Fingers Crossed

You could perhaps predicted the Strib's exultation over this story, in which an Episcopal dioceses is discussing pulling the diocese out of the marriage business:

The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts is considering a solution to the gay-marriage issue that commends itself to all churches seeking escape from the hot seat this issue has created: It may get entirely out of the marriage business.

Unmentioned by the Strib; the Episcopals - at least the higher-level governmental bodies of the church - are barely better than Unitarians, these days.

But let's ignore church politics and demominational theologies for a moment; why should a church - on that claims to base its teachings on two-millenia-old traditions based on truths Christians consider immutable and eternal - abandon a key observance over an issue that's been front page news for half a decade or so?

They shouldn't.

A church wedding really is two ceremonies rolled into one: a legal, government-sanctioned marriage, in which the presiding minister acts as an official of the state; and a religious ceremony, at which the union is blessed by the priest and the couple is embraced by the congregation. The actual marriage (as opposed to the wedding ceremony) involves simply signing and witnessing the legal documents.

Um...no.

The "Actual Marriage", to (I strongly suspect) a huge majority of believers, is the agreement between a guy, a gal, and God. The contract with the state merely confirms the arrangement in temporal terms.

It is the business of the state to sanction who may legally be married to each other. It is the business of the church to bless a union of any two people it chooses.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I'll grant the Strib this much; the editorial was probably written by someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about faith. The writer makes it sound as if the "blessing" is some feel-good decoration on top of a state contract.

By separating the two, the Massachusetts diocese would be rendering back unto Caesar the authority to legally bind people together, and would be reclaiming wholly for itself the judgment about which unions might be religiously blessed and celebrated.

It's also "rendering unto Caesar" an institution that is, and has always been, a religious one.

That is a healthy separation.

Except, of course, for the institution of marriage.

It has never been wise for ministers and priests to act as agents of the state, as the gay marriage issue has made painfully clear.

Re-read that sentence.

To the Strib editorial board, the entire history of marriage, its entire theological, moral and social underpinning, and the entire validity of society's most crucial institution...

...is being judged by the standard of how or whether it adopts the notion of gay marriage?

Isn't that sort of like suspending the Constitution because you don't like how the Soil and Water Board vote went?

It has thrust churches into the center of a heated, divisive political battle in which the churches lose no matter what.

What do the churches lose by standing up for what they believe (assuming the church believes in anything - which may be a big aggressive for Massachussetts' Episcopals)?

If the Massachusetts diocese, at its annual convention later this month, officially makes the change, then couples (same-sex or otherwise) would be married by a judge, justice of the peace or other state agent. Those who desired a religious ceremony then would seek it through their parish church. To Americans, such arrangements may sound radical, but they are in fact the traditional approach in much of Europe.

Leave aside the fact that gay marriage remains illegal in Europe as well for a moment.

Europe's method of dealing with marriages is neither "traditional" nor is it even homogenous throughout Europe. The Strib is being at the very least overgeneral, and at most deeply disingenuous.

There is deep wisdom in Jesus' admonition to keep separate things of Caesar and things of God, and the Massachusetts proposal honors that wisdom.

Only if you assume that Jesus - or Mohammed, Vishnu, Confucius or Buddha - thought that marriage, one of the most important sacraments in every major religion, were the province of government.

I'll await the evidence.

Churches should seek to bring people together and to minister to all comers. This change would help strengthen those roles.

The Strib writer is describing a support group or a social service agency.

Faiths should, indeed, welcome and unify - behind a set of beliefs.

The Strib supports any Republican who either acts like a Democrat or can't win; by the same token, they love faith, as long as that faith is in nothing concrete.

Posted by Mitch at October 11, 2006 07:31 AM | TrackBack