to be married by my Uncle, a wonderful priest who showed me it was possible to be both a man and be a believer. So I insisted on a Catholic wedding. While she had a few RC relatives, the great majority of her family was not Catholic. She did not want a Mass, because she did not want her family left out of a large part of the ceremony. So while we had a Catholic wedding, in a Catholic Church, there was no Mass. Her pastor, a really wonderful man, co-officiated at the wedding, although it was my Uncle who witnessed as we said our vows. She made the promise to raise our children Catholic. We attended Mass as a couple for about a year after we were married. She never joined a Methodist Church in Louisville, and maintained her membership at her hometown church, although she didn’t attend. We stopped going to church on a regular basis for nearly two years, becoming C & E Christians with the occasional Sunday attendance thrown in. But always to Mass. We started attending regularly again about the time we found out she was pregnant with our first child (how familiar does that sound?). She started RCIA then, but couldn’t complete it due to pregnancy complications.
Our son was baptized Catholic and we continued with regular attendance. She started RCIA again, but job problems (hers) interfered with her second try. We moved to Eastern Kentucky for about a year and a half. There are not a lot of Catholics there, let me tell you. While there a wonderful priest asked my wife why she didn’t receive Communion. She explained that she wasn’t Catholic. Fr. Jerry asked if she wanted to be, and she told him about her two failed RCIA attempts. He then began to question her about her faith background, her familiarity with the Mass, and with Catholic Doctrine. This was in January, well after RCIA had begun there. He told her she could join the current class. That Easter she was received into the church.
A few years after that, knowing it wasn’t my sterling example of Catholic faith that inspired her, I asked my wife why she had converted. I expected to hear that she had converted because she knew I wouldn’t change denominations and she wanted all of us in the same church, or hear that she had been inspired by my Mother, or something similar to that. But she told me that even before she knew me (or my Mom) she had begun to question why her church regarded Communion as a symbol, rather than the actual body of Christ. She came to believe in the true presence over the years, and wanted to be able to receive the Eucharist.
Through the course of our marriage religious differences haven’t been any problem. One of the finest Christians I know is my Methodist MIL, who has happily celebrated our children’s RC religious milestones with us. The only thing that might be a problem is that my wife has expressed to our kids that they probably shouldn’t date someone who isn’t Catholic. When our kids ask her what would have happened if my Mother had said that, and I’d listened, she tells them that they may not end up as lucky as their father, and it’s best not to chance it.
I think the fact that neither of us were strong in our faith at the time of our marriage helped to keep any religious tension from arising. And the fact that our religious mothers had no objections, or at least didn’t voice any, also helped.
As usual, I enjoy your original outlook on things, C!
I have witnessed several Protestant – Judeo marriages; I came close to having one myself. Most of the Protestants who enter these mixed marriages are somewhat secular but respect the richness and traditions of Judaism and are perfectly happy to raise their children as Jews.
I would also mention that the Jewish men I dated and the Jewish friendships I hold were and are very much based upon common socio-economic values and these can be extraordinarily unifying bonds.
My family is Jewish. My sister married a non-Jew, and he converted. Their two kids were raised Jewish. Unfortunately, their real religion is Liberalism. My niece is homosexual. My nephew married a Persian woman, and they had a standard reform Jewish wedding, and a Persian wedding that included an imam using the Koran as a part of the ceremony. Draw your own conclusions.
Wow—what wonderful opportunities for love God has given you! Lucky man.
When I met my husband I would have identified myself as a Catholic, but I was not practicing. I had been raised by observant but not fervent Catholic parents at a time when the catechesis was just dreadful, so I became an atheist as soon as I left the nest (not that I told my parents this as I had no wish to disappoint or hurt them). I was an atheist for many years, and then due to a number of factors I came back to theism and then quickly to Christianity. I then considered myself a Protestant, as I went to a number of various Protestant churches, but the dizzying variety of different — and often contradictory — beliefs led me back to the Catholic church, at least in name if not practice. My husband was also a non-practicing Catholic. I became a “revert” about 15 years ago. Thankfully, my husband — perhaps a bit apprehensively at first — followed me. Our faith is very, very important to us both, and has strengthened and enhanced our marriage and our lives. I love the Faith — I’m one of those odd ducks that actually enjoys having the young LDS elders come to the house, because I love theological discussions and apologetics.
Aaron, I might be thought of as ‘Cathoterian’ (My Mom – whose faith I share – was an observant, non-doctrinaire Catholic; my Dad was a baptized, non-practicing Presbyterian.) They obtained dispensation, Dad participated in catechesis, their marriage was witnessed in the church privately by Mom’s pastor…The reception was at Mom’s family home. Dad never entered the Church, but always supported our raising as Catholic. A hiero-monk friend described Dad as “surrounded by a reef of Catholicism”. That covers it.
