Lecture Discusses Interfaith Marriage in Major Religions

By Amina Bhatti

A priest, a rabbi and a group of religious scholars walked into a lecture to deliver “Interfaith Marriage: A Concern for Jews, Christians and Muslims,” a talk on reconciling matrimony between members of different faiths. The event, which took place on Nov. 12 at Rose Hill’s Walsh Library, featured Rev. Patrick J. Ryan, Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society, who provided a Christian perspective. Rabbi Daniel Polish, PhD., writer and head of the Shir Chadash Congregation of the Hudson Valley provided a Jewish perspective. Professor Jerusha Lamptey, PhD., assistant professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary provided a Muslim perspective.

Patrick J. Ryan delivered the main speech, discussing the history of interfaith marriage and its meaning and implications in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Polish and Lamptey then responded to Ryan’s speech, adding their perspectives from the Jewish and Muslim faiths, respectively.

According to Ryan, interfaith marriage in the United States became more prevalent in the 1920s. Moreover, he said, “Jews, Christians and Muslims…many other parts of the world intermarry, no matter what their families or the guardians of their faith traditions may think about it.”

Ryan went on to explain how the rules of marriage in Christianity were initially similar to those in Judaism, as the first Christians were Jews. However, Gentile converts changed the traditions of marriage so that Christians and Jews and different rules governing marriage. Ryan stated that, while the Gospels do not discuss interfaith marriage, marriage in Christianity can be seen as “the unbreakable union between husband and wife…[which] lies at the heart of the teaching of Jesus about marriage.” According to Corinthians 7:14, such a strong tie within marriage also applied to the marriage between a Christian and non-Christian. This was in the hopes that “the unbelieving husband be made holy through his wife [and vice-versa].”

Ryan also discussed how the Jewish tradition expected endogamous marriages, in their case marriage within the Jewish faith. For the sake of preserving the Jewish faith, Jewish scripture expressly forbade Jews from marrying polytheists, who could lead their Jewish spouses into a different religion. The Book of Ruth in the Bible, however, presents a more positive view of an exogamous marriage for the Jewish faith, where the heroine Ruth was not initially Jewish herself, but married into the Jewish faith and became loyal to it.

Polish expressed his agreement with Ryan’s discussion of how endogamous marriages were primarily a way to preserve Jewish tradition.

Both he and Ryan concurred that an interfaith marriage in which the children of the interfaith couple affiliate with neither faith would be a tragedy, as it preserves neither of the faith traditions of the parents. Such an example could be seen with Jewish intermarriages today: in the U.S. alone, since 2005, it is estimated that 58 percent of Jews “have [married] outside their faith tradition.”

Ryan said, “all too many of the children of such marriages are raised in neither tradition”; [this leads to the question] what is the future of American Judaism?”

Polish expressed grief for the Jewish faith if the reality of inter-marriage causes members of the Jewish faith to decrease in number. However, he stated, “I do not believe that the traditional opposition to intermarriage is predicated on the notion that non-Jews are somehow inferior to Jews.” Rather, it is the diminishing of and possible end to an entire faith that is tragic to Polish.

The preservation of faith is a common thread in the values of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, in particular when the situation of an interfaith marriage arises. According to Lamptey, interfaith marriage can be seen as an opportunity to learn about he other faiths, at least from a Muslim perspective. In Islam, Muslims are allowed to marry “people of the book” a term usually given to Jews and Christians who share a monotheistic belief system with Islam.

However, each of these three faiths is distinct from the other in its own right. “The Quran describes… religious diversity as ayatollah, as the signs of God,” Lamptey explained, “[and such signs are] deliberate creation…designed to reveal intricacies about God’s self, and God’s plan for humanity.” Thus, keeping an open mind toward other faiths is a way of practicing one’s obligation to understand the signs of God. Doing so can perhaps increase one’s commitment to one’s own faith, Lamptey explained. For Lamptey, interfaith marriage should not be seen as the problem. Rather, he says, “how communities can and should better support interfaith families as committed and full, vital members [of that community]” should be the subject of debate regarding interfaith marriages.

Comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s