WASHINGTON (ABP) — A massive survey of Americans’ religious views shows that Baptists, like the overall population, generally are socially tolerant of other faiths.

It also suggests that most Americans and most Baptists are, effectively, universalists.

The latest results are the second set of findings released from the United States Religious Landscape Survey, released June 23 by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The survey showed large majorities of Americans favor the statement “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” Fewer agreed that: “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life.”

Tolerance reigned across all major faith categories, including large majorities of Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Southern Baptists, African-American Baptists, and members of congregations affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.

More than one way

Smaller majorities of Americans and Baptists favored the assertion, “There is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion.”

“Although many Americans are highly religious, we found they are not particularly dogmatic about their approach to faith,” said John Green, the Pew Forum’s senior fellow in religion and politics. “We believe that this non-dogmatic approach to faith is consistent with the great diversity of American religion, which this report describes in great detail.”

On the “one true faith” question, 70 percent of all Americans affiliated with religious traditions said there were multiple routes to eternal life. Among all Protestants, the figure was only slightly lower — at 66 percent.

Those who identified as members of evangelical churches were slightly more evenly divided on the question – with 57 percent affirming multiple faiths’ access to heaven and 36 percent insisting that their faith was the only true one.

33 percent said their faith was the only way

But respondents who identified themselves as Southern Baptists were more reflective of the general population’s views on the subject: 61 percent said many religions could lead to a positive hereafter, while 33 percent said their faith was the only route to salvation.

American Baptists were slightly more universalist, with 73 percent affirming the multiple-routes-to-heaven assertion and 22 percent favoring a more exclusivist view.

But some religion reporters quibbled with the survey’s framing of the universalism question — which didn’t define what the questioners meant by “faith” or “eternal life.”

“I am being a bit picky here, but I suspect that if you asked a lot of people that Pew Forum question today, they would think of the great world religions. But many Christians would think more narrowly than that,” wrote veteran religion reporter Terry Mattingly in a June 24 posting on GetReligion.org, a blog that analyzes the secular media’s coverage of religion. “’What is your religion?’ ‘I’m a Baptist, a Nazarene, an Episcopalian, a Catholic.’ ‘Can people outside of your religion be saved?’ ‘Of course.’”

“This is not the same thing, for many, as saying that they believe that salvation is found outside faith in Jesus Christ.”

The survey results were the second set of data from a groundbreaking survey, conducted last year. It interviewed more than 35,000 Americans about their religious affiliations and views on religious and social questions. The first set was released earlier this year.

Read more

Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey interactive website
http://religions.pewforum.org/

This is the fifth in a five-part series by retired pastor and director of missions Wade Paris to assist pastors in helping couples begin Christian marriages. They might also help couples who marry without the benefit of premarital counseling.

When couples marry, they create a new household, a new family, and that family should take priority over all others. This being the case, people sometimes say, “I am not marrying his/her family.” This is true, but they are marrying “into” a family, and their life will be intricately entwined with that family for as long as they all live.

Relationships with one’s in-laws can be a big problem, but it can also be a tremendous blessing. Here are some observations and suggestions for making these relationships a blessing.

• As much as you possibly can, love and accept your spouse’s family as your own.

This may be difficult, especially for those who come from close, loving families. But with a little effort, it can be done. This advice is key: “To the degree that you can love and accept your spouse’s family, to that degree you will enrich your own marriage.”

Many parents feel that no husband or wife is good enough for their child. It is easy to resent that and respond negatively. It is best for a person to accept this as a common parental shortcoming and be the very best husband or wife possible.

• Always be on your best behavior around your in-laws.

Never embarrass your spouse in the presence of his/her family. Embarrassing a spouse in front of his/her family seriously strains a marriage and is demeaning to all.

• Do not make your mate choose between you and his/her family.

Even if he/she chooses the spouse, barriers will be built that are hard to remove.

• Sometimes, the problems with in-laws are really in-laws “once removed.”

For example, a wife may get along very well with her husband’s brother, but his brother’s wife could be a problem. A wise person will understand this difference and make allowances for it.

• Keep communication open and discuss your in-law concerns privately with your husband or wife.

The following true accounts illustrate the best and worst of in-law relationships:

Husband One had a poor relationship with his own parents. He quickly became jealous of his wife’s relationship with her parents. At first he simply made fun of her and her family. Then he tried to keep her from having any contact with them. Finally, he demanded that she not see them ever again.

It is an extreme story. Obviously, the husband needed help. At the request of his wife, the couple talked with their pastor, but the husband totally refused the pastor’s counsel. Several years and two children later, they divorced.

Husband Two was something of a loner. Following the wedding, he refused to visit or communicate with his wife’s family. After several years of this stubbornness, the wife retaliated by refusing to have anything to do with his family. Each would visit and talk with his/her own family, but not the spouse’s family. They remained married, but there was a big hole in their marriage. An opportunity for blessings was missed.

Husband Three came from a loving family, as did his wife. He quickly learned to love and accept his in-laws, even calling them Mom and Pap. Many years later the husband’s parents had both passed away, and his wife’s parents became his only parents. The relationship they had forged was a blessing to all — parents, children and grandchildren.

