Um, is bible study the only thing you do in life?
no, but maybe its the most important to him.
But you can’t go to heaven or hell with your partner. There are certain “journeys” in life that you MUST do alone. Religion is one of them. You can share beliefs or disagree all you want, but if you believe you will be judged in the end, you must also believe that you will be judged naked and alone. Your partner could also share a religious belief with you and be completely the opposite of you regarding other important issues. How do you decide which differences to tolerate and which not to?
I guess there is a distinction between having a relationship with someone who has a different religious belief and one who has the ONLY religious belief. In the latter case the problem isn’t RELIGION per se, it’s just good old fashioned bigotry. A marriage cannot be healthy unless both minds are free and unfettered by fear of each other.
Howdy. Poly’s been awfully slow lately, eh?
If somebody’s got no doubt whatsoever that their beliefs are absolutely perfect, then there wouldn’t be much point in them having a relationship with someone who has “wrong” beliefs. The reason that my relatives who married those of a different faith were able to be so successful in their marriages is because they weren’t absolutely certain that their beliefs were perfect or that their beliefs were the only valid set of beliefs – they realized that they needed to grow in their faith, and they welcomed conflict with their spouse as a way to do so.
One of my friends, a devout Catholic, had a close relationship with another devout Catholic, and both partners were content in thinking that their mutually held beliefs were perfect. However, my friend eventually came to have some doubts in his faith, but his significant other was incapable of helping him through the crisis – she thought that my friend was an evil sonofabitch for daring to doubt his (and her) beliefs, i.e. she was incapable of growing in her faith and so she tried to stunt my friend’s growth as well. The fact that they both originally held the same beliefs wound up hurting their relationship – people change in relationships, so marrying somebody for being identical is generally poor long-term planning.
Urban Ranger:
Seeing as I’m posting here, obviously not, though I do devote a significant part of each day to that. But living by its words are the only thing I do in life. I believe that the Bible (well, the OT) is G-d’s instruction to man on how to live a life that will lead to maximum spiritual perfection, and that said perfection was a goal to be profoundly desired. If I had a wife who didn’t believe that as well, then we’d have a hell (no pun intended) of a time sharing a life.
EchoKitty:
Can I ask which religion teaches you this?
I don’t see how you make that leap of logic. By means of analogy,
if your job is to move pianos, and you took on a partner who could assist you, the two of you could move more pianos together than both of you could have done separately. When your job performance is assessed, the fact that the two of you were able to move 20 pianos together will certainly rate higher than if the two of you each separately moved only 6 pianos.
When two people share the same life goals - and amongst we of serious religious belief, sharing religious beliefs will mean sharing life goals - then it’s very simple to decide what differences to tolerate. Those which will hinder progress toward the shared goal cannot be tolerated…and both partners will agree on that.
However, when two people don’t even share the same goal, that makes things even more difficult! By what standard can differences be judged at all?
Chaim Mattis Keller
You know, my husband and I manage to have many differing opinions and stimulating discussions even though we go to the same church. We don’t even agree on everything within our religion. He is one of the smartest guys I know, and we love to talk.
Abe, it must surely be a little difficult for you to judge my life on the basis of 3 lines which were deliberately short and nonspecific? I’m not putting my entire personal history up here when it involves another person whose permission wasn’t obtained. The ‘atheistic Jewish guy’ and I dated for over a year, stayed best friends for quite awhile, and are still friends, though not as close as we once were. Believe me when I say that it never would have worked in a million years, for several reasons, and we are both glad that we married the different people we did.
Lastly, if my husband lost his faith or decided to change religions, I would be pretty heartbroken–we’ve built a life together on a foundation that includes our gospel. But of course I would stick by him; he has his free agency as I have mine, and can do that. I married him, I made promises, and I like him.
CMKeller, great posts. Much more eloquent than I can be.
Chaim, you may have missed my point. All I’m saying is that religion, in the end, is very personal. Yes, you can worship together, but you can’t worship any “better” with someone else. So if you were married to a Muslim who was devout, who wanted spiritual perfection, whose goal was to honor her diety completely, why would it make a difference that you honored different dieties if you were both living exemplary lives in your journey toward spiritual understanding? You could both reach that end via different means.
I am a Jew and my wife is Southern Baptist, and well, we are going strong as we approach our 20th year together.
I think we have found that there are a couple of things that are more important than our religious differences. First is our respect (and love, of course) for each other as a rational human being. The second is a sense of humor. That carries us a long way when our two religions are not in total agreement.
Let me say that at least for the two of us, our lives do exist outside of that religion that either of us professes. And in fact, it is fun to visit one another’s religious celebrations, and to watch the joy that can come over different faces when taking part in a religous service.
