I'm bumping up this old entry. I should probably write a new version soon.
As marriage neutering activists have tied up courts across the country and shoehorned their talking points into television shows and other media, some members of the clergy have said they don't mind or even support the neutering of state licenses, because according to them, state marriage licenses have nothing to do with church wedding ceremonies. I have suspected that most clergy making such statements are either full of dung (hey, that’s Biblically appropriate language) or haven't thought through what they’re saying.
How could it be tested?
What it would take is for a couple to approach a such member of the clergy and ask to get married by that person in his or her church. If the clergy agrees, the couple could then explain that this would not be a legally recognized marriage as they would not have a state marriage license, because both of them are still legally married to other people. Those marriages were performed at a county office, by a non-clergy officiant, and that they both consider those marriages dead, perhaps because of infidelity on the part of their partners (a Biblical justification to divorce).
Would the clergy still perform the wedding? If not, then they were not being honest or coherent in their statements that state licenses are a separate matter. If they would perform the wedding, then at least they would be consistent.
What is marriage, according to the Bible?
1) Unites a bride and groom
2) Obligates participants to love (care for) each other
3) Obligates monogamy, meaning both sexual fidelity and giving each other their bodies (no unilateral withholding of sex)
4) Obligates the husband to provide for his wife and the wife to bear her husband's children if she is able
5) Lasts until death
6) Divorce only permissible (not required or encouraged) for unfaithfulness (think abandonment/adultery/abuse), otherwise remarriage is adultery
In states with neutered licenses and unilateral no-fault divorce, none of these elements are inherent to the state "marriage" licenses.
1) No bride is required. No groom is required.
2) Neither party is penalized no matter how indifferent or even cruel to the other
3) Either or both face no legal repercussions whatsoever for affairs nor sexually rejecting the spouse. ("Alienation of affection" is still pursued as a civil matter only in a few places.)
4) A husband is under no obligation to provide for his wife. In fact, in states with community property, he can still get 50% of everything if he sits on the couch all day every day while she goes out an earns the income. No matter how badly the husband wants children, she can have her pregnancies terminated in the ninth month with no legal repercussions.
5) About 40% of first marriages end in divorce, and the percentages go up for second marriages.
6) Unilateral divorce for any/no reason.
As such, state licensing has very little similarity to holy matrimony, and can actually undermine holy matrimony.
What should churches and the Christian community in general do? Are we reaching a point at which churches should ignore state licenses, including state divorce?*
If so, then it should not be the least bit relevant to officiating clergy or church records if there is a state license in involved or not. Citing the power of the state in the ceremony can be dropped.
Instead, churches (or any religious institution) should focus on holding churchgoers accountable. There's no reason participating churches shouldn't develop and maintain a database registering unions of holy matrimony.
This is how it would work. A couple would approach the personnel at the church responsible for arranging weddings. The wedding coordinator would run the personal information of the individuals in the couple through the database. If it showed that neither one of them was in a marriage, then they would be eligible to go through the process of premarital counseling, arranging and having the wedding, etc. If it showed that one or both of them was still in a marriage, or separated without a divorce/annulment, then they would be declined until the matter was resolved. For an annulment or divorce, the individual would have to convince authorized clergy that such an action was justified (fraud, abandonment, abuse, addiction, adultery).
Part of the premarital counseling would involve a "prenuptial agreement" that would legally be a cohabitation agreement but also a social agreement made before the church. This would spell out the obligations and expectations, grounds for divorce or annulment, and property division.
Other organizations could choose to recognize these holy matrimony relationships.
Of course, there would be many churches that wouldn't participate or enforce the standards, and there would be people who would simply avoid churches and other organizations that enforced the standards. However, if someone is serious and sincere in their involvement in their faith community, it would hold sway. If a participating church doesn't grant the divorce, then you couldn't remarry in one of the participating churches because you'd still be considered married. Dating or courting someone who isn't your spouse, if still married in the eyes of the church, would be a behavior addressed as contrary to membership in the church.
There is a small, but growing number of Christian men who are avoiding state licensing because they see the risk of unjust treatment by the state as too high, especially for husband who are expected to be the financial providers. Some (not all) of those men would be more likely to agree to the holy matrimony system described above.
Like with so many other things, when government fails, the church community must stand in the gap.
Are we at this point?
*I'm not asking to "get government out of marriage". I'm saying many states have already abandoned marriage for a counterfeit, many with the final blow not being the state's choice, but rather imposed by federal judicial intrusion. Some people might marry and register those marriages under the state's licensing program, but those are not marriage licenses they are getting, at least not in the true sense. They are mostly financial partnership contacts.
