By Bill Leonard
For a study of religious and cultural trends in American life, consider reading the wedding announcements in the “Sunday Styles” section of the New York Times for at least a year. New York weddings may represent an anomaly when compared to similar events in the American South, but their implications are being felt nationwide.
The newspaper stories share a basic format: names, ages, location of the wedding, officiates, education, parental backgrounds, even previous marriages. Some include details of how the couple met or a historical lineage. “The bride is a descendent of President Ulysses Simpson Grant,” for example, or “The bridegroom’s grandfather was the business partner of Andrew Carnegie.”
More recently, however, the Times wedding pages increasingly offer insights into the changing nature of marriage and the role of religion in it all.
While many couples still choose “church” weddings, alternative locations are proliferating on beaches and mountainsides, or in private gardens, family homes, hotels and other “event spaces.” A substantial number occur at the “District Court” presided over by a judge or justice of the peace. Some transport the entire party to another country.
The definition of “clergy” reflects substantial diversity. There are assorted Jewish rabbis, Hindu or Catholic priests, Muslim imams and Buddhist or Protestant ministers, as well as a growing number of “family friends” who secure ministerial credentials “for the occasion.”
Many an officiant becomes “a Universal Life minister for the event.” The Jan. 30 Times reports that a “minister of the Universal Brotherhood Movement,” presided at a recent ceremony, adding: “Next Saturday, the bridegroom’s father will lead a spiritual ceremony incorporating Chinese wedding traditions before family and friends on the beach … in Punta de Mita, Mexico.”
At many weddings, clergy from distinct religions share liturgical responsibilities. Others conduct entirely separate rites in celebrations that reflect diverse religious traditions or personal spiritual explorations.
One recent article noted that the couple was married by a justice of the peace, shortly after “a friend of the bride’s family led a ceremony that incorporated Jewish and Christian traditions.” Another observed that “a Roman Catholic priest performed the ceremony” with a rabbi “taking part.”
These wedding announcements are not trivial. They reflect concrete changes, long present but increasingly normative in American life and culture. Indeed, a front page story in the Jan. 30 Times reported that “one in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities” as indicated by 2008-2009 census data.
While multiracial marriages are certainly nothing new, the strength of the statistics is evident in the growing presence of “mixed-race” children born of those relationships. The article notes: “The crop of students moving through college now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard.” It suggests that many of these young people are “rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity.”
In short, while religious Americans continue to divide over issues related to same-sex marriage, a substantial number of persons have redefined marriage altogether with implications for issues of race, culture, family life, faith traditions and religious pluralism. Still other studies indicate that many couples have rejected marriage entirely, choosing to live together “without benefit of clergy” or any other “official” arrangements.
What does this mean for the church now and in the future?
First, multiracial, multicultural marriages are extending interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism directly into American families, creating consternation, celebration and negotiation all at the grassroots level.
Second, these developments may compel churches to consistently revisit a theology of Christian marriage, offering instruction, setting boundaries and discerning how they might “welcome the stranger” who stands at a Christian altar but remains committed to a non-Christian faith.
Third, ministers should decide what they can and cannot do in representing Christ in ceremonies that may have multiple religious and secular implications. For example, a small but determined group of Protestant ministers has decided no longer to sign marriage licenses as de facto justices of the peace. They preside at marital worship celebrations while leaving the “legal” side to the government.
Fourth, communities of faith might ask how they will nurture children reared in multiple-faith traditions, traditions that may complement and contradict each other all at once.
Finally, all faith communities must confront the challenges posed by ministry to unmarried couples, multicultural couples and multifaith couples, all in a society where one of every two marriages ends in divorce.
Responding to those challenges will take a long, long time, especially since we have only just begun.