To a certain extent, I feel sorry for folks who are locked into a single religious mindset and can’t imagine a person functioning outside that narrow world. Everyday, when I get up, I know I might be called upon to help with the Baptist Rummage Sale or that my wife might be called upon to help with the preperations for a seder (we have one of the larger houses among the Jews in our rural area - so our house is used for a number of different ceremonies).
When we were engaged, someone tried the “unequally yoked” quotation on us. I pointed out that I wanted to spend my life with her, not pull a plow. I pointed out that if it came to pulling a plow, she would be on her own. We both laughed. The person with the quote got very serious. I’m glad I didn’t marry him.
The way my wife once explained to one of our little ones was that “God made a lot of different people. Who are we to not appreciate them just because they go to a different church? And I appreciate your father a lot.”
How could I not marry that Southern Baptist?
TV
There are those for whom a marriage is commitment made between the two people, their family and community, and God.
If your partner doesn’t share that perception, it in some ways means you have not made the same commitment to each other.
I don’t think it’s impossible for religious and non-religious people to marry, I just think it adds a big hurdle to an already challenging course. (Although the biggest hurdles are often the ones we’re proudest of getting over.)
Great post, TVTime. How are your extended families with this agreement? I would think that some parents would be upset that the grandchildren were being raised in a dual-faith situation.
Great post, TVTime. How are your extended families with this agreement? I would think that some parents would be upset that the grandchildren were being raised in a dual-faith situation.
Perhaps it comes down to how seriously you take your religion and its tenets. F’rinstance, as a practicing Lutheran who devoutly believes in his denomination’s tenets of faith, I could not marry a devout Roman Catholic. My faith is a constant presence and I can’t set aside my knowledge of the truth of it for the sake of understanding someone else’s faith, a faith that doesn’t line up with my own. Since the source of our faith is the same, the fact that our understanding of it is so radically different would be a constant stumbling block in a life together. Children would only exacerbate the problem. (“Mommy says that the wine actually turns into the body of Jesus.” “Yes, but Mommy’s wrong.”)
And it should be obvious why marrying someone of a completely different faith is even less acceptable to me. (“Mommy says there are really hundreds of different gods…”)
See, my wife would be so unable to relate to such a large part of my life, what would be the point of sharing my life with her? Love? That’s romantic, but marriage, as I understand it, is about much more than love. It’s about creating a family, and growing in the same direction is a part of that.
All that stuff about “cleave to her husband” and “the two shall become one” et al, that’s not about the sanctification of bumping uglies. It’s about two souls joining together. It’s about a love that is more than physical and more than mental - it’s a love that is spiritual. In marriage, my wife and I became one in spirit. And we have faith that we will stand before God’s final Judgement together, as one spirit.
And our children will see that. Hopefully seeing us unified like that will make them spiritually strong as well. We will both teach our children the same spiritual Truth, praying as we do that they come to the same faith-knowledge that we have.
Tygr said, “My faith is a constant presence and I can’t set aside my knowledge of the truth of it for the sake of understanding someone else’s faith, a faith that doesn’t line up with my own.”
I don’t see where you’d have to set aside anything, as long as your partner has respect for your religion and you respect hers. Do you really think that people of other faiths (or no faith) are of such a different mindset that the other parts of marriage would be impossible to enjoy? There are a lot of seriously religious people here that have already said they can do it. And DO do it. And their children seem to be fine with it (even if they don’t worship the same way as both parents). I’d like to ask about your future children and their faith. What if they don’t buy your version of religion? Will this compromise the relationship you have with them?
Well, what would showing/having respect require of me?
The definition of respect includes words like “deferential regard”, “esteem”, “appreciation” (meaning “Recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and things”). None of which I’d be able to manifest for alternate doctrines to my own.
This is not to say I would denigrate, ridicule, or deride another’s faith. I most certainly will not. I will be polite towards anyone’s faith, but to me marriage is far deeper than just being polite.
And I can not accept a different understanding of the Truth as being equal to my own. Knowing myself as I do, I suspect I would not be able to restrain myself from trying to make her know this Truth as I do. Far easier, in my mind to love and unite my life with someone who already does.
You ask me about people of other faiths and other marriages. I cannot answer for them. As for me, again, my faith is so ubiquitous in my life that there is little that it does not touch and little that would be left as commonalities if it were removed from consideration as part of my marriage. I accept that others here have said they make it work. I just don’t understand how. It may just be that their faith has a different nature than mine.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 
My children? My wife and I will raise them according to our faith and teach them the Truth. As they grow, I fully expect them to explore their spirituality and we will be ready to answer any questions or help them find the answers. If they reach a different understanding of the Truth, I expect we will have some heated debates (for I will not stop until they have the same understanding I do). But I will still love them unto death.