As marriage neutering activists have tied up courts across the country and shoehorned their talking points into television shows and other media, some members of the clergy have said they don't mind or even support the neutering of state licenses, because according to them, state marriage licenses have nothing to do with church wedding ceremonies. I have suspected that most clergy making such statements are either full of dung (hey, that’s Biblically appropriate language) or haven't thought through what they’re saying.
How could it be tested?
What it would take is for a couple to approach a such member of the clergy and ask to get married by that person in his or her church. If the clergy agrees, the couple could then explain that this would not be a legally recognized marriage as they would not have a state marriage license, because both of them are still legally married to other people. Those marriages were performed at a county office, by a non-clergy officiant, and that they both consider those marriages dead, perhaps because of infidelity on the part of their partners (a Biblical justification to divorce).
Would the clergy still perform the wedding? If not, then they were not being honest or coherent in their statements that state licenses are a separate matter. If they would perform the wedding, then at least they would be consistent.
What is marriage, according to the Bible?
1) Unites a bride and groom
2) Obligates participants to love (care for) each other
3) Obligates monogamy, meaning both sexual fidelity and giving each other their bodies (no unilateral withholding of sex)
4) Obligates the husband to provide for his wife and the wife to bear her husband's children if she is able
5) Lasts until death
6) Divorce only permissible (not required or encouraged) for unfaithfulness (think abandonment/adultery/abuse), otherwise remarriage is adultery
In states with neutered licenses and unilateral no-fault divorce, none of these elements are inherent to the state "marriage" licenses.
1) No bride is required. No groom is required.
2) Neither party is penalized no matter how indifferent or even cruel to the other
3) Either or both face no legal repercussions whatsoever for affairs nor sexually rejecting the spouse. ("Alienation of affection" is still pursued as a civil matter only in a few places.)
4) A husband is under no obligation to provide for his wife. In fact, in states with community property, he can still get 50% of everything if he sits on the couch all day every day while she goes out an earns the income. No matter how badly the husband wants children, she can have her pregnancies terminated in the ninth month with no legal repercussions.
5) About 40% of first marriages end in divorce, and the percentages go up for second marriages.
6) Unilateral divorce for any/no reason.
As such, state licensing has very little similarity to holy matrimony, and can actually undermine holy matrimony.
What should churches and the Christian community in general do? Are we reaching a point at which churches should ignore state licenses, including state divorce?*
If so, then it should not be the least bit relevant to officiating clergy or church records if there is a state license in involved or not. Citing the power of the state in the ceremony can be dropped.
Instead, churches (or any religious institution) should focus on holding churchgoers accountable. There's no reason participating churches shouldn't develop and maintain a database registering unions of holy matrimony.
This is how it would work. A couple would approach the personnel at the church responsible for arranging weddings. The wedding coordinator would run the personal information of the individuals in the couple through the database. If it showed that neither one of them was in a marriage, then they would be eligible to go through the process of premarital counseling, arranging and having the wedding, etc. If it showed that one or both of them was still in a marriage, or separated without a divorce/annulment, then they would be declined until the matter was resolved. For an annulment or divorce, the individual would have to convince authorized clergy that such an action was justified (fraud, abandonment, abuse, addiction, adultery).
Part of the premarital counseling would involve a "prenuptial agreement" that would legally be a cohabitation agreement but also a social agreement made before the church. This would spell out the obligations and expectations, grounds for divorce or annulment, and property division.
Other organizations could choose to recognize these holy matrimony relationships.
Of course, there would be many churches that wouldn't participate or enforce the standards, and there would be people who would simply avoid churches and other organizations that enforced the standards. However, if someone is serious and sincere in their involvement in their faith community, it would hold sway. If a participating church doesn't grant the divorce, then you couldn't remarry in one of the participating churches because you'd still be considered married. Dating or courting someone who isn't your spouse, if still married in the eyes of the church, would be a behavior addressed as contrary to membership in the church.
There is a small, but growing number of Christian men who are avoiding state licensing because they see the risk of unjust treatment by the state as too high, especially for husband who are expected to be the financial providers. Some (not all) of those men would be more likely to agree to the holy matrimony system described above.
Like with so many other things, when government fails, the church community must stand in the gap.
Are we at this point?
*I'm not asking to "get government out of marriage". I'm saying many states have already abandoned marriage for a counterfeit, many with the final blow not being the state's choice, but rather imposed by federal judicial intrusion. Some people might marry and register those marriages under the state's licensing program, but those are not marriage licenses they are getting, at least not in the true sense. They are mostly financial partnership contacts.
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