Near the end, (before the question of conversion begins to be discussed) one of the girls says "I wouldn't want to be involved in an inter-faith relationship."

That is a common sentiment among Adventists and Christians in general. However, the immediately following conversation focused on trying to convert someone TO your faith, and then considering a relationship. But what can go one way can go another, and if you've promised yourself you'll NEVER be in a relationship with a non-adventist, if and when your spouse LOSES faith, what will you do? They are still while still being that same wonderful, caring person you fell in love with. Are you going to abandon them because their internal search for truth has gone in a direction you and they hadn't foreseen or intended?

That possibility is almost never discussed. The consensus seems to be, "once I've married her/him they AREN'T going to change their beliefs" but this is not certain.

Excellent point, Jemand. A partner changing in their faith can feel like the height of abandonment to those who identify their essential selves with their faith and hoped to share that identity for life with their spouse. And for the person that's changed, the response of the one who has not changed can be crushing because the question can then be asked "Well, did you marry *me*, or just "someone in your religion"?
So it can be desperately difficult on all sides. I agree with you that it would serve folks if we did talk about it more often and more deeply. I don't think we prepare one another for our changes.

Its true that we dont enter personal relationships considering what our play will be when our spouse loses their faith. It happens and we deal with it as we do any of lifes curve balls.
I was married 5 years and had 2 children 3 and 1 1/2 when I was diagnosed with cancer.
I never made a plan prior to marraige where we knew what were were going to do if one of us had a life threatening illness after such a short time.

I think the concept of intent is the main aspect in choosing to persue a romantic relationship with someone who does not see either the importance of spirituality in a persons life or with someone who's spiritual practice is at odds with yours.

I counseled in a group where one man recounted his tales of woe about his former marraige and his ex-wife.
I asked where did you and your wife meet. (Sort of a standard icebreaker question.

He said I picked her up at a bar. I asked all the men and women in the group where they met their former spouses and quite often I will hear; College,on spring break, and hosts of other less than optimum places to shop for companionship.

When one member said he met his former wife at a strip bar One group member said, If you fish in a sewer what do you expect to catch?

Do we understand and accept that 50 of marraiges end in divorce both in and out of the church and then add onto that as many unhelpful conditions and points of eventual contention as we can?

I've done some counseling in this area and those of us who work in intrapersonal relationships are aware of the fact that even online dating websites advertize about the 28 aspects of compatability.

It is the juvinile dreamer that thinks having everything stacked against you and you both are starving and that it doesnt matter because you will live on love ala romeo and juliet that is on a destructive path.

The bible is full of common sense counsel. Marrying someone with a shared spiritual background is good counsel for everyone.

You're saying college is a "less than optimum" location to find a spouse? Um... where DO you advise to find a partner?

You're quite right, jemand, but that's an entirely different topic, and one that the young people in the video don't have the life experience to address.

Still, what you say is completely relevant to my own life, except I'm the one who's done the changing.

Wishing Doesn't Make It So

The Scripture traditionally used that SDAs and non-SDAs should not marry is incorrect. It is that Christians and non-Christians "do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righeousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?"

This has not been applied to business partners but usually to marriage. A Christian who marries another Christian is NOT an unbeliever. And to infer a non-Christian is lawless??

As someone has already stated: the divorce rate between conservative Christians and non-Christians is about 50%; no difference.

All of us know SDAs who've married and divorced; also two married SDAs who grow apart for religious and other reasons. There ain't no guarantees in life! To believe otherwise is a fantasy.

I've seen 3 marriages of my children: one to an SDA--ended in divorce; the second to a non-SDA ended the same. Another child married a formerly raised Catholic and is most active an helping her in her church duties and attends regularly with her and their child. The fact that he is not a member made no difference. Character is not exclusive to any denomination or church and that is by far the most important in choosing a mate. Nevertheless, if one wishes to limit her choices to only SDAs you will very well miss some real gems! All the good guys and gals are not SDAs!

Our present pastor began dating a non-SDA girl who he tried to "convert." He was the one who was converted, as she was the first to show him from Galatians and Paul's letters that he had never been converted to the Gospel! He credits her with "converting" him.

Years ago when a husband (usually) could prevent his wife from attending church or giving tithe, etc., is passe. Today, a woman who is gainfully employed is no longer treated as a man's property to take his orders. If a marriage begins with such a distorted picture, run fast!

The real question: Evangelists consistenty "convert" one partner of a marraige to the church without a, by your leave, understading with the other partner. No effort is made to
help such a couple "work" out any potential conflicts in work, child raising, personal time, money matters, and a host of other marraige considerations. The evangelist just has another mark on their annual head hunting chart. The waste land they left behind is for the pastor and others to attempt to resolve--usually a failure--the end result two very unhappy unchurched, burned over skeptics.

The marraige was the first ordinance established by God, the church should not take that relationship lightly.
Obvious a couple considering marraige need counseling if they differ in such a critical area of personal belief and faith.

Few are successful. Generally, the attraction is to defy a smothering home environment or a precevied home environment.

On the other hand, mere profession of faith is no assurance of compatability. Marraige is not a back seat of the car
high. It is a high noon standing on your own two feet and counting the costs decision making effort--in which the brain not the gonads has control. Tom.

