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It's small town rural south. They were referred to another official who agreed to the ceremony.
My prediction: if this couple has the resources to pursue the issue, they won't get very far.
I actually think this is why they ought to pursue it. It isn't just one errant person abusing their official powers, it is a judge covering for them. This points to something systemic, and the preecdent needs to be set. If they are willing to stick their necks out and deal with the social pressure, I am sure the ACLU or other similar civil rights organization would take this on, and I have no doubt it would make a difference, as this appears to be pretty egregious.
The same can be said for any sin, not simply (or even especially) sexual sins. The church used to ostracize and shame people for getting divorced and now largely does not. It used to be far more putative and uninterested in rehabilitation for what it saw as more "serious" sins than it is now. I would submit that these changes are positive ones as they are both pragmatic and compassionate alterations.
I would disagree. Read the New Testament--there are CLEAR COMMANDS NOT to succumb to the culture of the day. Yet...we are. I'm not suggesting we ever have an excuse to HATE anyone -- because if not for the grace of Christ I'd be lost in my sin myself. But God has called me out of it. Likewise, we have the answer that helps people leave their lives of sin behind -- Jesus.
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With respect for example to divorce, acknowledging that it happens and not punishing people when it does is not even close to the same thing as condoning or encouraging it. There is still plenty of room to encourage people to work out their issues, to value loyalty and devotion and to be understanding of differences that don't result in physical or mental abuse. There is plenty of room to warn of its disadvantages and to regard it as a last resort.
I agree-- we should not punish anyone. We do need to love and support people that have gone through it.
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If find conservative Christianity often fails to understand this distinction. At all. To the point that they used to (and sometimes still do) encourage people to remain in loveless, abusive and dangerous relationships just to try to edit divorce out of their reality.
I agree that it's shameful.
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This begs the question of why the church follows society. The answers usually given:
1) The church can't depart very far from societal morality or its members won't be able to function well within society. This is true even for an enforced superset of societal morality. After awhile it just becomes impractical to demand very much more from people than is generally supported by society. All the high-minded idealism sounds good in theory but requires sustainable output of energy to support and enforce. When too few members of a society care about behavior / situation "X", the burden of adhering to "X" falls disproportionately on fewer individuals.
The message of the Bible is that our people love the world too much--and we aren't willing to live for God. It was true for the ancient Israelites, and it's true for the church today.
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2) The church is not strong / godly / surrendered enough to the holy spirit / too worldly, etc. Which in turn begs the question, how can that be when the church is supposedly heir to a superior, authority-backed, approved and perfect moral code, adherence to which is supposed to make people happier, better adjusted and healthier?
This is exactly it. How is it possible? I think the message of the Bible is that we have non-believers right in our midst. The church today tends to think of the Sunday morning service as evangelism. It's where we try to reach non-believers. The New Testament church instead viewed it as a gathering of the Christians. When we "do church" for the non-Christians....we are off-mission. We are now trying to look like them in order to attract them.
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3) The church is being systematically undermined by a vast conspiracy of the godless. Which also begs the question -- why is that a universal problem when the church is supposed to have the moral high ground? Why doesn't the church systematically undermine the godless with their inferior-to-non-existent morality?
Conspiracy? No. But we are letting ourselves drift off-mission.
If you are a private business serving the public, you don't get to define who the public is.
Private businesses cannot say they will not serve Asians, for example, if the business is one that Asian people frequent. The same is true of any protected class. This is true even if your religion says you may not serve Asians.
Sexual behavior <> skin color or ethnic background. That's really the crux of the issue.
A Christian marrying a non-christian is called being "unequally yoked". It would not be something that I'd be a part of. If 2 non-christians decided to marry, I would not have the same issue in officiating the wedding.
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14).
In any event, I reserve the right to refuse to marry a couple that I feel is not compatible, or should not be getting married. That might be from a religious standpoint, or it might be that I can tell they are simply not right for each other and will be divorced in 6 months. The divorce rate is high enough--I don't want it on my conscience that I had any part in making it higher.
Thanks Vizio for the response. I appreciate and respect your right not to do something which is against your principles. Even though I don't agree with the basis for this particular principle, nobody should do anything which they inherently feel is wrong.
From my perspective however, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" seems to be more 'suggestion' rather than 'forbidding'. It doesn't even mention the word marriage specifically and I don't understand what about the passage is exclusive to Christianity.
I'm surprised that Christians are using this passage alone to justify not marrying Christians with those of other faiths. Seems a real stretch of interpretation to me.
If you do get a chance to read it, I'd be interested to hear what what you think.
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When you attend a wedding at church, what passages of Scripture do you expect to hear? Congregations occasionally invite me to speak on the current same-sex marriage debates, and I ask them this question. Their answers are remarkably consistent.
