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Should Christian Pastors Stop Performing Government Marriages?
The Daily Caller posted an article in which two Christian pastors are calling on others to stop performing government marriages. Why not? The proposed pledge reads:
The new definition of marriage no longer coincides with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and woman. Our biblical faith is committed to upholding, celebrating, and furthering this understanding, which is stated many times within the Scriptures and has been repeatedly restated in our wedding ceremonies, church laws, and doctrinal standards for centuries. To continue with church practices that intertwine government marriage with Christian marriage will implicate the Church in a false definition of marriage.
It continues:
Therefore, in our roles as Christian ministers, we, the undersigned, commit ourselves to disengaging civil and Christian marriage in the performance of our pastoral duties. We will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage. We will no longer sign government-provided marriage certificates. We will ask couples to seek civil marriage separately from their church-related vows and blessings. We will preside only at those weddings that seek to establish a Christian marriage in accord with the principles articulated and lived out from the beginning of the Church’s life.
Why not get married in the church, but have a union not sanctioned as such by the civil government? In today’s secular culture, there is not much downside to couples living together. Why not be married in the eyes of the church, but not in the eyes of Uncle Sam?
In the days that most states recognized common law marriage, it would have made no substantive difference. Under common law principles, an adult unmarried couple (man and woman) who made a present promise commencing a marriage suddenly became married in the eyes of the state, without any license or ceremony being required. The problem typically became one of proof as to whether such a mutual promise of marriage ever occurred (usually after one alleged spouse died without a will). Common law marriage is currently recognized in, I believe, nine states: Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Iowa, Montana, Utah and Texas, as well as in the District of Columbia.
Aside from common law marriage jurisdictions, the ceremonial but state-unsanctioned marriage would generally penalize couples on their income taxes, but benefit them on government welfare programs, where a couple’s incomes are combined to determine benefits. They would have to make sure they have done good estate planning, because they would lose the automatic protections that probate laws give to surviving spouses.
How about it? Should Christians eschew government marriage in favor of church-only marriage?
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I actually think it would be a positive step for clergy to cease officiating civil marriages regardless of what the definition of marriage is.
I like the idea. There are now two different definitions of marriage. One is religious, and the other gives you rights and privileges under the law. Since they are 2 different things, they should be separated.
Yes.
It has become a financial arrangement in terms of the government.
There are not automatically tax benefits either. If spouse A earns a lot more than spouse B earns, spouse B’s income is taxed at spouse A’s level. That’s a penalty.
Whether or not to register with the government as a married couple will then be determined on an individual basis.
Better to see a marriage lawyer than a divorce lawyer.
I’m not sure it will matter much. You can’t assume that civil society (i.e., lawyers) will stand idly by if this innovation takes root. Clearly, they’re going to adjust and respond. This innovation will spur other innovations in response, and I’m not sure I like the other possibilities.
For example, if I recall correctly, common law marriages were a two-way street. That is, it wasn’t only the couple who wanted to be treated as if they were formally married … it was also the state, who summarily treated the couple as married if they acted as a married couple and lived together for a specified number of years. If you acted as if you were married, sooner or later the state would treat you that way … and that included all the responsibilities that formal marriages entailed.
The difference is that while living together never assumes permanence, a religious marriage does. You can’t treat people living together as intending permanence, but you could assert that a religiously married couple does intend it — and therefore they’re the same as a common law marriage.
If so, that might unintentionally enhance the state’s power to “declare” and define your relationships. Next thing you know, the state might be able to define “parent,” etc. Definitely don’t want to give the state more power in that.
KC- In recent decades there has been a pronounced shift away from the recognition of common law marriages. Currently only nine states recognize any form of common law marriage and in a few of those recognition is conditioned upon filing it with the state, so it isn’t substantively much different from general civil marriage. I wouldn’t worry too much about common law marriage in this context.
I think it’s a good idea for clergy but not for couples or children. There are protections in legal marriage. But at this point separating religious and legal arriage makes sense. It preserves the freedom of the church.
It is going to be a brave new world for children.
My friend’s daughter had a baby “out of wedlock,” and the father doesn’t want to marry the baby’s mother. So the baby has only one legal parent. At least I think that’s true. The law varies by state, apparently.
Fathers’ rights for cohabitating couples is already a mess.
It is a totally screwed up situation.
Going to be? It already is and has been.
Seventy percent of black children are born out of wedlock. (Probably closely related to the fact that seventy-five percent of black women *never* marry.) Forty percent of white children are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of Hispanic, and twenty percent of Asian.
Marriage already is an affectation of the middle-class, something you do because you’re supposed to, not because people understand the traditional Christian meaning of the ceremony.
So quite frankly, let’s be honest about it.
Fair enough. But that was one example; I’m still concerned that this is an innovation which creates unintended consequences. It’s just a general principle to be wary of how society will respond to any new wrinkle — and when it comes to family, I’m ultra-sensitive to (and ultra-skeptical about) such changes. Let’s hope you’re right.
This is actually an interesting idea. Let’s look at the process today and the proposed process.
