Hello all,
I happen to understand why some Christians cannot tolerate having a
spouse of another faith.
To start off, the Bible actually says so (II Corinthians 6:14-15).
Furthermore, Christians are supposed to love Jesus and God over and
above your own family. Jesus underscored the importance of this
commitment when he said:" If any man come unto me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brother, and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple."
God himself also tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his
own son as a show of loyalty to God over his own family.
It becomes clear that to a Christian, his life is not his own but
rather God's, and his priority and commitment will not be to his
family first, but to God and the church. Speaking for myself, I am
very committed to my wife and two kids. They will always rank
number one in my heart (now I am also a Buddhist, but Buddhism does
not require me to make a choice between my family and the dharma),
and I expect the same level of commitment from my wife. A Christian
spouse obviously cannot give me that kind of loyalty and
commitment. Conversely, I cannot give a Christian spouse that same
level of loyalty and commitment she demanded of me to God. This is
the thing that often causes inter-faith relationship to fail.
In practical terms, a non-Christian spouse will also not understand
when they need to dock a significant portion of their family income
in order to tithe, and over the long term, this kind of thing can
and do cause family friction.
So, surfbabe, it is actually a blessing in disguise that you break
up with your boyfriend now, rather than having this problem
exploding into your face ten years (and three kids!) later. My
advice is to look for a b/f who share the same metaphysical outlook
as you, or at least, do not think that religious matters should get
in the way of relationships.
(Nb: It is not my intention to disparage Christian values in my
post. Christians value different things, and I respect
that.)