Someone invariably mentions 1 Corinthians 13, the famous "Love Chapter." Love is patient, love is kind, love never insists on its own way and so forth. Wonderful advice for marriage, but Paul was not talking about marriage. He was addressing a church fight: the believers in Corinth had split into factions and were competing for prestige and influence. We see echoes of this conflict throughout the letter, but especially in chapters 12 and 14, which surround this passage.
Others call out, "Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16; NRSV). Another moving passage, but it's certainly not about marriage. Ruth addresses this moving speech to her mother-in-law Naomi.
The second creation story in Genesis comes up: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Genisis 2:24). This passage is certainly appropriate to marriage, as it reflects the level of intimacy and commitment that distinguishes marriage from other relationships. Jesus quotes this passage, too, but he isn't exactly discussing marriage. Instead, his topic is divorce (Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:8). When ministers read the Gospel passages at weddings, as they often do, the message seems a little off. I'd rather not hear about divorce at a wedding.
One other passage frequently surfaces in weddings but rarely in mainline Protestant churches, the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodists and United Church of Christ congregations that invite me to speak. Ephesians 5:22-33 commands wives to obey their husbands and husbands to love their wives. Conservative Christians may try to explain away the offense of this passage, but there's no escaping its ugly reality. Ephesians calls wives to submit to their husbands just as children must obey their parents and slaves must obey their masters. See the larger context, Ephesians 5:21-6:9. Not a Lot to Say
The point is, Christian weddings rarely feature passages that directly relate to marriage. Only one passage, Genesis 2:24, seems especially relevant, while other passages require us to bend their content to our desire to hear a good word about marriage. Things are so bad that the worship books for many denominations turn to John 2:1-11, where Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding feast, to claim that Jesus blessed marriage. My church, the United Church of Christ, has developed a new wedding liturgy, but it retains this common formula: "As this couple give themselves to each other today, we remember that at Cana in Galilee our Savior Jesus Christ made the wedding feast a sign of God's reign of love."
So we know Jesus blessed marriage because he attended a wedding? That's the best we can do? No wonder it's common for couples to struggle over the choice of Scripture for their wedding ceremonies. The Bible just doesn't have much to say on the topic. Let's Be Honest
Unfortunately, many Christians use the Bible to support their own prejudices and bigotry. They talk about "biblical family values" as if the Bible had a clear message on marriage and sexuality. Let's be clear: There's no such thing as "biblical family values" because the Bible does not speak to the topic clearly and consistently.
It's high time people came clean about how we use the Bible. When Christians try to resolve difficult ethical and theological matters, they typically appeal to the Gospels and Paul's letters as keys to the question. But what about marriage? Not only did Jesus choose not to marry, he encouraged his disciples to abandon household and domestic concerns in order to follow him (Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:28-30; Luke 9:57-62). He even refers to those "who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:10-13). Whatever that means, it's certainly not an endorsement of marriage. Paul likewise encourages male believers: "Do not seek a wife" (1 Corinthians 7:27, my translation) -- advice Paul took for himself. If neither Jesus nor Paul preferred marriage for their followers, why do some Christians maintain that the Bible enshrines 19th-century Victorian family values?
Let's not even go into some of the Bible's most chilling teachings regarding marriage, such as a man's obligation to keep a new wife who displeases him on the wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), his obligation to marry a woman he has raped (Deuteronomy 22:28-30) or the unquestioned right of heroes like Abraham to exploit their slaves sexually. I wonder: Have the "biblical family values advocates" actually read their Bibles?
Christians will always turn to the Bible for guidance -- and we should. If the Bible does not promote a clear or redemptive teaching about slavery, that doesn't mean we have nothing to learn from Scripture about the topic. The same values that guide all our relationships apply to marriage: unselfish concern for the other; honesty, integrity and fidelity; and sacrificial -- but not victimized -- love. That's a high standard, far higher than a morality determined by anachronistic and restrictive rules that largely reflect our cultural biases. Rules make up the lowest common denominator for morality. Love, as Paul said, never finds an end.
(I just copied and pasted the whole thing. Not sure if that's allowed. If not perhaps a kindly mod could delete it and just leave the link. Thanks)
Thanks Vizio for the response. I appreciate and respect your right not to do something which is against your principles. Even though I don't agree with the basis for this particular principle, nobody should do anything which they inherently feel is wrong.
From my perspective however, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" seems to be more 'suggestion' rather than 'forbidding'. It doesn't even mention the word marriage specifically and I don't understand what about the passage is exclusive to Christianity.
I'm surprised that Christians are using this passage alone to justify not marrying Christians with those of other faiths. Seems a real stretch of interpretation to me.
It really isn't about trying to find a reason to punish anyone, or find a reason not to serve anyone. I honestly believe religion is not just a hobby, or an interest--but is a way of life. It should be something pretty important to you. It's a basic thing -- and if a couple can't share that, their marriage is at a real disadvantage. This assumes, of course, that they actually DO take their religion seriously.
