My friend Steve Kneale has written here about marriage arguing that churches should not be conducting marriage ceremonies, but if they do, they should only do so for church members. Well, personally I sit loosely on whether or not you should have a church wedding and whether or not churches should perform them.
I don’t think that churches should be forced to conduct weddings but nor do I think that they should be prevented from doing so. Incidentally, once you don’t have a beautiful old building, demand from outside of the church tends to drop off, as it does for funerals too. In 14 years of church leadership, I have had a couple of initial phone calls but once I’ve said “come and meet us”, I’ve heard nothing further. Most people are looking for a nice venue at not too high a price, primarily they are looking for the party venue and the vows and the ceremony itself often feels like the preliminaries to get through.
Which incidentally is a factor in terms of our thinking on offering marriages. Have you been to a civil ceremony? In my experience, the ceremony itself is a pretty dry, functional and bluntly legalistic affair. How different, to the joyful celebration it should be. I’ve often said that I would love a non church wedding to take place over the wedding banquet, starters followed by vows, followed by main course, some readings, desert and speeches (including the pastor if Christians). Maybe then a church offers a wedding service in order to point to greater beauty, an act of common grace and mercy? Or maybe we don’t so that people get to experience the cold legalism of secularism.
Those are side points though. My main reason for writing is that, in this case, I think that Steve makes two errors in his argument. This doesn’t mean, in and of itself that his conclusions are wrong but I do think it means that he hasn’t come up with as solid an argument as he thinks.
First, whilst the Catholic Church did turn marriage into one of its numerous “sacraments”, a vehicle for God to give extra grace to people in order to make them right with him and whilst Protestants reduced this down to two ordinances, even changing the understanding of what the means of grace did, offering a sacrament, is not the only reason for doing something. Protestants who offer a church wedding don’t think they are offering a sacrament but they do believe that wherever and whenever a marriage happens, it is God who joins the two together. The point is that this is true whether or not they recognise it, so why not overtly recognise it?
Second, and I remember disagreeing with Steve on this when he first wrote about it. Steve may be right that marriage as a creation ordinance is a societal thing but society is not the same as the State. Indeed, that is to impose a very modern understanding of the State onto the situation. Perhaps this reflects political outlook as much as anything.
Now, the State has an interest in marriage and in choosing when and when not to recognise marriage because this reflects on a number of matters it does have responsibility for, immigration, tax, benefits, property law (in the case of divorce), inheritance, etc. So, I think that it is reasonable for the State to choose not to recognise a marriage for those purposes. However, contra Steve, I would argue that this does not mean that you are any less married because the State in one country declines to offer you the benefits of marriage that they offer. This is important because in those areas it may well be possible for a government to add in extra loopholes before it recognises the marriage. Additionally, you can have the situation where a marriage is recognised as legitimate in one country and not another.
This affects Steve’s comments about “common-law” marriage. The problem with “common-law marriage” is not that the State didn’t oversee the marriage ceremony and verify it. The problem is that there hasn’t been a marriage because marriage requires both private intimacy and public commitment. The second factor, a clear publicly expressed commitment with witness is missing in most of those cases.[1]
All of this matters because it boils down to the issue of who gets to define marriage. Arguably, if it is a state matter, then there is nothing to prevent the Government tomorrow from in effect legislating for common-law marriages. You could self-certify on any required forms that you are living with someone whom you regard as your spouse and that would entitle you to all of the entitlements that go with marriage.
So, whatever our decisions about what the church should do in relation to marriage, I don’t think that we should base them on the arguments that marriage is not a sacrament or that it is a State matter.
[1] Indeed, note that whilst in England and Wales, common law marriage is merely a social term, in other jurisdictions, whilst they may not offer it as a current option, they may recognise irregular marriages from other jurisdictions or predating a particular time (in Scotland for example, it is pre 1940 under the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939.
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