In conclusion, a couple would do well to recall the advice near the beginning of this article: “To the degree that you can love and accept your spouse’s family, to that degree you will enrich your own marriage.”

A former pastor and director of missions, Wade Paris writes a weekly syndicated column, “The Shepherd’s Call.”

This is the fourth in a five-part series by retired pastor and director of missions Wade Paris to assist pastors in helping couples begin Christian marriages. They might also help couples who marry without the benefit of premarital counseling.

“For this reason (marriage) a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5).

• Sexual integrity. Sex is one of God’s good creations. Practiced within God’s parameters, sex brings great joy. Mankind often uses sex with selfish abandon. This abuse brings righteous condemnation from the Christian community. Such condemnation sometimes causes people to feel all sex is a sin. Not so.

The ideal Christian standard for sexual conduct is for one man and one woman to marry as sexual virgins and never have sex with anyone else as long as they both live. In reality, not all couples come to the marriage altar with such innocence. Nevertheless, for Christians, the marriage vows regarding faithfulness are sacred. A husband and wife should only have sex with each other.

• Sexual intimacy. Part of God’s sacred plan for sex is intimacy. In sexual intercourse, loving, married couples declare, “I give you all of myself. I withhold nothing.” The biblical word for sexual intercourse means “to know.” In marriage, couples assert, “No one knows me like I let you know me.” Sexual intimacy blesses the couple and their family today and for generations to come.

• The twofold purpose of sex—pleasure and procreation. Part of God’s plan for sex is procreation. This is how a species continues. However, for humans, it appears God gave sex more for pleasure than for procreation. There are several anatomical observations that support such a position.

For the lower members of the animal kingdom, sex is totally for procreation. In the lesser animals, there is no sex except during the female ovulation cycle when she will become pregnant. For humans, the woman may become pregnant only on a few days of her cycle, but sex is possible and desirable anytime.

Among humans, sex is possible and desirable long after a woman’s child-bearing years. Among other creatures, there is no sex when the female can no longer bear young.

Of all God’s creatures, only humans have sex face to face. This means that for mankind sex is an intimate act of love, a face-to-face encounter, not just an act of procreation. Since God created us, i.e., formed us, anatomically, these observations seem to confirm sex for humans is more for love and pleasure than for procreation.

• Talking about sex in marriage. Communication is essential to good relationships. Couples often have difficulty speaking of their deepest needs. This is especially true in the marriage bed.

Newlyweds must learn to talk with each other. Unfortunately, many couples talk only when they are fed up. It’s called “gunnysacking.” They put their troubles in a sack until they can’t take it anymore, then they explode.

It is easy to get so involved in good things like work, children, finances, etc., that no time is left for talking. Couples need an atmosphere where they can say what is on their hearts without fear of reprisal. Couples who learn to talk may sometimes have “thunder and lightning,” but the end result will be worth the effort. Here are some helpful rules for talking:

1. Stay on the subject.

2. Never fight to kill. Do not make wounds that will not heal.

3. Do your best to solve your problems before bedtime. Settle your disagreements as quickly as possible. “Let not the sun go down on your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26).

4. Always speak the truth with loving kindness (Ephesians 4:15).

5. Never use sex as a weapon.

These words regarding communication are spoken in the context of sex and marriage. They are intensely applicable here. However, communication principles are important to all of the marriage relationship.

Learn to talk!

A former pastor and director of missions, Wade Paris writes a weekly syndicated column, “The Shepherd’s Call.”

This is the third in a five-part series by retired pastor and director of missions Wade Paris to assist pastors in helping couples begin Christian marriages. The series might also help couples who marry without the benefit of premarital counseling.

In their marriage vows, brides and grooms often commit themselves to one another “for richer or poorer.” Yet even couples hopelessly in love must face the cost of living. The pastor/counselor should do his best to prepare them for it.

• The Wedding Cost. A television newscast reported that the average American wedding costs $50,000. The commentators noted that it is common for a bride and her family to want a larger, more expensive (at least in appearance) wedding than her friends.

The pastor/counselor can point out that the size and cost of a wedding does not ensure marital bliss. Furthermore, weddings do not have to be large or expensive to be beautiful. Even when couples have large families and many friends, the cost can be contained without harming the beauty of the event. To spend more money than one can easily afford or to go far into debt for a wedding is simply poor stewardship.

• The Honeymoon. Honeymoons are important, but they need not be exotic or expensive. What is important is that the couple has a few post-wedding days away from family and friends in a place they both can enjoy. It may sound impressive to say, “We had the largest wedding ever and honeymooned in Hawaii.” But if those items put the couple or their families in a financial bind for years to come, that is not a wise use of resources.

• The Debt Trap. For many people, debt is a way of life. It is easy for couples who need and want many things to create an indebtedness that will take years to undo. Such a beginning often leads to an indebted way of life that some never escape. Newlyweds commonly receive multiple credit card offers. Beware, it is easier to say, “We will pay them off each month,” than it is to actually do so.