The passage is talking about relationships among believers and non-believers. But besides that, take a look at the Old Testament. The Ancient Israelites were clearly told not to take wives of other nations -- and other gods. We see king after king that made the mistake of taking foreign wives, and were led to worship false gods as a result.
If you do get a chance to read it, I'd be interested to hear what what you think.
(I just copied and pasted the whole thing. Not sure if that's allowed. If not perhaps a kindly mod could delete it and just leave the link. Thanks)
I didn't see any mention of Ephesians 5. In my premarital counseling, I discuss Genesis 1-2 -- the order of creation, and that God created marriage in the beginning, with Adam and Eve.
Ephesians 5 then goes into detail talking about the responsibilities of each party in the marriage.
The message of the Bible is that our people love the world too much--and we aren't willing to live for God. It was true for the ancient Israelites, and it's true for the church today ... we are letting ourselves drift off-mission.
If this has been true since time immemorial it seems a foregone conclusion that it will always be true. Even acknowledged men of god torture themselves about not being good enough.
The logical conclusion is that either the standards are unrealistic or contrived or both -- and/or, the power and strength to act so contrary to one's own humanity is lacking, even assuming it was wise to do so.
I don't understand how you account for this, other than just ignoring it as an inconvenient truth. If from Israel to the modern church everyone fails to hate the world but rather loves it, and lets themselves "drift off-mission", what does this empirically say about the mission itself?
Or is the real zeitgeist of conservative Christianity to fancy oneself one of the few, the proud, the elect? Maybe it wouldn't know what to do with itself if it suddenly turned out that people were lined up for blocks to join the churches. And yet if the world is to be, in any meaningful sense of the word, saved, wouldn't that need to happen at some point? What would make what hasn't worked for thousands of years suddenly work?
It really isn't about trying to find a reason to punish anyone, or find a reason not to serve anyone. I honestly believe religion is not just a hobby, or an interest--but is a way of life. It should be something pretty important to you. It's a basic thing -- and if a couple can't share that, their marriage is at a real disadvantage. This assumes, of course, that they actually DO take their religion seriously.
The passage is talking about relationships among believers and non-believers. But besides that, take a look at the Old Testament. The Ancient Israelites were clearly told not to take wives of other nations -- and other gods. We see king after king that made the mistake of taking foreign wives, and were led to worship false gods as a result.
I didn't see any mention of Ephesians 5. In my premarital counseling, I discuss Genesis 1-2 -- the order of creation, and that God created marriage in the beginning, with Adam and Eve.
Ephesians 5 then goes into detail talking about the responsibilities of each party in the marriage.
Hmm. My brother-in-law is an atheist and his wife is a devout Catholic. Trust me she takes her religion seriously. In all the years I have known her, I have never known her to miss a single Sunday mass. She finds the local Catholic church wherever she is. They have 3 kids and have been married 20+ years. Their religious differences haven't put them at any disadvantage. Who is to say what will work out and what wont? I don't think that is for us to judge.
Nevertheless I respect your right to marry whoever you please.
Hmm. My brother-in-law is an atheist and his wife is a devout Catholic. Trust me she takes her religion seriously. In all the years I have known her, I have never known her to miss a single Sunday mass. She finds the local Catholic church wherever she is. They have 3 kids and have been married 20+ years. Their religious differences haven't put them at any disadvantage. Who is to say what will work out and what wont? I don't think that is for us to judge.
Nevertheless I respect your right to marry whoever you please.
As in everything, there are exceptions to the rule. But the fact is, there is a very important part of his wife's life that he can't or doesn't want to be a part of. I know my marriage would suffer.
If this has been true since time immemorial it seems a foregone conclusion that it will always be true. Even acknowledged men of god torture themselves about not being good enough.
The logical conclusion is that either the standards are unrealistic or contrived or both -- and/or, the power and strength to act so contrary to one's own humanity is lacking, even assuming it was wise to do so.
I don't understand how you account for this, other than just ignoring it as an inconvenient truth. If from Israel to the modern church everyone fails to hate the world but rather loves it, and lets themselves "drift off-mission", what does this empirically say about the mission itself?
Or is the real zeitgeist of conservative Christianity to fancy oneself one of the few, the proud, the elect? Maybe it wouldn't know what to do with itself if it suddenly turned out that people were lined up for blocks to join the churches. And yet if the world is to be, in any meaningful sense of the word, saved, wouldn't that need to happen at some point? What would make what hasn't worked for thousands of years suddenly work?
It's a bit of a paradox....we are not saved by loving God and hating the things of the world...but we should strive to separate.....even though we can't and won't.
I want to be respectful of forum rules here...I'm not sure I should go much further.
Hunh? That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard and further proof that separation of church and state is crucial to civilized living!
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