ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

When I was thinking of blogging about interfaith marriage, one of the first things I did was a Google search to see if there were any other people out there sharing their LDS interfaith marriage stories. The only one I could easily find on the Internet was an article that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times in May, 2007 about a couple named Libit and Tom Jones. Libit is an active Latter-day Saint while Tom is an evangelical who runs a countercult ministry (!). Their story is worth reading in full.

Libit and Tom have a very different story from my own. Neither of them was very active in his or her faith when they got married, with Libit having been excommunicated from the LDS church for what she calls “worldly living” while Tom was a “lousy Christian” who wasn’t really practicing the faith of his childhood. Sometime after their marriage, Libit sought out the LDS church again and got re-baptized. Tom investigated her church and concluded that it wasn’t in line with the Bible or mainstream Christianity, and so began trying to argue his wife out of her faith, eventually starting his own countercult ministry. Libit left her husband twice over their interfaith disagreements. In the end, she came back and decided to do whatever it took to make their marriage work.

It’s no secret that I have a low opinion of countercult ministries—someday, I’ll get around to blogging about my own exodus from anti-Mormonism (UPDATE: Done!). While I see nothing wrong with establishing the differences between evangelical Christians and Mormons and explaining why we believe we’re right and they’re wrong, my experience has led me to believe that the tactics and attitudes cultured by countercult ministries have driven Latter-day Saints away from evangelical Christianity much more often than they’ve converted them to it. I don’t know the specifics of Tom Jones’s ministry so I’m not passing judgment here, but it must take a lot to live with someone who goes beyond polite disagreement into the realm of actively trying to dismantle what you believe. The article left me with a lot of respect for Libit Jones for making things work in spite of that.

Paul and I definitely have a different approach to our marriage. Sure, we disagree with each other, but we don’t do a lot to act on that. It’s very important to me that the evangelical church I call home has at least a neutral perspective on Latter-day Saints, that they don’t have any people going out of their way to attack Mormons and that no one will be pulling my daughter aside and bad-mouthing her father’s religion. I’m incredibly pleased with my current church home in that regard. Everyone knows my husband is Mormon and while there have been friendly invitations to bring him to church and classes, and people have said they will pray for him, no one has done anything to attack his faith. They also understand that my daughter only comes half the time since she goes to her father’s church the other half, and no one is pushing me to bring her more often.

For his own part, Paul tends to tell the local LDS missionaries “no” when they express interest in visiting with his non-LDS wife. I’m all for being polite and hospitable to the missionaries, but I’ve never had a pair of missionaries over who didn’t slip into convert-the-non-member mode once they were in the door, regardless of what we expressed when we invited them over. I don’t really blame them, it’s what they do, but I have a degree from Brigham Young University including an A in every religion class I took there. What are they going to tell me about their church that I don’t already know?

I note that the Joneses opted not to have kids because Libit did not want to inflict their interfaith situation (including her husband’s hostile views on her religion) onto children. While I think children are a joy and it’s sad that they could not work for their situation, it’s very wise that they did not get into something which they weren’t sure would work for them. Children are the hardest part of making an interfaith marriage work, and I think a lot more interfaith marriages would work if the question of what to do with the kids could be circumvented.

Best wishes to the Joneses in continuing to make their marriage work, wherever they may be.