1. Get a blood test ( if this is still required)
2. Get a state issued license
3. Perform the ceremony civil or church
In the proposed scenario the steps become:
1. Get a blood test ( if this is still required)
2. Get a state issued license
3. Perform the civil ceremony (not optional if you want the marriage recognized by the state)
4. Perform the church ceremony (optional for Christians that want their marriage recognized by the church)
You accomplish the liberal needs for separation of church and state, you stop forcing the church to violate their principals.
If you want a state recognized marriage follow the state rules. If you want a church recognized marriage follow the church’s teachings and rules.
I don’t know how many couples are going to go for this. Are there a lot of people who want to get married in their church but expressly want their marriage to be unrecognized by the state? Or a lot of people who want to get married in their church and also have a separate civil marriage ceremony? It’s an interesting idea but I don’t see it catching on with a ton of people.
Personally, I think it’s helpful to visualize marriage as a double bond – as not only a sacrament, but also a legal agreement.
The legal agreement needn’t be a state-licensed affair in order to be useful. But I do think that even believers are sinful enough creatures that sometimes “lawyers might go after me if I go back on my word” is a more powerful deterrent than “God might go after me if I go back on my word”.
(For example, I trust God to be merciful. I don’t trust Sal to be merciful if he is being extremely well-paid to be unmerciful.)
Imagine a world where some kind of contract was the normal way of sealing a marriage civilly. Husband and wife might sign something before witnesses that said much of what is already said in fancier, perhaps outdated, language during a traditional ceremony – that each spouse can be held responsible for seeing that the other gets adequate food, shelter, and medical care, that they will be jointly responsible for any children produced, and that each pledges to refrain from adultery. How this contract would be enforced would have to be considered carefully – and indeed in today’s legal climate, such a contract may already be unenforceable – but as imaginary worlds go, this one is not particularly strange.
Most of us, I think, recognize that marriage has contract-like aspects that deserve legal recognition, even if we have practical or moral reservations about treating marriage like a contract under current contract law.
Murray Rothbard was prophetic when he said, “Biology must be read out of the court quickly and totally.” Thus, when egalitarians take biology out of the court, we must try to must reinsert it. A properly limited state acknowledges the natural facts of human nature, ie, man/woman, mother/father, husband/wife. This is why I proposed gender based civil unions.
My wife and I married under almost exactly what is being proposed (we married in Germany) and I still find it to be the superior solution.
We had a civil service at the town hall which consisted mostly of signing paperwork, and shortly thereafter we were wed by traditional Catholic rite in my wife’s childhood parish. The German state does not care about our Catholic marriage, while the Church only tangentially cares about our civil union.
I don’t see why something similar wouldn’t work in the US. We already have justices of the peace in every jurisdiction. And if liberals object to the idea, just tell them it’s how it’s done in Europe. Problem solved.
I think there are two separate issues here:
1) Should we separate civil marriage from church marriage?
2) Should churches wed couples who are not (or do not intend to) wed civilly?
I think 1) is a good idea, but 2) makes things a little thorny. In practice, the best path would be for everyone who wants to wed to have a civil service, with churches performing a second/”real” wedding. Such is the system in Germany.
While this adds a layer of complication, it works well in practice, and allows the churches to more easily discriminate whom they wed (for instance, the Catholic Church in Germany does not allow non-believers to wed in their churches just because it looks nice, and they also do not wed divorcees).
As an elder in my previous parish, I’ve discussed this extensively with my pastor once the gay marriage rulings came down.
As Salvatore implies above, the husband and wife should obtain a civil marriage. The issue is the clergy being an agent of the state — and thereby complicit in the state definition of marriage — by being a state-sanctioned registrar of marriages.
What Mendel describes is what we discussed for our parish. It is actively under discussion as a proposed approach in Confessional denominations.
What should happen if a couple chooses the religious marriage only?
If they separate after merging their properties but were never legally married, is there community property?
If they have children and are not legally married, are there different custody considerations?
If we separate legal and religious marriage, does religious marriage have any effect outside of the religious community?
What about divorce? If the marriage is recognized separately by religious and non-religious institutions could a couple be divorced and married at the same time?
Can you sue because of adultery if you weren’t legally married, or are all divorces no-fault at that point?
My local church has addressed this issue to some degree, but in a different way. Although the elders retain their function to officiate marriages that are recognized by the commonwealth, the binding documents of the church limit their performance as an officiant to marriages between church members in good standing (and I believe between members of other churches with similar confessions of faith and doctrine). The use of the church building is similarly restricted by the church documents.
I have not yet asked the elders whether they have considered giving up their role as an agent of the state to perform marriage, but for now I believe that our legal documents provide them the protection they need to define who they will and will not marry.
Can you sue because of adultery these days even if you are legally married?
Although I think churches would be prudent to only wed couples who are also civilly married (or intend to be so), none of these problems is insurmountable.
For instance, the Catholic Church already deals with the divorce issue every day, since it does not recognize legal divorces of sacrament marriages.
For your other questions, the situation would be the same as for any unwed couple, at least from a legal/societal perspective. And they could all be settled fairly easily with contracts between the couple if need be.
