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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
Guilty as charged. I’m merely reflecting the experience of my personal background and perhaps attempting to re-interpret thousands of years of history. :)
After WWII many American Protestants have had a tendency to get nervous with the concept of Judaism as an ethnic identity. I was also raised in a community primarily composed of Jewish and Protestant families. We respected one another’s religious beliefs but they were considered private elements of our lives; we were highly interactive with one another however due to our shared socio-economic-political backgrounds and this is surely the motivation behind my arguments on this thread.
Thanks to you and iWc for an interesting exchange.
“Judaism is primarily a national or ethnic identity, and secondarily a religious identity.”
It is? It’s not supposed to be. That’s the part I can’t handle. Or a cultural identity.
Dean Murphy: #118 “My father’s and my wife’s experiences and reactions thereto speak to the lack of depth of commitment to the physical church and not to any lack of actual faith.”
What you wrote sounds eminently Protestant, more so on the evangelical side where the idea of “church” is largely missing.
KiminWI: #120 “One of the reasons I remain Anglican is that it is consciously catholic, as in one holy catholic church. Universal is close to the meaning of that word, but a fuller meaning of kata holos is “the whole taken together.””
I looked at Episcopalianism (Anglicanism in the US) and found the following:
High church in the US, but not necessarily overseas where one could find churches which were Baptist or Methodist in actual practice, which the Church of England could accommodate.
There were undefined positions such as the reality of the Eucharist. One was free to believe that it is the Real Presence or merely a symbol. If it is the Real Presence then dropping the remaining hosts into the waste basket after the service leads one to wonder what “Real Presence” means to Anglican/Episcopalian church goers.
I was familiar with the history of Anglo-Catholicism and of the efforts of the tractarian movement, notably John Henry Cardinal Newman. If I read those efforts rightly, a great many of those committed Anglicans left for the Church. Newman’s reasoning was sound. He did not find Anglicanism to be Catholic.
“when I became Anglican, and read the 39 Articles of Religion, I saw nothing that contradicted the faith of my grandmother.”
“Third, sola scriptura does not necessarily lead a believer to error and contradiction. Solo scriptura does and yes, they are 2 different concepts. Ecclesial authority is important to the body and preserving the faith, but the only infallible ecclesial authority is Scripture. Bishops, presbyters and any teachers in the church must reconcile with the whole of Scripture or their teaching is not true. No other source is inherently reliable”
Sola and solo scriptura are the same. The Yellow Pages under Church describe both quite eloquently. One may grasp at some of the early councils of the Church, but one does so without grasping the Church which held them, which defined those positions and understandings, and the popes who accepted those councils and promulgated them.
The argument you presented is also presented by Calvinists. I was surprised to see it being used by an Episcopalian.
With regard to scripture, my notation about the Yellow Pages under Church holds up. All of those groups claim scripture as their touchstone, and it is a certainty that my old denomination did. We also held conflicting and competing claims. One might suggest scripture with unaided reason for the multiplicity of contradictory reasons.
“the reason I adhere to Anglican worship tradition is that no other denomination, no matter the theology, has as satisfying and beautiful a liturgy.”
Yes. The Anglican/Episcopal liturgy is beautiful and the singing can be majestic.
I part with SoS on this point. Judaism is a personal and collective relationship with G-d and with each other. Connection to G-d in the Torah came before the nation did and it could have, in theory, grown through conversion even before the descent into Egypt.
In theory? the Rabbinical tradition tells us that Abraham made converts. But at that point it was more personal, the tribe was pretty small and the fullness of Torah was implicit rather than explicit. Coming out of Egypt was a different story and Sinai changed a lot of things. The revelations were on a mass scale, rather than the personal communication the Patriarchs had, and Moses had. So conversion post-Sinai couldn’t be like it was before the descent into Egypt.
Pace ParisParamus, a combined national, cultural and religious identity has been pretty common up until fairly recently. The Catholic Church provided a transnational force, but even so, power struggles between Popes and various kings over the division of secular and religious power were not unknown.
Nothing stuck. If Abraham was trying to convert, he was a complete failure.
Revelations also failed as a method of conversion/persuasion. We Jews have to choose freely, and convince ourselves – a process that involves ongoing work. In other words, Judaism without active engagement is not Judaism at all. Merely being the recipient of revelation does not necessarily change one at all, let alone for the better.
Jews did not complain when they were engaged building something, becoming, as Sacks puts it, the architects of their own destiny. This is how someone converts to Judaism – by doing the very same thing to themselves.
My father’s and my wife’s experiences and reactions thereto speak to the lack of depth of commitment to the physical church and not to any lack of actual faith.
For a Catholic, the two cannot logically be opposed or separated.
Bishops, presbyters and any teachers in the church must reconcile with the whole of Scripture or their teaching is not true. No other source is inherently reliable.
This is not supported by Scripture: “If I (St. Paul) am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great…” [1 Tim. 15-16]
iWc: #112 “The problem is that no two moral codes are the same. The Torah is profoundly distinct from Christianity.”
At this point in time Christianity is divided over morality, over what is and what is not permitted; over what is and what is not sin. If Judaism is also suffering from that kind of split, and it would seem to be so, it is not surprising.
One does rather hunger for a point in time where the moral law (such as the first 10 of the 613 commandments) was recognized both in the keeping and in the breech. It gave a rather objective position to recognizing good and evil. (And, from a purely Catholic perspective, it was place from which to make a good confession.)
My main point is much simpler, and deals with “Big Picture” differences between faiths.
For example, the Torah forbids eating many kinds of foods. Though not widely understood this way, the prohibition is actually rooted in the Torah’s own morality. Which means that people who choose to eat insects or bacon do not, actually, share the very same moral code.
I agree with your broader point: it would help a great deal if society was willing to agree even to the idea that some things are sinful, and that morality forms the foundation of a civil society, one that respects the rights to life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness.
But society seems to be going in reverse, which is why observant Jews and observant Christians find we have FAR more in common now than perhaps we ever did. We both believe in Life (versus the death cults of radical Islam), we both believe that sin is real and people should choose to be and do good. And we both agree to the broad strokes of what constitutes Good and Evil.
donald todd, none of my arguments were made by an Episcopalian, which used to be the expression of Anglicanism in America.
As far as I can see, Christanity and Judaism largely overlap with regard to morality vis a vis people. It’s the theology and obligations vis à vis G-d where they diverge. That’s why Judeo-Christian is a real thing.
KiminWI: #131 “donald todd, none of my arguments were made by an Episcopalian, which used to be the expression of Anglicanism in America.”
It is not English Anglican bishops that are being approached for cover, it is African Anglican bishops who are being approached for cover. The problems within Anglicanism, including its American form, are pretty well known. There are questions about who can be ordained, about who can be elevated to bishop, and questions about morality. It is the African Anglican bishops who are attempting to maintain something akin to the past theologically and morally. It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury has little authority to clear things up; and the queen – the titular head of the Church of England – has no mind to do so.
The Anglican Ordinariate instituted by Pope Benedict has also found a lot of Anglicans and Episcopalians who are coming home to Catholicism. The Ordinariate does not involve individual clergy (eg, the Pauline privilege), rather it involves parishes where the entire congregation makes the move with its clergy. The Anglican rite is retained with only minor changes. The clergy are retrained and ordained as Catholic priests. These are the people who get to be Catholic.