Interfaith Marriage

Working for World Peace at the Most Intimate Level

Bonni-Belle Pickard

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781666736106, 9781666793963
• eBook ISBN: 9781666793970
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Ecumenism & Interfaith

As societies across the globe rethink and often discard the institutions of marriage and religion, interfaith marriages continue to grow in number. These unions, usually committed to seeing past the traditional sectarian labels, often struggle when the traditional sources of support for marital life--faith community, family support--are not available. Still, the determination of interfaith couples to negotiate and cross boundaries gives hope to a fractured world. Bonni-Belle Pickard draws from her personal and professional experience to suggest ways of addressing the challenges of interfaith couples and their families.

Part One

Exploring Issues and Tools for Supporting Interfaith Marriage

Introduction

I was nearly seven when I fell in love with my Jewish classmate, Kenneth. Though we hardly ever spoke, he would write me love notes on tiny scraps of paper which I kept stashed in the corner of my desk. After his delightful explanation of Hanukkah during Show-and-Tell—complete with dreidel and menorah—I spent many hours trying to decide if the daughter of a Methodist minister could marry a Jew. As it happened, our puppy love evaporated the next year when we were put in different classes, but I was set with a lifelong interest in different faith backgrounds.

My interest in other faiths was not an indication that I was dissatisfied with my own; I was simply intrigued to learn how others approached theirs. Looking back, Kenneth was probably the first person I had met who was not Methodist or Baptist or Catholic. Being part of a Methodist minister’s family meant my four siblings and I were usually at some kind of church activities if we were not at school or music lessons. My growing-up years were spent in Florida, and Methodist ministers there moved frequently, so we learned a good bit about adjusting to new experiences, even as our church experiences remained fairly constant from place to place. My father’s brand of Methodism was liberal; his intention to live out his theology in practical forms had a deep influence on me, which was especially important as my growing-up years in the Deep South also coincided with the Civil Rights movement and desegregation of the schools, the Women’s Liberation movement, and the advent of the Pill.

The man I eventually married was also Methodist; we met at Florida Southern College, a Methodist institution from which most of my family had graduated and would subsequently graduate. Alfred and I were each one of five children and were both music majors, so we shared many interests and childhood family experiences. There was, however, one major difference: while I had grown up in Florida, my husband had been born and raised in India to missionary parents. While our faith backgrounds were similar, there were many times when the cultural differences of our childhood presented themselves unannounced. My earliest memory of him was noticing that he wore flip-flops to school (he called them by the Indian term, rubber chappals); even though I’d grown up in Florida, nobody else I knew wore flip-flops to school! With several cultural differences to negotiate, our similar faith background seemed like something to hold on to.

Soon after our wedding in Florida, we moved to South India to teach music at the boarding school Alfred had attended for most of his childhood education. We stayed at Kodaikanal International School for the next twenty years, living and working with a wide variety of cultures and religious backgrounds. During those two decades we collected and raised our six children: three from my womb, and three from my heart (one adopted Tamil Indian and two fostered Parsi Indians).

By the time our own children became young adults, they seemed unconcerned with the social uncertainties about interfaith marriage that had colored my childhood. They simply married their soul mates: life partners from Islam, Atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism and other Protestant traditions (no Methodists!). Their spouses’ families have come from the USA, England, Libya, India, Switzerland, and China. In the meantime, our family moved from India to the USA and then to the UK; our children and grandchildren currently live on three continents. Their families are intercultural and interfaith. Our children have taught me about the wider canvas on which God paints Godself in our lives.

Observing our children’s marriages and subsequent family lives pushed me to dig deeper into understanding how culture and faith are often intricately woven together. As an avid knitter, I know that knitting means making a new cloth out of long pieces of preexisting string. When two or more different strands are used, new shapes and patterns emerge—as well as the occasional seemingly insurmountable knots. A certain perseverance is required for keeping track of the various strands and how they best work together—and how to unpick the knots.

One of the knots that has seemed most difficult for interfaith couples is the faith dimension. When people would hear that I was researching interfaith marriage, inevitably they assumed I focused on the wedding part of the marriage. There are indeed several books and articles dedicated to giving tips about how to put together a ceremony that accommodates diverse faith traditions. I looked at several of them when my children (and others) asked me, as a minister in the British Methodist Church, to contribute to their wedding ceremonies. But even though putting together a coherent wedding ceremony was an interesting venture, I knew that while some weddings might last less than an hour (or several days in the case of a Hindu wedding), a marriage is usually meant to last a lifetime. Indeed, it probably takes a lifetime to get a marriage right. The long haul is required for deeper faith realities to emerge through the day-to-day living out of relationships: the marriages.

In much young adult culture today around the world there has been a general dismissal of religion even as there remains a searching for spirituality and a dim awareness of the importance of individual and communal faith development. For many, the growing awareness of other religions has been a source of confusion, if not outright conflict. Trying to reconcile competing religious beliefs and practices has been considered as too difficult, especially in an interfaith relationship. It has been easier to regard oneself and one’s interfaith marriage as not religious.

My life experience tells me the easy option is not the best: each individual and each couple has the responsibility and the privilege to grow into spiritually mature persons. Those who are brave enough to take on an interfaith marriage are signaling such a willingness to think again. In the first place, they show a willingness to consider matrimony when cohabitation is rapidly becoming the worldwide norm, and they are pushing the traditional boundaries of wedlock into a supportive foundation for mutual growth and familial stability. Secondly, for those who choose a marriage partner from another faith tradition, the issues of religion and spirituality (i.e., faith) can take on new dimensions. Still, as society at large sifts through the challenges of what has been and what might be, there are few ready answers for what will actually work now.

My research efforts over the past few years have been to glean through faith traditions of marriage to see what can be recovered, rescued, or salvaged for use in our present circumstances, especially for those attempting interfaith marriage in an age that generally favors equality and respect. As one who tends toward a liberal worldview, I am acutely aware of the noisy rise of fascism, nationalism, sexism, and racism in the public arena, but I also regard these as aberrations in the overall arch toward God’s kingdom of justice and peace for all.

As a person of faith, I am interested in how marriage and faith intersect in the development of personal spiritual maturity. I continue to learn from listening to those with little regard for either marriage or faith, but too often that disregard seems to arise either from a personal encounter with the worst of these institutions or from a distorted view of the aims of the institutions. I also recognize there are infinite shades of difference in belief and practice in all faith traditions, and that caricatures of these abound, especially about matters of faith that are different from one’s own. Particularly when writing about other faith traditions, I have sought to find the best each has to offer, recognizing that there are skeletons in all our closets.

While I hope that what I have to offer will be of benefit to many, I have embarked on this research from and for the perspective of Methodist Christians. There is much for us to learn as well about ourselves, our beliefs and practices, as well as the “other.” As a Methodist minister, I am aware that a new skillset is required, not just for interfaith couples and their families, but for those of us who are willing to accompany them on their journeys.

A final introductory note: while the experiences of my children and their spouses gave impetus to much of my study, this book is not all about them and their experiences. The personal stories I have included as illustrations are those for which I have gained permission, either from my children or those who offered to share with me during the course of my research. While sharing our stories is important, preserving the dignity of trust and a respect for each other’s privacy is also paramount to maintaining good relationships. Their sto...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations of Scriptures
• Part One: Exploring Issues and Tools for Supporting Interfaith Marriage
• Part Two: Introduction: Theologies of Marriage
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Recommended Resources for Specific Faith Traditions
• Bibliography