While I advocate this move (as well as others for the protection of the Church), I think it is important to consider the trade-offs. If we go to the Mexican (or European) model, we should expect more couples to cohabit — trying on the relationship for size — before seeking out a sacramental marriage (speaking from the Catholic perspective). I think this is a more likely consequence than couples who choose the sacramental marriage over the state marriage, and is borne out by Mexico’s experience.
This is why the Catholic Church is balking at the idea. From a religious perspective, it encourages a grave sin (fornication), and so I understand why the Magisterium will likely remain opposed.
I fully expect the American Church to be brought up on charges of discrimination by gay couples as a result. But, She’s been despised and persecuted before, God knows.
I dislike the idea intensely. As far as I know, it became the practice in European countries and Mexico because of anti-clerical sentiment, and it marginalizes and trivializes the religious ceremony. I know I live in the South, but I can’t believe that the US is ready to move towards this level of secularism. The only reason I can imagine for moving in this direction is fear of persecution, and I would hope that the church would not yield to fear or threats like that.
I agree. Even though I advocate the other (out of cowardice, I admit), I’ll be proud of my Church for fighting for marriage within the secular realm, rather than outside it.
I heard Prager say today that Europe is farther along in its socialism/secularism, but America is moving that way at a faster clip. I think that’s right too. Freedom is only one generation away from extinction. All I can say is, that went fast!
I have heard rumors that LDS Bishops will stop performing civil marriages because of the encroachment of the state on religious freedom. Presumably LDS couples would be married civilly and then those who qualify would be sealed in the LDS temple shortly thereafter.
I’m a bit skeptical that this will happen but I’ve been wrong before…once…a long time ago.
Patrick Henry’s immortal words, updated to fit the stance of maybe 99% of today’s clergy:
Or as Hillary Clinton said in a different context “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Most American clergy have been AWOL on the issue of same sex marriage, what difference does it make to the culture’s downward glide path what the state does?
Sorry, it’s only Wednesday, but it’s already been a long week.
My parents were married in Germany the same way all the way back in 1954 (give or take a year). There were pictures on the mantle of both their civil ceremony and their church ceremony. So I asked about it a few times as a child, and I was aware of it. I was thinking of posting the same question.
The only determination to make is whether churches and synagogues in the U.S. should require a marriage license from the state. They probably should. In the U.S., it would probably be unconstitutional to require churches to demand a marriage license before marrying. But non-common law states could say they wouldn’t recognize any non-licensed marriages.
Anyway, I agree that the priests, pastors and rabbi’s should not be agents of the state when conducting their marriages.
Years ago I read an interview – might have been on FrontPage Magazine – of an ex-communist from an Eastern Block country who predicted this was what would happen with gay marriage. He described how the communist party had outlawed the Church from performing “government recognized” – my words – marriage ceremonies to diminish the power of the church. So what citizens would do was go down in their casual cloths, have the local bureaucrat perform the civil ceremony and then the couple and their families would go the the church and have the real ceremony. If I remember correctly what he implied because of the government intervention (Who could have predicted this.) it created two tiers of marriage and he suggested gay marriage would create two tiered marriage in America. With the gays and lesbians (In the future probably polygamists.) seen as second class because, the church ceremonies – separate from the civil ceremony – will be far more desirable. I mean really – a bureaucrat who is bored, overworked, probably disliking the people being married because of the imposition; requiring a number and to be treated impersonally in a DMV like environment or, a ceremony with all the trimmings, rituals and celebration surrounded by only friends and family chosen by the families and personalized by the families with a pastor or, priest known by the family and a place decided by the families? Which would you put money on?
Another interesting caveat to this, is the question of marriage as a “right.” If the church/pastor can opt out of the requirement of the state to register as a state representative and not perform civil marriages but, still perform Christian (One man to one woman) marriages; then the question to ask, “Are there other rights which can be denied to US citizens by volunteer organizations?” Think – the Boy Scouts. The Supreme Court said of course they can deny gay men from volunteering. Which by implication means being gay and participating in or, being a member of a volunteer organization is not a right and therefore a marriage ceremony in a Church is not a right. Which means marriage is not a right if it can be denied by private organizations.
This raises an interesting opportunity for various sects to develop their own “pre-nuptial agreements” consistent with the religious beliefs of the parties. A pre-nuptial agreement is a private contract that has been held as enforceable between the parties. The terms cannot be inconsistent with state law, as for example it cannot specify a division of community property different from state law, but it can clarify what is to be excluded from a divisible community. In that spirit, although a “no fault” state will not compel a marriage to remain intact absent specific conduct by a partner, a pre-nuptial agreement can identify conduct that the parties agree is inconsistent with the continuation of the marriage even though non-adherents to that sect might see that as trivial. The prenuptial agreement could specify financial transfers from separate property to the aggrieved party — possibly even specifying within reason that this transfer occur at a certain date after the division of the community so that the net effect would be other than a 50-50 split of the community. A court in a community property state might go along with such a division as a private contract that is intended to survive a marriage so long as the basis for the transfer is not seen as a violation of public policy.