• Less Can Be More. Learning to do without and struggling together can build great marital bonds. Couples celebrating many happy years together often recite their hardships. They relate these with solemn joy, for those are the times that built their relationship and bonded them together.

• Money – His/Hers/Ours. In today’s society, both husband and wife often work. If possible, they should learn to live on one salary and save the other. Prior to marriage, each person has been handling his/her own finances. When they marry, they need to decide whether to continue that arrangement or consolidate their finances.

Prenuptial agreements are in vogue today. Young couples in first marriages will not likely need such agreements. For couples previously married with children, such agreements may be wise. These couples should consult a Christian attorney for advice.

It may take newlyweds some time to develop a financial system that works for them, but here are some good rules:

1. Make a realistic budget and stick with it.

If a couple cannot make ends meet on paper, they will not be able to make ends meet in reality. The rule a couple cannot break is, “You cannot spend more than you bring home.”

2. As much as possible, avoid debt.

That may mean doing without or delaying a purchase. Often when couples marry they each have debt — car notes, credit cards, school debts, etc. They must work out a plan to pay those off as quickly as possible, beginning with the one requiring the most interest.

3. Attend a financial management seminar.

Many books describe how to manage finances and stay out of debt.

4. If you own a computer, purchase a good financial management program and use it. Do not go in debt to buy a computer.

Poor financial management wreaks havoc on the home. Couples seem to fight over money more than anything else. It is important to handle money well to avoid fighting over it.

The old cliché says, “If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.”

A former pastor and director of missions, Wade Paris writes a weekly syndicated column, “The Shepherd’s Call.”

This is the second in a five-part series by retired pastor and director of missions Wade Paris to assist pastors in helping couples begin Christian marriages. The series might also help couples who marry without the benefit of premarital counseling.

By Wade Paris

There are many marital myths. One cannot know or deal with them all, but here are a few that seem universal. The pastor/counselor will want to go over these with the couple and perhaps add others.

Myth One: Marriage is 50/50.

This myth implies that each will get his or her way at least half of the time. It suggests that each partner is expected to meet the other only halfway.

If the 50/50 rule is correct, then what should wives or husbands do if they think their spouse is not holding up his/ her half? Should they leave? Is this grounds for separation? Who is the judge in these situations, i.e., who is to say when one is doing more than the other?

The truth is, marriage is 100/100. A person should enter into marriage thinking, “I will give everything I can as often as is needed to make sure my marriage is good.”

Human nature being what it is, there are times when a partner will stumble and be unable to carry his/her end of the load. In good marriages, sometimes the husband is the supportive one because the wife has need. At other times, the wife will be the supportive one, and the husband will need extra support.

Unfortunately, the arrangement of one strong spouse and one weak spouse is sometimes a permanent arrangement. If that is the case, then a 50/50 deal will not be adequate to sustain one’s marriage vows. Again, couples should enter marriage saying, “I will give all I possibly can, not just to make this marriage work, but to make it good. If I must be the strong one always, then I will do it.”

Myth Two: Passion is love, and love is passion.

Either way you say it, it is still a myth. Passionate young couples with hormones raging can be absolutely sure they are in love. But passion passes quickly, while marriage hopefully goes on and on. In his book “A Road Less Traveled,” Scott Peck defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing…another’s spiritual growth” (p.81).

Translated, that means couples that love one another do all they can to help their spouses grow into the people God created them to be. That definition fits the 100/100 concept.

Myth Three: Love is a cure-all.

The problem with this myth is it is half true. The Bible is correct when it says, “Love never fails” (1 Corinth?ians 13:8). True love never fails. But true love must be reciprocal in marriage. However, passion or even genuine love does not pay the bills.

Couples should decide be?fore they are married how they will earn a living. To say, “We are in love; we will find a way,” but have no plan is irresponsible. It may very well mean someone else will need to support them. This will be discussed more completely in a section called “Marriage and Money.”

A young lady married a mean, selfish man. She as?sumed their love, i.e., their passion, would take care of it all. When her mean, selfish hus?band was mean to their children, she finally sought help.

Myth Four: I can change him/her after we are married.

The truth is that sweethearts and/or fiancées can do more to change one another than husbands or wives. A wise old pastor put it bluntly when he said, “Once you are married, you lose all of your bargaining power.”

Furthermore, experience teaches us that when one spouse “remakes” the other, they each tend to lose respect for the other.

A man or woman must be sure he/she wants to marry the person “as is.” The chances of remaking that partner after a couple is married are slim.

A former pastor and director of missions, Wade Paris writes a weekly syndicated column, “The Shepherd’s Call.”

This is the first in a five-part series by retired pastor and director of missions Wade Paris to assist pastors in helping couples begin Christian marriages. They might also help couples who marry without the benefit of premarital counseling.

Healthy premarital counseling begins with basic questions asked with the potential bride and groom both present to hear each other’s responses.

Such questions will stimulate conversation and help present the case for a Christian marriage. Some are delicate and must be approached with tact. The order of the questions may be adjusted:

1. Are you living together? Are you pregnant?

It may seem blunt to begin with these questions, but the pastor/counselor needs to know. If the answer is yes to either question, it alters the counseling. If two people are marrying only because the woman is pregnant, the pastor may suggest their situation is not the best motivation for marriage and discuss other options.

