This will not be a long post, but should be the first post of quite a few. Here in Japan, and working in a Japanese church, one of the issues that the church is facing is in regards to the intermarriage between two people of different faiths. I am doing some reading right now in regards to the issue, but the striking thing that I’ve noticed is the lack of resources regarding such an issue. While there are some brief articles and opinions that can be found online, there are, as far as I know, very few treatments of the subject in book-form. I am reading “Til Faith Do Us Part” by Naomi Schaefer Riley (a Jewish woman), and have started reading an Evangelical book called “Spiritual Mismatch” by Lee and Leslie Strobel (though this book is about a. the actual marriage between two people of different faiths and the difficulties that arise (rather than the focus on the question of whether one ought to or not) b. centered on a couple who were more or less the same faith at the start of marriage, but then the wife changed part way through (to an Evangelical faith).
The question that I am facing more and more is regarding the marriage of a Christian to another faith, which is increasing more and more in Japan. This has been increasing in the states more and more as well with the rise of a stronger form of secularism. Japan often goes through similar trends with the US, albeit in different ways, but I can see some parallel movements between the countries. The difference is would be that in the US, there are many Christians (I am speaking of this term as a blanket term which includes Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant mainline and Evangelical (which would include Fundamentalist (the two aren’t/shouldn’t be the same~)).
But there is a great lack of real resources to look into this in English. I will continue to search out more resources as I write concerning the findings I get from the little resources I have, as well as reach out to friends serving in other countries across the globe in different traditions. As for myself, I hadn’t given the question too much thought, so I had never turned an eye if a member of a church I attended up through seminary married a member of a separate faith. But, upon reading over the Old Testament concerns about marriage outside of the Jewish population, with sometimes a seemingly exclusionist approach against foreigners, I’ve come more and more to the conclusion that these issues were more so about religion than blood (since a person could become a Jew if they participated in the covenant through circumcision (for the male). As for woman, there were women like Ruth who would declare that ” your God will be my God”. That is another large yet related subject. But looking through all passages about exclusion and embrace of foreigners for Israel, I can say with some confidence that it is more so about faith in Yahweh than anything else.
The next time I write about this, I might start by just setting up the different issues and questions there are around the subject….then move on to some reviews of materials that I do have (and the conclusions that are given).
Quinby 