Do you understand that coming to know the Truth as I do is far deeper, higher and broader than just “buying my version of religion”?
Geez, Tygr, you actually think a marriage would break up over a theological difference of opinion on the Eucharist? This is not the 16th century anymore.
Anyways, I’m starting to think that all of this is a pointless discussion in real life. You will never find the “perfect” spouse in all elements, and that includes religious belief. I think that when it comes time in my life to make a decision like that, I’ll simply look at the totality of circumstances and decide on the whole of the other person’s merits whether that relationship is as good as I can reasonably expect to get. A person who would reject an otherwise wonderful marital partner over a difference of belief in the Real Presence is going to find out how bad his decision was later on in life…when he will have to settle for someone who is overall less appealing of a mate because he turned down his best chance.
When it’s all said and done, religious difference of opinion is just one factor among many. Anyone who would turn down a great potential spouse on merely one of those factors may be setting themselves up for regret and failure.
Certainly not in our case. I couldn’t speak for anyone else, of course, not having ever taken a scientific poll, but I think that’s not a very good assumption to make. Spouses are different than friends, or for that matter than children. We enjoy the many and diverse friendships we have, and the discussions that come from them.
That depends on your religion, doesn’t it? Mine specifically hopes for married couples–and families–to be together for eternity. I did not get married until death does us part. I would say that while we each have personal experiences, we also work together as partners on our joint spiritual life, which is larger than the sum of its parts.
I haven’t answered yet - but the majority of my close friends aren’t the same religion as I am. And it is partially because of those relationships that I don’t think I would marry someone who was of a different relationship.
I love these friends dearly. And, like most friendships, we share what’s going on - but the ones who are agnostic/athiest don’t seem to (for lack of a better word) “get” what my faith is to me. They don’t seem to relate to that aspect of my life the way that we relate to each other in other aspects. And in friendship - that’s ok, but for something that is as important to me as this is, I want more from someone I’m supposed to be sharing my life with.
As for someone of a different faith - it isn’t a conflict I want to potentially invite into the marriage. Maybe that’s cowardly of me - but hey, I’m willing to be a coward. There are other places I’m willing to disagree on - politics, music, many other things-- just not this.
My father was fine with it immediately, and my mother would have been a pain (In Judaism the faith travels in the mother’s line), but I waited so long to get married that she was elated that I was finally married and producing a child. At first my inlaws were standoffish but they saw how happy we are, and they want to see my wife happy so…
I have mentioned it on the boards before, but it sort of fits here. When I went to the first big family get together after my wife and I had got married (her family loves huge family things: cousins, great uncles, the whole crew attend). I was uncomfortably sitting by myself in some church basement trying not to look too out of place when one of the smaller members of my wife’s clan (he couldn’t have been older than five, if that) came meekly up to me and asked, “Why did you kill our lord?”
The whole room got suddenly very quiet, and more than a couple of eyes were pretending not to look my way. I looked down at the child and said, “It wasn’t me, honest. It was a Swedish guy.”
The child went eagerly running back to the woman whom I later found out was his mother, and I heard him say in that loud whisper that only small children can seem to achieve, “It wasn’t him. He says he didn’t do it. He says a Swedish guy did it. What a Swedish?”
I heard a loud laugh from the other side of the room that was uniquely my wife. She came running from where she was (I think it was to protect me from any Swedes in the room), planted a huge kiss on my mouth and said, if I remember correctly, “You’re funny.”
Slowly, but relatively surely, her brothers and sister came over and stood around me. Their spouses and older children followed gradually. I am not sure if it was to show some sort of solidarity or to protect me from any random Swedes that may have wandered in, but they were there.
They now see me as a relative (a weird one to be sure and one whose humor they will never understand, but I am a relative none the less).
So if Texas ever declares war on Sweden, you will know it was probably my fault.
TV
My God Tygre, that’s a terrifying post. You “…won’t stop until they have the same understanding…” that you do? That sounds pretty heavy-handed and controlling. I hope you understand that your children’s minds are theirs alone. They have no obligation to follow your beliefs. And please…you do not “know the truth.” Nobody KNOWS anything about the ultimate truth. It is this kind of smug, arrogant, self-righteous attitude that causes people to fly planes into buildings.
BTW, if your children or your wife WERE to turn against your faith would you do as the Bible instructs and kill them? (Deut.16:6-9)