Some pastors will not marry couples who are living together. Some churches will not allow such persons to be married in their facilities. To refuse marriage for this reason makes a statement for righteousness.

However, some pastors and churches allow such marriages, believing, “Couples who live together should marry. This is an opportunity to minister and help a couple begin a good marriage.” In such instances, the pastor/church can affirm, “We do not approve of your lifestyle, but neither do we condemn you.”

2. Are you Christians? Have you given your life to Jesus? Is he Lord of your life?

Christian marriage is more than just marriage. In a Christian marriage the couple desires to know and do God’s will in all things.

3. Do you believe God brought you together? Do you believe you have his blessings to marry?

Couples can marry without God’s permission, but marriages ordained in heaven are more likely to succeed than marriages just made on earth.

4. Are you committed to this marriage until death?

If either party enters marriage thinking, “If this doesn’t work, I can always get out of it,” then the chances of success are reduced. If both enter marriage believing, “God has brought us together, and with His help we can overcome any problems,” success is much more likely.

5. Are you active in church?

Faithfulness to church and worship will help keep the couple closer to God. The closer both are to God, who is love, the closer they will be to one another and the more able they will be to love one another.

Marriage is like a triangle with the husband and wife at the bottom points of the triangle and God at the top. As both move up the triangle towards God, they will be closer to one another.

In church, couples are more likely to make friends who have a common interest in their marital success. They can cultivate friends who will help their marriage, not harm it. Church may not be the only place to do this, but it beats most other places.

6. Have you been married before? If so, is that over? Is your divorce final? Have you discussed this together? If that marriage did not work, what makes you think this marriage will be okay? What are you doing to make sure you will not repeat the same mistakes?

7. Have you ever been sexually active with others?

When couples have been sexually active prior to their marriage, they owe it to each other to have a medical exam to discover any health concerns. If a couple truly loves one another, they should want to do this. If one’s fiancée is reluctant to do so, the other should want to know why.

There will be other questions that are peculiar to specific couples. However, these basic questions will help the pastor/counselor begin premarital counseling. The order of the questions may be ar?ranged to suit the counselees.

A former pastor and director of missions, Wade Paris writes a weekly syndicated column, “The Shepherd’s Call.”

WASHINGTON (ABP)—In all of America’s brouhaha over whether legalizing same-sex marriage will sully the institution’s sanctity, very few Christians are asking one important question:

When—and why—did the government get into the sanctification business?

When the preacher, at the end of a marriage ceremony, says, “By the power vested in me by the state of (fill-in-the-blank), I pronounce you husband and wife,” is he or she acting as a minister of the gospel or a magistrate of the government—or both?

How does that happen in a society with a First Amendment designed to guarantee functional separation between religion and government?

Ultimately, one’s view of how closely the religious institution of marriage and its civil counterpart are—or should be—related may well influence one’s views about whether government has a good reason to limit legal recognition of marriage to heterosexual unions.

“Every five years, if I want to do weddings in Virginia … I have to (re-apply for a license and) swear or affirm that I will be an officer of the court, not as a lawyer—which is OK—but as a minister, so the Commonwealth of Virginia will recognize the ceremonies,” said Barry Lynn, who is an attorney, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Affirming that role makes him cringe, Lynn said, because he believes doing so is evidence of an excessive entanglement between church and state that isn’t paralleled anywhere else in American law.

“I do think many ministers resent becoming agents—official agents—of the state to perform marriages,” he said. “And so this coupling of the sacred and the civil occurred early in the United States and is widely the case today.”

Maggie Gallagher is a leading scholarly opponent of same-sex marriage. She said the government regulates such religious authorities’ ability to perform marriages because the state didn’t create marriage and doesn’t create marriages. Rather, legal authorities merely recognize and regulate an institution that already exists and is rooted deeply in the society’s history and traditions.

Same-sex couples difficult to include in definition 

That’s why she believes it’s not easy to revise its definition to include, for instance, same-sex couples.

“It is a problem when the government appropriates to itself the power to unilaterally redefine marriage in a way that is not consistent with the will or the traditions of the people—because the government alone cannot create a marriage tradition powerful enough to preserve and protect the government’s main interest in marriage: bringing together men and women to make and raise the next generation together,” Gallagher, president of the Virginia-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, said in an e-mail interview.

“Civil government has always been viewed as having a role in marriage, because the common good is so heavily at stake in its protection and preservation.”

Government is in the marriage business because encouraging the best environment for raising and protecting children is a benefit to society at large, Gallagher noted. That’s why the institution has special legal privileges and responsibilities attached to it that aren’t given to other intimate adult relationships.

“There’s a reason the government has always been involved in marriage but not in baptism or my priest’s vow of celibacy,” Gallagher, who describes herself as an “orthodox Catholic,” said. “Marriage is not a sacrament that has only religious implications, like baptism.”

Marriage: Sacred or Secular?