Jemand,
I was typing fast and flawed. I meant to relate that one of the responses was on college spring break. Thats why I put a comma. You know, Fort Lauderdale wet T-shirt contest?

Come on, Alexander. Exceptions? Are regional conferences and Rwanda exceptions or are they what we really are but try to cover with a facade of pseudo-transethnic cooperation? What you are full of spills when you are bumped. As long as we call them exceptions they will continue to eat us out at the core.

What does it mean to marry outside the faith? We are using a meaning of the word faith that contradicts the Bible. Faith is not a body of belief. Faith is confidence placed in a known reality. We have faith in something.

That aside, who here would buy a car if they knew that the chances of it working were only 50%. Why do humans continue to participate in an institution that only has a 50% chance of success? Maybe that is the answer to the reluctance of men to commit. Men want something that has a greater chance of working than their toys.

"What you are full of spills when you are bumped." Nice.

The injunction for light to separate from darkness in Corinthians runs on the same principle as the injunction for one group of -ites to separate from 7 other groups back in Deuteronomy. And it is only of late that many of us have reasoned around Deuteronomy's rule so as to make it the same kind of separation as that in Corinthians, but it was not always so. There are some Adventists who still consider "miscegenation" to be a misdemeanor; some of those appeal to the Bible, some to EGW, and some to secular/social reasoning.

How often have I heard the advice to minimize differences because marriage is hard enough as it is? But marriage is not difficult because of differences. It is difficult because, weaned on affinity grouping, we lack training and incentive to keep loving an Other despite difference. Unless one has a shift in premises that justifies loving and bonding with an Other, one has no basis/support for doing so. It is desperately difficult to operate against one's training.

No one mentioned that these speakers were all umarried students, still "wet behind the ears" when it comes to marriage. Much better, would have been interviews with couples were both were SDAs and an equal number who married non-SDAs.
I have good friends who've been married more than 60 years. He was raised SDA but was not practicing. She, OTOH, regularly attended church, often accompanied by him.

We all have had friends in either situations and the odds of successful marriages were equal. So, as the saying goes: "Where's the beef" against marrying non-SDAs? Character is far more important and it is certainly not limited to SDAs, in fact compatibility in marriage should be based on much more than church membership which, means little today. Integrity, the most important characteristic, is not limited to any one religion or even non religion. Getting to know your potential marriage partner involves first getting acquainted with each person's family because that is usually the only familial relationship the other knows so intimately, and it will be relived within the marriage. How does the future wife or husband relate to both his parents and siblings? That tells you a lot about your future relationship. How does he or she handle anger, disappointment, and is there a need for revenge or vindictive behavior when feelings are hurt? So many questions to be answered, so many observations to be made. Someone has said that no one should marry until they have gone on a several day camping trip--a test that will reveal more than years of marriage.

I have been married to a Presbyterian lady for almost six years and our marriage has been amazing and spiritually fulfilling from the very first day. We both take our relationship with Jesus Christ to be of the greatest importance to us and the foundation of our relationship. It is our faith in the person of Jesus Christ, and not into denominational packages, that has created a firm platform for our relationship, worship and vision.

Jeannieb43

Elaine, I enjoyed reading about the three marriages of your children. I also have three children, whose marriages are each different from the others'. One son, who is a firmly grounded and earnest SDA, married a girl he met at an SDA college. I think she's well grounded in the faith also; and they are bringing up their children in church schools, SDA summer camps, morning and evening worship, etc. They're each leaders in the children's ministry in their church. Most of their social friends are from church.

One daughter, who tells her non-Adventist friends and colleagues that she "was raised SDA," actually does practice the faith most of the time. Her husband, whom she met in an SDA boarding academy, is the product of an Adventist family who are not actively practicing the religion. My daughter and her family attend church together about half the time, and are active when asked to participate. Most of their social friends are not from church, but from professional colleagues.

The third child, a son, does not practice the faith at all, is married to a non-practicing Catholic girl, and they together are the sweetest, kindest kids (late 40s) I could ever hope for. Their friends are half from SDA Academy (childhood) friends, and half from professional, non-SDA colleagues.

In other words, I believe we can't expect our children to become our clones. God gave each one a unique personality. Also, they each come from *two* parents -- and the influence of each parent reflects differently on each child.

Only God knows their hearts. I pray daily for each of my kids, but I thank God daily for their uniqueness and their gifts.

[Are they experiencing "interfaith" marriages?? Who's to say?]

With so many varying degrees of 'faith' within the Adventist church, marrying outside of one's faith might even include marrying within it. A shared commitment to Christ might often be more easily found outside of Adventism than within it.

The most we can ask of others -- and the most we can offer them -- is our integrity. None of us have the slightest clue where God will call or lead us, and that is why Niemand's opening comment still stands as valid. None of us has a problem with two "lapsed" folks or two "committed" folks bonding and walking, but the minute humans begin to do the human thing, move and shift and shed old cells, we begin to get nervous. I am coming to think that when we mutter to ourselves "Oh, I'll never [drop out / reconsider XYZ / return to ABC / bond with such-and-such]" we are really just saying "I'm closing my heart to conviction" or "Even if I come to see XYZ, I will ignore it: where I have come from is more important to me than where I am going."
I think that's a sad if not dangerous posture to take. But then I am young, and shifting.