Marriage vs. Holy Matrimony

The Rev. Jed Smock considers the University of Minnesota to be one of the top three radically liberal universities in the United States. And he ought to know because for the last 30 years he has visited them all while open air preaching in their central mall areas. The other two are the University of Wisconsin in Madison and UC Berkeley in California. It is no wonder then that we at the University of Minnesota are at the forefront of the movement to legalize same sex marriage.

The debate has been raging here now for the 25 years I have been on this campus. Thus many of us have begun to work through all of the muck of bias, tradition, and indignation surrounding this very touchy subject.

First let me begin by stating that I still hold to the wisdom of a 4000-year tradition of marriage being an exclusive right of one man and one woman. Society has always supported this as the definition of “marriage.” There is little to no history of the successful accommodation of any other standard. But take a look this excerpt from Imprimis as quoted in Jack Sonnemann’s blog at http://www.ausfamily.org/index.html

Civil Unions: Compromise or Surrender?
by Midge Decter
Author and Social Critic

The term "civil marriage" or "civil union" has become a euphemism for both the legal and social legitimating of homosexuality. In the current public conversation the phrase no longer means the wedding of a man and woman conducted by a civil authority - a town clerk or a justice of the peace or a judge. In that old sense of the term, of course, every legal marriage is a civil one, because the ministers and priests and rabbis who conduct weddings according to the established rites of their respective religions are at the same time acting with full civil authority to do so. The fact that so many of the fully sanctioned marriages in recent years have turned out to be too casual and thin-blooded to hold out for very long against the trials of real life is nothing to the point. For while the number of easy-come, easy-go marriages in our midst speaks to the failure of spiritual education in this great, rich, lucky, but somewhat spiritually impoverished land, there has not until now been any kind of real assault on what marriage is supposed to mean: one man, one woman, formally and officially joined in the hope of becoming a real family.

Today what is being called "civil marriage" is a kind of trick of language, a term used as a political euphemism for surrendering to the most recent demand of the homosexual rights movement.

Copyright © 2004 Reprinted by permission from IMPRIMIS, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College (www.hillsdale.edu)

Now I am not so sure I agree with all of the logical processes hinted at in the above quotation, but I do believe it opens up the basic bottom line of the debate processes set in motion through the words “civil union.” Is it a marriage license that legitimizes a marriage or is it the sacerdotal function of the Church? Marriage used to be called “holy matrimony.” You rarely hear those words used to describe marriage these days.

What is “holy matrimony?” Can a “civil authority” perform such a marriage or is it solely a process of the (Christian) church? In order to qualify for legal benefits, including but not in any way limited to inheritance rights, child adoption, and employment benefit packages, it is almost universally necessary for one’s “union” to be recognized by the “civil authorities.” My “credentials” are on file in Hennepin County here in Minnesota and as such I am a delegated civil servant with the authority to perform unions, marriages, or even holy matrimony. But can the other “civil authorities” of the state perform “holy matrimony?” Of course not! “Holy” is not a secular term.

Holy matrimony will (should?) always be the work of the church. But, with so many different denominations and doctrinal approaches, it seems that even the definition of “holy” is up for grabs. (Yet somehow I don’t think that God is confused on this issue) Any way you look at it, you can be married or you can be MARRIED. One marriage is about benefits conferred by the state and business. The other marriage is about benefits conferred by a Holy and Loving God.

I think I am ready to concede the worldly benefits to the world and reserve the eternal benefits for Holy Matrimony. I personally would never perform a marriage for any reason less than eternal holy values. Civil unions are bound to continue to become a temporary part of the civil landscape, and I think “why not?” To try to go against the tides of secularism and demand that the world be Christian is asking too much. Only Christians should be Christian. Non-Christians pay taxes, work on the corporate farm and are just as deserving of worldly benefits as anybody else. Let them have their portion. But they can never enjoy the benefits of eternity without dealing with God and His Holy Word.

What I foresee, is a growth in “civil unions” (i.e. civil marriage) with all temporal benefits ascribed. But holy matrimony continues to be a thing that only God supplies to people who are in agreement with Him with invisible benefits, so to speak. “The just shall live by faith.”