But, in a society with a Constitution that provides religious freedom for all, what is the secular justification for limiting marriage to heterosexual couples? Gallagher and her allies have argued that separating marriage completely from the idea that it encourages the best environment for natural procreation inevitably will have negative effects on the very reason government encourages marriage—children’s welfare.

Gallagher pointed to a 2006 statement, signed by a broad group of legal scholars, called “Marriage and the Law: A Statement of Principles.” In discussing the tendency of same-sex marriage advocates to argue for marriage equality as a human right, the document warned such a legal framework could have negative consequences for the future.

“To frame the same-gender-marriage issue as exclusively about gay and lesbian civil rights fails to take seriously the issues at stake. Many of us believe that same-sex marriage may offer important potential (social) goods, from increasing stability for children raised by parents in same-sex partnerships, to greater social attention toward the legitimate needs of gay and lesbian people,” it said.

“But we recognize that the question of whether and how altering the legal meaning of marriage from the union of male and female to a unisex union of any two persons will change the meaning of marriage itself is a critical question, which serious people must take seriously, and about which Americans of good will may and do disagree.”

But such disagreement—exacerbated by conflicting religious definitions of marriage—might be circumvented.

Europe separates religious and civil ceremonies 

“I think we would eliminate some, but not all, of the cantankerous debate on same-sex marriage if we did what many of the nations in Europe do, which is to separate the civil aspects of marriage and the religious aspects,” Lynn said.

“I’ve talked to, over the years, some conservatives who … do think that is a respectable way to distinguish the sacred from the secular.”

In many European countries, any wedding must involve a civil ceremony before a judge or registrar—separate from any religious ceremony to solemnize or sanctify the civil act.

But Gallagher said the way that works, in practice, would infringe on Americans’ religious freedom.

“France and many others who follow that tradition have appropriated to government the sole power to create marriages. This is not our legal tradition at all. I’m not especially in favor of it,” she said.

“A real alternative would be for government to recognize and enforce religiously distinctive marriage contracts so long as they serve the government’s interest—say, permanent ones for Catholics,” she continued. “But what people who talk about ‘separating marriage and state’ really propose to do is simply to refuse to recognize religious marriage contracts at all. This is not neutrality; it is a powerful intervention by the government into the lives of religious people.”

Argument "bizarre"

Lynn said he found that argument “bizarre,” from a church-state perspective.

“Everybody recognizes that you don’t have to have a religious marriage. State legislatures write out the rules of marriage, the rights and responsibilities of this civil institution,” he said.

“If people have to sign documents or register before an official, it in no way impugns the integrity of the religious promises that are made during a sectarian or religious ceremony. … The state, of course, has some right to set the rules for the responsibilities and rights of marriage. If that were done for some couples, in no way does it impinge on the rights of a church to explain marriage in its own way.”

But Gallagher said separating the two—say, offering “civil unions” to gay and straight couples alike and then allowing churches to solemnize them if they so choose—wouldn’t end debate.

“It doesn’t solve any of the really hard questions: Why is the government involved in intimate unions—why can it separate out and define at all what private and personal adult relationships are worthy of special respect?” she said.

“If marriage—even renamed civil unions—has any legal shape or consequences at all, the government still has to define the same question: Why only two people? Why can’t they be brother and sister? Is sexual fidelity implied? If so why? Why connect sex, residency, caretaking (and) financial responsibility in a package? Why not let people pick and choose?

“We don’t get out of that debate by saying, ‘This isn’t marriage; it’s something else.”

ATLANTA, Ga. (RNS)—When authorities raided a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compound in April and placed more than 400 children in state care, it brought the long-simmering issues of polygamous communities to a boil.

Following calls from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Utah, for Southwestern states to crack down on what he called “the epidemic of lawlessness in polygamous communities,” a federal prosecutor has been appointed to work on the issue with Utah, Arizona and Nevada, where other communities practice polygamy.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has said prosecuting consenting adults for polygamy may lead to a legal precedent supporting the practice. His focus, instead, has been other “crimes within polygamous communities” such as underage marriage, domestic abuse or fraud.

John Witte, a scholar of marriage law and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory Law School in Atlanta, responded to questions about why prosecuting adults for polygamy is so difficult and whether the practice may one day be legalized in the U.S.

Q: Do any of the legal issues in the Texas case concern polygamy?

A: I doubt it. The main questions are going be whether there’s child abuse, coerced underage marriage, and statutory rape. Texas and every other state has had polygamy laws on the books since the time of their founding and those laws are largely dead letters.

Q: So anti-polygamy laws are on the books but they’re not used?

A: There’s long been ample documentation of some 30,000 polygamous Mormon families scattered throughout the Western states, and there is recent anecdotal evidence of several thousand polygamous Muslim families, especially on the Eastern seaboard.

But straight application of polygamy laws against those groups is relatively rare. Partly, states are trying to avoid the questions of constitutional freedom that inevitably will be raised if those parties are prosecuted for violation for polygamy laws.

Q: Why is polygamy illegal in the U.S.?

A: That’s a harder question to answer than it used to be. The answer used to be that it was prohibited by the Bible and by tradition.

