Having searched the Internet and SDMB for perspectives on the topic of clergy whose spouses belong to a different church, I came up with information about interfaith marriages in general, but not much about clergy in particular. I have no experience with this topic myself.
What happens when an ordained clergy member has a spouse who either wants to remain a practicing member of a different denomination or wants to convert to a different denomination? Let’s say that a (male) Methodist minister has a wife who decided to become a Catholic, or a (female) Reform rabbi has a husband who wants to be Orthodox. Would the clergy spouse lose credibility with his/her own congregation? Would the clergy spouse complicate matters for the converting/transferring spouse?
Both of my examples deal with opposite-sex couples; same-sex couples might have a somewhat different set of complications depending on how LGBT-accepting their different denominations are. And, too, there are the complexities of a spouse who converts to a different religion entirely, like (say) a rabbi’s spouse who wants to be a Muslim.
Ideally, if the spouse is already ordained at the time of marriage, these issues will have been worked out. But if the spouse pursues ordination later (with no objections from the non-clergy spouse), and the other spouse then has a change in his/her religious views, what then? Has anyone here encountered situations like those described above?
I would suspect that converting would be crazy embarrassing regardless and that remaining a different denomination would depend on the church he worked at.
My brother-in-law became a Catholic deacon while married to an Episcopal, and neither converted (before his early death). She wasn’t allowed to take RC communion at his ordination or at his funeral, but she was quite active in his church’s activities. They lived across the country so we didn’t get lots of details on any difficulties. I don’t think there was any covert conversion coercion.
Depends on the individual congregation, of course, but it’s not usually a huge problem in mainline Protestant denominations. There’s a lot of cross-polination between different churchs (e.g., the UCC and Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians and Methodists, etc.)
I was a member of a UCC church where one of the ministers had been ordained in a different denomination and I know a Lutheran minister who split his time in a small town as part-time pastor of both the local Lutheran and Presbyterians congregations. In those cases the congregations were so thrilled to have a minister at all they would’ve accepted a spouse who was into human sacrifice.
OTOH there are still a few congregations who expect the preacher’s wife to teach Sunday School, sing in the choir, and work for the church almost as many hours as her husband, and those would definitely have a problem.
This doesn’t answer the question, really, but one of our priests recently revealed that his mother (who recently died, in her 80s or so I think) was Episcopalian, which was a surprise.
I know of at least one Anglican vicar who’s wife was an atheist, didn’t seem to cause any problems. I’d suspect that it isn’t uncommon in the UK for the spouse of the clergy to not be religious. Just like it is perfectly possible (and again, I know a few couples in this situation) to vote for different political parties or support different football teams.
I trhink a lot would depend on the congregations in question. Members of many “mainline” and/or liberal Protestant sects probably wouldn’t think twice about a minister married to a member of a similar sect.
And members of many fundementalist sects would probably be okay (if a bit uneasy) with a minister married to a member of a different fundamentalist sect.
But if a Unitarian’s wife became a Baptist (or vice versa) or if a fundamentalist’s wife became Catholic, that would NOT go over well.
I’ll add an anecdote I hear from a Quaker- in her experience, a spouse or child of another faith was perfectly fine. But if a member’s teenage son joined the Army or the Marines, THAT was cause for scandal.
Based on my experiences with UU churches, this wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. Heck, UUs have Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, and atheist congregants all the time.
Liberal Jews, liberal Catholics, liberal Muslims. I doubt that someone who takes Christianity very seriously would be as welcome as an atrheist or Wiccan would.
My only experience was when my Dad died. He was well liked / respected & there was a pretty decent list of people who wanted to say a few words. The Catholics said, “Two speakers, Max.”
I said, “Then we’ll book Episcopalian. And stop calling me Max…”
Again, it varies quite a bit depending on which UU church you attend. There most certainly are Catholics that attend some UU churches and they are not only welcome they are very involved. It’s more about how tolerant they are of other beliefs than what they believe in themselves.
Interesting replies from everybody. There’s one theologian I know of who has encountered something like the situation I described–Stanley Hauerwas. He was attracted to Catholicism, but his wife wouldn’t tolerate him converting. After that marriage ended, he married a Methodist minister and again declined to convert because of the RCC’s position on female clergy. (Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, Gary Dorrien, pages 477-78.)
It would make for quite a plot in a movie or novel to have a Mormon apostle’s wife renounce Mormonism and see how the family deals with the (probably huge) consequences.
Depends on a lot of variables. One ELCA Pastor I know had his wife (also a Pastor) leave him for another woman AND another denomination. Since it was during the whole sexuality debate the former sort of overshadowed the latter. Another Pastor had her husband leave the ELCA for a more new-age community-type independent church. That got into such a big deal that she had to go “on call” (look for another church to serve) because her congregation made her life total Hell. Like much of life - your mileage may vary.
The problem I see is in defining what it means to actually be another denomination. Amongst the similar churches, the main definition is just what church you attend. And I do think it would be very awkward for a pastor’s wife not to attend her husband’s church, especially if she goes to a church that is almost the same.
It’s not like any but the most exclusionary churches* have a total homogeny in beliefs. A Baptist can easily make an Assembly of God church their home if they like it. The difference in worship is more important than the differences in theology.
If a pastor’s wife doesn’t feel comfortable in her husband’s church, I would be concerned something was really wrong.
*And, in those, no one would be allowed to marry outside the sect.
EDIT: And I just now realize it says clergy, which is not just the pastor. I would guess it would be more difficult the higher up the chain, assuming they don’t attend the same church.
From what I find in a quick search and a few cases I know personally, it appears to be one of those things in which the letter of the law says it isn’t allowed, the practice in countries which have had a majority/almost 100% RCC population until very recently is that for that particular case it would generally be considered ok (the risk of getting an asshole does exist, of course), and in the US it depends on who you get when you ask.
If you ask me, it seems to be a case of politics trumping both Charity and practicality, now where did I put my can of rolleyes…
There are a few churches that are in full communion (which essentially implies that they accept each other as true churches) where “converting” from one to another doesn’t really exist as such. One could transfer a membership, but the idea of rejecting one to accept the other doesn’t really sparkle with them given the fact that they both acknowledge that the other has the truth (or something close enough to the truth that it doesn’t matter) anyway.
For example, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church USA are in full communion. An Episcopal priest can be the pastor of an ELCA Lutheran church and a Lutheran minister can likewise run an Episcopal parish. It’s sort of like how you can drive in New Jersey with a New York driver’s license while remaining a resident of New York.
Good point. Even when churches aren’t in full communion, there is a large-scale cross acceptance of each other as Christians. A lot of Protestants in the US consider denominations to largely be a personal preference thing - the real question is whether you have accepted Jesus as your lord and savior. If you have, then there isn’t so much a problem than an opportunity for some friendly debate over finer points of doctrine.
The problem I see is in defining what it means to actually be another denomination. Amongst the similar churches, the main definition is just what church you attend. And I do think it would be very awkward for a pastor’s wife not to attend her husband’s church, especially if she goes to a church that is almost the same.
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FWIW my wife is a Lutheran pastor, at a church affiliated with a different Lutheran denomination than the one I attend. I am not a member at her church. Her brother is a Roman Catholic bishop. It is no big deal for any of us.
The only ones who appear to care are the ELCA, which is the synod of my church. As well they might; they are bleeding members.