I knew it!
Yikes. I kinda feel your pain/anguish/discomfort. I’m Jewish, and can’t even handle the liberal camps of Judaism–when I go to a shul it’s Orthodox and/or Chabad, else I cringe, even though my bar mitzvah was at a Reform synagogue–but there’s an excellent chance I will wind up marrying a non-Jew and attempt to raise kids as Jewish as possible. I’ve just never bonded well with Jewish women–either because they seem to be too observant for me, or too urban-secular. I gave up insisting on finding a Jewish woman a few years ago.
I’ve never been able to accept the idea that being “officially” admitted into a faith (or at least Judaism) matters that much. Judaism is primarily a faith of acts and deeds, not faith/belief. So I’ve never understood why, e.g., marrying someone who is technically Jewish and utterly secular is “better” than marrying someone who, technically, isn’t Jewish, but keeps the Sabbath and a kosher home with me and helps give children (I hope that happens!) a Jewish education, whether or not she ever goes through a conversion.
Interesting discussion!
So, my folks met in Okinawa in 1962-ish, where Mom was a missionary teacher (Southern Methodist) and Dad was on 6 months convalescent leave after getting himself blowed up in Vietnam (or, a country very close to Vietnam). After he went back to Vietnam and finished his tour, he got himself reassigned to Okinawa so he could avail himself of the opportunity to woo Mom.
Mom, as stated, was a Southern Methodist from Deep in the Heart of Texas. Dad was a hardboiled Irish Catholic out of Holyoke/Chicopee, Mass (not Southie, but still). They got hitched, and per the guidance of the One True Church, part of the getting hitched was the commitment to raise any and all progeny as Catholics.
(BTW, Mom is on record as saying that, at that time in Texas, her marrying a Catholic was as big a scandal as marrying a black man. So, good for her–and me and my bro)
So fast forward to 1973-ish, the family is stationed in Taiwan, and little Boss Mongo comes home from his Catholic kindergarten or 1st grade or whatever in tears because “Sister Mary Joseph says I’m not close to the heart of Jesus.”
Mom stops and says, “excuse me?” Now, Mom’s got a Master’s in education from SMU (Dad’s a GED-er, but that’s a different story).
“Sister Mary Joseph says I’m not close to the heart of Jesus.”
Mom bundles me immediately into the car and we haul, uh, ourselves to the school and proceed to the classroom. There on the bulletin board there’s a centre-of-mass iconic picture of Jesus, and Jesus has a visible heart, with a crown of thorns around it. Arrayed all over the bulletin board are the name tags of all the kids in the class; each name tag’s proximity to the heart of Jesus is based on class room behavior. And me and some other miscreant’s name tags are tacked at the bottom left corner of the board, well away from all our classmates.
Mom grabs Sister Mary Joseph, pulls her to the board, and issues a quick but voluble disquisition on how awful she assesses this particular technique is and its deleterious impact on an impressionable young mind like li’l Mongo’s. Then she grabs my name tag, plants it via thumbtack right on Jesus’ heart, and leans over the (5’nothin’ Sister Mary Joseph) and plants her forefinger in her chest saying, “if this tag moves, you will be explaining why to me.”
Since then, I’ve always adhered to my Catholic faith, but take it with a big grain of salt, thanks to Mom. Well, Dad too. Dad used to say (as he nursed his scotch), “Son, we’re Catholics ’cause we like our religion bought and paid for.”
Boss-Man, take it from chaplain Nanda: you are smack-dab center in the heart of Jesus – ’nuff said.
And that’s why we love you, Nanda.
Mom was a Lutheran and Dad was raised among the Evangelical United Brethren. Dad’s a Lutheran now. I asked him while I was taking catechism class if he had ever been confirmed.
“I was never even suspected” was all I got out of him,
The reason is that Judaism is not a universal religion. It is specifically the worldview of the Jewish people. The Jewish people was formed as a nation before receiving God’s revelation at Sinai, and peoplehood precedes Jewish belief. Many of the Torah’s commandments cannot be understood except with the (often unstated) assumption that Jewish nationhood comes first.
(An important difference between the Jewish nation and other nations — e.g., the Chinese or French — is that one can join the Jewish nation. No matter how long you live in Japan, you will not be Japanese. But if you accept the Jewish worldview and ideals, you can become fully Jewish. In that sense, it’s a lot like becoming American.)
For men in particular, marrying a gentile woman is problematic, because the children are considered Jewish only if they are born to a Jewish mother (or later convert). So the man is effectively not prioritizing the future of the Jewish people.
It’s uncommon now, but for millennia an intermarried child would be mourned as if he or she had died. Until the last couple centuries, intermarrying was understood to be tantamount to renouncing one’s Jewish identity and bond to the Jewish people.
