ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

I got a question in the comments a little over a week ago from someone named Sean. Sean, I hope you don’t mind me turning your question into a blog post, and I’m sorry I did not answer sooner. I had to mull this one over and talk to my husband about it. Here’s the question:

This is always a difficult situation, especially since both the LDS church and the Catholic church encourage marriage within the faith, although mixed marriages involving Catholics are much more common and (I imagine) more acceptable in Catholic culture. The LDS church takes things a step further by making marriage to a faithful Latter-day Saint a requirement for exaltation, and for a Latter-day Saint to enter an interfaith marriage means his children won’t be sealed to him. I’ve always felt that for most LDS interfaith marriages, it’s the LDS partner who sacrifices more on a spiritual level by entering into it.

Speaking from an evangelical perspective, while interfaith marriage to a Mormon is not something I would encourage, it is something that can be done. You can have a happy and successful marriage of almost any kind if you’re willing to make some sacrifices and work for it.

I think that the question that you should be asking yourself is not “Is it worth it?”, but “Is sheworth it?” Are you willing to give up having a celestial marriage and being sealed to your children for her? How are you going to raise the children, and even if she were to agree to raise them LDS, what if she changes her mind later on? Are you comfortable with your children possibly becoming Catholic? If the answer to any of those questions is “No,” then I don’t think interfaith marriage would work for you.

I’ve spoken to people from all sides of this: people who really thought they were in love with a person from another faith, but put their religion first and said no to that person, then later met the perfect person from their own faith and are glad they passed on interfaith marriage. I’ve also spoken to people who went through life lonely and waiting for the right person from their own faith, then finally found happiness with a good non-member in their later years. And then of course I’ve tried to compile some of the stories of people with successful interfaith marriages. You just never know how things will turn out.

I would urge you to pray and listen for God’s direction in your life. My LDS husband said yes to me because he believes that, for whatever purpose, God gave him special permission to marry a non-member in spite of what the church teaches. I’ve sometimes questioned whether my marriage to him was a mistake, but I look at him and I look at our daughter, and I know that if it was, I’d make the same mistake all over again in a heartbeat.

I hope that helps.

PS — I think that Latter-day Saints would take it as a warning sign that you’re thinking of making this decision when you’re not active in your church. If an evangelical was pondering an interfaith marriage when she hadn’t been going to church, reading the Bible or praying, I would say that’s precisely the wrong time in her life to be making an important life decision. Just food for thought.