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Old 12th June 2010, 08:08 PM   #35
aerialpunk
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Re: Do christian/atheist marriages work?

Well, opinions about whether or not the Bible is right are not entirely relevant in my mind, not for this topic anyway...

I'm in a similar situation too. I'm a Christian, and my boyfriend of more than 2 years is an atheist. We've been talking about marriage, and of course this is something that comes up... I can tell you some of my experiences & things that have helped us work through it.

K, so first off, I think it's a good point to talk about exactly what each of you believe and why. It's true that for all of us, we're not simply Christian or atheist. There's more to it than that. For me, my faith background, if you will, is not actually very religious per se. I'm a very devout Christian from a moral, faith, and ideological perspective. But I'm not one to think that if you don't go to church every Sunday, or if you wear jewelry or dance, you're going to hell. My boyfriend is an atheist, but not a devout, militant-type atheist- he simply hasn't found anything to convince him.

For me, this is a huge, huge difference. I have friends who are militant atheists, and honestly, I think there'd be serious problems in marrying someone like that- someone who actually hates God, and thinks Christians are stupid, & who won't listen to a word you say about it, rather than simply someone who's unconvinced that God's there. Talking about this kind of thing really sheds light on how workable the relationship is. After we talked extensively about it, we came to the conclusion that we love each other as people, regardless of beliefs. Even if he disagrees with me on these things, I can talk openly about what I think with him without fearing judgment, and I can do the same for him.

Also, I think it's important to keep a long-term perspective. It really made me sad to read people's stories about being ditched by people who thought religious differences would wreck things. I had a hard time with my family, since a lot of them buy into that idea- that a relationship like ours is doomed. But you know, my sister's and her boyfriend are both Christian, and even that didn't stop them from having big fights about religion And luckily, I even have my pastor to look to for example- he and his wife were into each other since they were kids, and when they hooked up, she was a strict Catholic and he was an atheist, now they're both Adventists :P

Really, you can't guarantee anything, whether you share your faith or not. Who knows, maybe you'll be a Christian & an atheist now, and 15 years down the road you'll be a Buddhist and a Wiccan. Maybe you'll both end up Christian, maybe you'll be happy, maybe you'll get divorced. You just don't know what will happen, and so you should focus more on what kind of a person they are, and also on their moral values (my boyfriend and I have virtually identical moral values, and it makes up a lot for our different religious beliefs).

Kids might be tricky, but we won't be getting married for probably at least another year and a half (we're doing it long distance, so we have to finish school and whatnot first), but we figured we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Plus, having similar morals helps a lot, since even if they get two different stories on things like origins, at least they'll get one unified moral teaching.

Most importantly, remember to ask God about it- really you should do that, even if you both were Christians :P He knows what's going on. But remember, you have to be totally open to what he says about the matter, whether you like what he says or not... lol in the past I had an issue with that.... God's all like, "Nope", and I'm all like, "What's that? Did you say.. yes? Awesome." only to run into problems later :P But yeah, if you honestly seek God's advice on the matter, you can't go wrong
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