Scripture as traditionally interpreted required that marriage be formed by a union of two—not three or four—into one flesh. Because of those Christian foundations, marriage had a particular form that couldn’t be renegotiated. The common law absorbed those teachings, and they were perpetuated in American federal and early state law.

It’s harder to press that case today. Some of the arguments against polygamy are about equal protection—Why should a man be able to have multiple wives but a woman not be able to have multiple husbands?—or the transmission of sexual diseases or the difficulty of administering marriage law when there are multiple spouses.

But the argument that really sticks today is the argument for moral repugnancy, that it’s just plain wrong for parties to be engaged in a polygamist union.

Marriage: Sacred or Secular?

Q: The popular HBO series, Big Love, portrays a suburban polygamous family, and real-life polygamous families have recently stepped forward through websites and talk shows to argue for social acceptance. Do these developments cloud the moral repugnance argument?

A: The moral repugnance argument may well erode through all these alternative domestic relationships and the increasing acceptance of “Big Love”-type arrangements. Whether those will be sufficient to change the constitutional laws is an open question, but they certainly will be the grounds on which legislation can change.

The experiment we’re engaging in today with respect to same-sex marriage, or alternative civil unions, or domestic partnership unions—all of which are currently available under certain state laws—is going be the beachhead on which the legalization of polygamy will have to make its case.

Q: The Bible includes stories of polygamous patriarchs, such as Abraham and David. At what point in the Judeo-Christian tradition did monogamy become the norm?

A: In the Judeo-Christian tradition, monogamy came with the giving of the law on Mount Sinai—613 commandments that comprised the Torah. The Torah has a whole series of laws making it clear that marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman.

There are a lot of examples of polygamy in the Bible, and there are many examples of polygamous practice in the Jewish and Christian traditions from the first century forward. Inter-mittently in the history of the West, anti-polygamy campaigns were mounted, with polygamists condemned as heretics and singled out for persecution. But there’s a small but persistent practice of polygamy in Western religious traditions.

The recent probe into alleged child abuse at a polygamous compound in West Texas started with an anonymous phone call about underage girls having sex with adult men.

The imprisoned Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints leader, Warren Jeffs, reportedly has dozens of wives and would grant and deny wives to his male followers depending on their perceived worthiness. Without multiple wives, he taught, they never could achieve salvation.

But Jeffs isn’t the first sect figure to come under legal scrutiny for sexual practices outsiders might consider un-usual, immoral or even abhorrent. In-deed, many new religious movements are distinguished not on-ly by unconventional beliefs, but also by the sexual proclivities of their male leaders.

All of which raises the question: Why do people join or remain members of a group that practices unusual sexual behaviors? And what’s more, what kind of sexual power do the leaders of these religious movements hold over their followers?

“Every group has its own dynamics and diversity,” said Catherine Wessinger of Loyala University in New Orleans, an expert in new religious movements.

“A leader can use sexual activity to diminish ties between followers and direct their affections and emotions. But the thing to remember is that no one has that charisma unless the people behind him or her believe that he or she has it.”

Often, the leader’s followers believe God or other divine beings communicate through the leader, something that can endow the leader’s sexual relations with a special holiness or sanctity, Wessinger said.

In the case of the Branch Davidians, sex with prophet David Koresh was seen as normal and desirable—even when it involved girls as young as 14. Similarly, in the Peoples Temple, whose members committed mass suicide in the Guyana jungle in 1978, sex with leader Jim Jones was sometimes a reward—for both men and women, married and unmarried.

Husbands in these fringe religious movements feel honored rather than angry when their wives are selected by the sect’s leader for sexual favors, said veteran religion writer Don Lattin, who’s written several books on cults, including Jesus Freaks, about an evangelical sect known as The Family.

“The husband goes along with it and is controlled by it because it is all linked with his eternal salvation. By sharing his wife he is getting closer to the central power—the guru or prophet,” Lattin said.

In the case of Jeffs’ FLDS church, his one-man power to arrange marriages between young girls and older men lent a sanctity to their union, scholars say.

Yet while groups like Jeffs’ may garner headlines, they’re neither new nor unusual. American history has seen the rise—and often the decline—of new religious movements, many with unusual sexual attitudes:

• In the late 1700s, the Shakers established a celibate community in upstate New York. They eventually died out due to lack of new members.

• The Oneida Community, a utopian commune established in the 1840s in upstate New York, held that sex with someone “spiritually higher” advanced one’s spirituality.

• Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, proclaimed polygamy a divinely revealed concept, and it remained so until the mainstream Mormon Church disavowed it in 1890. That initiated the rift that would lead to the founding of the FLDS church.

• David Berg, the charismatic founder of The Family, reinterpreted Jesus’ teachings on love as sanctifying multiple sexual partners, including underage girls and boys. The group renounced sex with minors in 1986.

Wessinger also links millennial movements—those that focus on a coming end of the world, like the FLDS sect—with unusual sexual attitudes. Such groups, she says, often enact relationships they believe will exist in the afterlife.

That’s what prompted members of Heaven’s Gate, a millennial sect that committed mass suicide in San Diego in 1997, to practice celibacy and male castration. They be-lieved there would be no sexual activity or relationships in their longed-for afterlife.