And this is where I take argument with The Rules. Judaism is not an ethnicity, but a religion. If a mother is not born Jewish but raises her children to be so, what is the debate?
SOS, of course I inow all that. I spent a good 15-20 years trying to find the Jewess of my dreams. Maybe I would have had a different impression outside a blue state or at least the NYC Distortion Field. But I’ve kind of given up…
EThompson the law is the law, or at least it’s the deepest of customs and recognized by the Orthodox. But as I wrote above, I find it impossible to accept (obviously I’m not disinterested/objective but still…)
In my experience, most conversions happen before the marriage. We Mormons tend to be more exclusive in our dating habits – probably as a result of our teachings about marriage and family – and focus on marrying within the faith. A sister, an uncle, and I each dated non-Mormons. The current spouses of both my sister and uncle converted to the Church before marriage, and my dating relationship with a non-member was relatively lengthy but would ultimately expire.
In those cases where a split-religion marriage does occur, it often is seen to indicate a fault of some kind, whether it be a shot-gun wedding or a lack of religious devotion. IMO that’s unfortunate because there can be times where someone can be an incredibly uplifting partner and spouse even if they don’t hold to all of ones religious ideas. I know a couple in our congregation that were of different religions when they married; he a Catholic and she a Mormon. She had already been divorced (from another Mormon, incidentally) and had older kids, but that didn’t put him off. After about 10 years he did get baptized and has been a wonderful contributor to our congregation. I’m glad that she didn’t discount him simply because he wasn’t Mormon, otherwise she and we would be missing out.
-E
I was born and baptized when my Mom was in the Episcopal church, but she has taken to Lutheranism since we lived in Colorado (about 37 years). My Dad tells the story of how he had Catholicism beaten out of him by Nuns. He attends church now with Mom (but only in the last 10 years). My wife stopped going to Catholic church after the church’s character changed from when she was a teenager (30+ years ago) and watching her Mother suffer from cancer.
I tell my wife often that I will attend church with her whenever she is ready.
I believe, but I came to my belief in a very round-about way.
Interesting issue. I’m not married, but have nine first cousins on either side, iow we are a cohort of 19. Of these 8 males and 11 females:
Going by this tiny sample it seems that religious intermarriage might be a problem for some, depending on how they view religion, but it certainly doesn’t have to be.
Heh, heh. No. And after the age of having children, so not an issue. She wouldn’t have anything to do with my religion (except for marrying me, of course). I have no intention of converting. I do study the Torah because I believe it is the common heritage of Jews and Christians, and because I believe God has a special place for America among the nations of the earth because we embrace His teachings and His special servants. Therefore, I think Americans should make it their business to understand the essential texts of Judaism and Christianity in order to understand our heritage as Americans, regardless of their religious background, or none, even if atheist. To hold otherwise and claim to be an American is to hold oneself and ones views higher than the truth.
Inshallah.
Allah yisallamkun : – )
I do not – nor did I ever – have any sympathy for Jews who married out, and Son of Spengler’s explanation above is a good reflection of why.
Oddly enough, the last couple of years when I have gotten deep into genetic genealogy, I find the children of intermarrige to be of particular interest in my research. They don’t have all that endogamy that comes from having Jews on their “other side.”
:)
Choosing someone for their blood and not their acts is indeed a kind of racism. Ultimately, Jewish is as Jewish does – it comes as a result of seeking that relationship with G-d. Jewish-born people who want to be non-Jewish will get there, just as non-Jewish people who crave that relationship will end up being Jewish sooner or later.
Conversion, though, is part of the latter process. For my part, since marriage is such an essential piece for connecting man to G-d, Judaism cannot be fully practiced while intermarried.
I should note that you may be looking in the wrong places. NYC is indeed in its own warp. PM me to discuss further.
Precisamente!
ET, there is in fact an ethnic component to this religion. The Jewish religion is a compact between God and the Jewish people. It has both rights and responsibilities. It would be unjust to impose restrictions and deny freedoms to someone who’s not a party to that compact — and likewise wrong to confer unentitled rights on that person. So some formal standards are required to determine membership in the Jewish people.
Now, I personally favor more relaxed admission standards in many cases than those which have developed over the centuries. But regarding the specific scenario you raise, I agree with the tradition. How can a mother be relied upon to teach her children an approach to metaphysical truth that she herself does not believe? Having a parent who wants a child to be Jewish is not sufficient to make that child Jewish.
(Logically too, there are some problems here. If a mother is truly committed to raising a child according to Judaism, believing the child to be Jewish while she herself is not, then she will discover that according to traditional Judaism the child is not Jewish — a Catch-22.)
“Choosing someone for their blood and not their acts is indeed a kind of racism. ”
That’s not what we are talking about; not blood; at least not beyond one generation on one’s mother’s side of the family.