Can different faiths live a happily married life together? October 22, 2009
Posted by Brent Cunningham in : blog , trackbackPrint This Post | Email to a Friend
I was recently asked by a young man (who professed to be an agnostic) if I would meet with him and his Christian girlfriend. They’d been dating for some time, talked about marriage, but now this young Christian woman was having serious reservations about marrying a non-Christian. Her primary concern was how they would raise their children. And it was made more complicated in her mind by the fact that he had no problem with her raising their children as Christians, but that he simply had no personal interest in following Jesus. She was in turmoil. He was confounded by why she was in turmoil. I affirmed her turmoil.
From a biblical world and life view, a Christian takes very seriously the role of both parents to fulfill God’s mandate to live out the Hebrew Shema (Deut. 6, specifically vs. 4-9). Shema is the Hebrew word for “Hear,” and is the Jewish confession of faith, still today recited daily by devout Jews (see Mt 22:37-38; Mk 12:29-30; Lk 10:27). This central teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures informs us that a key role of parents is to “Impress [the truths of a biblical worldview] on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
Think for just a moment about all the areas of life that are being thought of here. “At home” and “along the road” encompasses one’s life both in the privacy of family and out in the public marketplace of the world. “[Lying] down” and “[getting] up” extends to every hour of one’s day. “Hands” and “foreheads” speak of one’s actions and thoughts. “Doorframes of your houses” and “[city] gates” address the foundations of the family structure and civic life. The point is difficult to miss.
God wants the hearer to see the absolute necessity of integrating a biblical worldview into all of human life. We have no option to compartmentalize our faith from our family, social, political, sexual, moral, recreational, vocational life. Instead, we’re commanded to see all of life as an integrated whole. It’s for reasons like this that the Apostle Paul stresses to his readers the need to “not be yoked together with unbelievers” in intimate contexts because the purpose of the relationships then fail—to encourage the other person toward deeper relationship with God (2 Cor 6:14). The “yoke” is an agrarian picture of two animals being yoked or harnessed together in a common purpose. For the follower of Jesus, the primary purpose in all of life is a relentless pursuit of Jesus (in the posture of an apprentice).
The Engineer’s plans for human flourishing (as laid out in Gen 1-2) tell us that the purpose of marriage is twofold: (1) to fulfill our relational need with a harmonizing partner and, (2) to procreate children. Focusing just on the second purpose of marriage (children), to marrying a person who does not and cannot fulfill the Shema—to live the Christian life an integrated whole—is necessarily undercutting the channel through which God says He will provide our happiness in marriage and family.
While this answer to the young man I mentioned above wasn’t what he was hoping for, it is the biblical answer. And it is the conviction in the heart and mind of the one who seeks to live a life as an apprentice of Jesus.
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Comments»
This must be a tough conversation for a pastor. You’re absolutely right, but sometimes “right” and “easy” aren’t congruent.
I can imagine the turmoil she experienced–loving someone enough to consider marriage but recognizing that their lives were centered in different places. It’s so tempting to want to make it work, to find a way around the difficult truths. The emotions are so strong.
I’ve been there. I’ve compromised and closed my eyes to the obvious issues because I wanted it to be okay. And I can tell you from painful personal experience that it doesn’t work. Truth is always truth, and not acknowledging it doesn’t make is disappear.
I hope she considers your words carefully. And I REALLY hope the young man considers the possibility that Jesus is reaching out to him in this situation. Perhaps he’ll listen to that voice and respond–that would be the best outcome of all.
Rich, you’re so right. Your comments about the strength of feelings bring to my mind the importance of making the wise decision (NOT to even begin dating another who doesn’t follow Jesus) before a person is emotionally invested in a mismatched relationship. We can save ourselves a lot of pain by “frontloading” our relationships with wise decisions.