“I think it is absolutely connected because in a millennial movement, there is a belief that there is going to be an imminent transition to a collective salvation in which relationships will be completely transformed,” Wessinger said. “They are anticipating the way they think relationships will be after their collective salvation.”

Many spiritual experiences involve the body—Pentecostals speaking in tongues, fire-walking Hindus and Buddhists or even the bleeding wounds—stigmata—attributed to some Catholic mystics and saints. It isn’t such a leap, then, for new religious movements to marry the sexual with the spiritual.

“Intense religious experiences often involve the body,” Lattin said. “It is a spiritual ecstasy that can be like a sexual ecstasy. You have that physical experience of body which is very real and very integral to religious experience.”

Sarah Pike, a religious studies professor at California State University, Chico, says there may be something distinctly American about new religious movements and sex.

“I think it has something to do with the fact that from the very beginning, Americans have had this sense that they are in the process of creating a new society and new governance,” Pike said. “It seems there is a willingness to experiment.”

LEWISVILLE—For many couples, it’s like the seconds before a new year’s exciting beginning. For some, it’s more like the panic of watching a ticking bomb.

Newlywed Brooks Monroe insists counting down the days to his wedding by participating in Countdown to Marriage was time well-spent.

Monroe and his then-fiancée Lauren had been dating six years when they enrolled in the program at First Baptist Church of Lewisville, their home church.

“It was an awesome chance to invest in ourselves, and in our future, and in the future of our marriage. The topics were so applicable,” Monroe said.

Countdown to Marriage, a program designed by Byron and Carla Weathersbee of Legacy Family Ministries in Waco, prepares engaged couples for marriage through seven weeks of topical discussion of common marital issues.

The Weathersbees, both Baylor University alumni and members of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco, founded Legacy Family Ministries in 1995 after working in family ministry 13 years.

“What we’re trying to do is use the family institution as not only the greatest evangelism tool, but also the greatest discipleship tool,” Byron Weathersbee explained.

The program for engaged couples grew naturally out of ministering to families as a whole, he said.

“We had folks who just needed premarital counseling, so we launched a class of five couples,” Weathersbee said. “We tried to find curriculum that would meet our needs and was interactive, that really got couples working through issues and talking.”

Over seven weeks, couples analyze each phrase of a traditional marriage vow to address relevant contemporary issues. For example, the phrase “for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer” brings up “money matters”—the third topic in Countdown to Marriage.

Countdown to Marriage also includes the topics, “God’s purpose for marriage,” “roles and responsibilities,” “in-laws” and “communication and conflict resolution.”

Couples meet as a group once a week for instruction and feedback about the designated subject. Limited participation keeps groups small and conversational.

Monroe said he enjoyed the group interaction.

Learning from others' struggles

“We could all learn from each other’s struggles,” he said.

“I think if it were smaller, we would have missed out on a lot, but it wasn’t so big that you didn’t have a chance to contribute to the group.”

In addition to group meetings, couples are assigned weekly tasks—some individual, some are joint assignments. Activities like Bible study, focused conversation, romantic dates or prayer help couples process and apply lessons learned. Spending structured time working through weekly topics helps couples prioritize their relationship in the midst of pre-wedding busyness.

“The time we spent preparing for the lessons, and the time we spent sitting down with the group, was the most valued and cherished part of the week,” Monroe recalled.

Associate Pastor Brian Dodridge, who helps lead Countdown sessions at First Baptist Church in Lewisville, said he wished he had had the program when he was preparing for marriage.

“They’re all the conversations married couples ought to have, and often have 10 to 15 years into the marriage, but we’re introducing them on the front end,” he explained.

Although the program is scripturally founded and teaches a Christian worldview, non-Christians also enroll. Many couples pray or read Scripture together for the first time while in Countdown to Marriage.

Some non-Christians attend 

Since the program provides thorough preparation for marriage, some non-Christians attend out of sheer practicality.

“The majority of folks look to get married in either a church or synagogue, and they look to the church for guidance and direction,” Weathersbee said.

“We’ve made it fun, we’ve made it interactive. It’s appealing to young couples who’re really desiring to know what they’re getting themselves into.”

The program at First Baptist Church in Lewisville also draws attendance from all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Countdown to Marriage has spread beyond the program’s base in Waco throughout Texas and Oklahoma. A condensed version of the seven-week curriculum also is available as a weekend retreat to facilitate those who live far from a program site.

“We’ve taken about 900 couples through this course and the weekender course, in and around Waco. We do a pretty good job of tracking those couples, and our last count we’ve had less than four percent who’d gotten a divorce,” Weathersbee said.

Monroe would recommend it to anyone preparing for marriage, he said.

“There’ve been times that we’ve wanted to go back and revisit those lessons. We do plan on it,” Monroe said.

“I felt so much more prepared and so much more ready, having gone through it … Although we’d talked about each one of those topics before … having someone lead us through it was better than the two of us stumbling though it alone.”

Texas has joined a growing number of states that waive or reduce the costs of marriage license fees to couples who complete premarital education courses. And the Baptist General Convention of Texas is launching an initiative to enlist churches as providers of the educational program.

Effective Sept. 1, a law passed last year by the Texas Legislature eliminates the marriage license fee for couples who complete the eight hours of approved premarital education. It also exempts them from the 72-hour waiting period between the time a license is issued and a wedding can occur legally.

The law stipulates premarital education courses must include instruction in conflict management, communication skills and the key components of a successful marriage.

The law specifically names ministers and faith-based organizations among the individuals and organizations authorized to provide the courses.

Promoting healthy families made good fiscal sense for the state, said Keith Lowry, who works in the family ministry area of the BGCT Bible study/discipleship office.

“Divorce and the cost of unmarried childbearing costs the United States more than $112 billion a year,” he said, citing a statistic from the Texas Healthy Marriage Initiative.

In recent years, other states have implemented practices similar to the new Texas law.

Florida led the way with its Marriage Preservation Act in 1998, followed by Oklahoma, Maryland, Minnesota and Tennessee.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission has designated regional organizations to ensure free, skills-based marriage education is available throughout the state.

The BGCT and Dallas Baptist Association entered a partnership with one of those nonprofit providers, ANTHEM—the Alliance for North Texas Healthy Effective Marriages.

A free “launch and learn” luncheon for pastors is scheduled at 11:30 a.m., June 25, at the Building Baptist, 333 N. Washington in Dallas to introduce the initiative to ministers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

For more information, e-mail keith.lowry@bgct.org or call (214) 828-5206.

DALLAS—How should a congregation respond to an unmarried cohabitating couple’s request to join the church? Churches likely will face this and other tough questions as society’s definition of family continues to change.

“This isn’t the church our parents grew up in,” said Philip Washburn, pastor of Park Central Baptist Church in Dallas. “If we believe ‘come all who are weary and heavy-laden,’ we must love people, not turn them away. A lot of the couples (in nontraditional lifestyles) are couples who have grown up in the church.”

Washburn focuses on developing relationships first. Although no couple living together has yet sought to join Park Central, he is working with individuals in the community about the issue.

Michael Tutterow, pastor of Atlanta’s Wieuca Road Baptist Church, agreed churches must build relationships to help people first find faith and then to grow.

“We open our membership to anyone. … We start with where they are and help them,” he explained. “We take the stand of grace, something our entire staff shares. Trying to determine who’s at fault isn’t productive. We take the ‘now what’ approach. (Since) this has happened, now what?”

Wieuca Road concentrates on accepting individuals, regardless of the issues they face.

“Acceptance is not the same thing as condoning. But if you provide the acceptance, there is room to grow,” Tutterow said. “If you point fingers, people are more likely to walk away.

“I would rather err on the side of acceptance. … People grow with grace. I’ve never seen anyone grow under legalism. … Why would people want to go to a church that adds more burdens?”

The church accepts unmarried couples and tries to get them into groups that model healthy relationships.

Acceptance and biblical teaching 

Travis McIntosh, pastor of Beverly Park Baptist Church in Seattle, stressed that people must be made aware of biblical teaching and some moral standards must be met before individuals are accepted for church membership.

When an unmarried cohabitating couple who had been attending the church inquired about joining, McIntosh emphasized how glad the congregation was with their presence. However, they could not join unless they married or changed their living arrangements.

Although Park Central would love and nurture an unmarried couple, likely the pair would not be able to join until they settled the cohabitation issue.

“We can’t back down on who we are,” Washburn explained. “But we’ve got to love them with the love that is Christ-based, not human-based.”

Unmarried couples who live together do not present the only challenge to churches. Divorce has been a growing part of American society for decades, and churches still struggle with issues divorce creates.

Wieuca Road has relied on counseling to assist couples headed to separation and divorce. This fall the church will begin using DivorceCare, a recovery support program that utilizes seminars and support groups.

McIntosh believes the church, particularly pastors, must be proactive to step in when they become aware of relationship problems.

“It’s the church’s responsibility to help the family stay together,” he said. “If the church lets them down in this area, how can it be trusted in other areas?”

What should churches do when husband and wife divorce and both want to remain members of the same church? People develop strong connections within their congregations, either through family ties or friendships, and often are reluctant to walk away from that support.

Former spouses in the same church 

Usually, one spouse chooses to leave. But when both decide to stay, larger churches, such as Wieuca Road, have the advantage of size to mitigate possible tension between the former spouses.

A small- to medium-sized church may have to intervene. Washburn generally works through the congregation’s deacons to be the buffer between the couple, particularly when former spouses are involved in the same ministries.

“A church needs more than just the pastor to work with the situation,” he said.

Tension can increase when both former spouses remain in a congregation, especially in a small church. McIntosh prefers that one finds another church home.

“I would let the spouse at fault know he should find another church,” he said.

Walter Coplen, a family counselor with Coplen, Wright and Associates in Columbia, Mo., said churches must focus on relationship building and sensitivity when ministering to nontraditional couples, single parents and their children. Don’t be afraid to ask people what they need and how the church can help.