I attended a wedding yesterday. Groom comes from an active Catholic family, bride from agnostic family. They wanted the ceremony at the same venue as the reception (country club), which meant no Catholic ceremony. Normally, unless one is a VIP, Catholic wedding ceremonies take place in Catholic churches (sometimes in a non-Catholic church, if a Catholic priest is a co-officiant with a non-Catholic clergyperson). They used a pastor from a nearby nondenominational church. Neither of them attend that church, but I think sometimes these pastors do ceremonies knowing that it spreads good PR for their church.

Anyway, in spite of this not being traditional Christian liturgy, he still asked the couple to pledge their troth "until death us do part." This comes from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer from the late 1500s/early 1600s, and is still found in mainstream Christian wedding liturgy to this day.

I have heard Mormons seize on this phrase to emphasize that they alone have some sort of monopoly on "eternal marriage" and that other Christians acknowledge that the marriage lasts only until one member of the couple dies.

Bullshit! Most non-LDS Christians I know presume that their deceased grandparents or great-grandparents are together in heaven, if they believe in heaven, and no one expects that great-Grandma Alice is cavorting around upstairs with anyone other than her late husband.

What "as long as you both shall live" ande "til death us do part" to me means is that if one person dies, the survivor is free to marry again....unlike a divorced person, who traditionally (until churches liberalized) was not free to remarry. The couple pledging their troth "until death us do part" are promising to be loyal to and care for each other until the first one dies. At that point, the survivor is released from those fidelity vows and is free to remarry.

It does not mean (to me and to many others) that the original couple won't be reunited in heaven some time in the future. Since other churches never allowed polygamy, the phrase is needed in the liturgy to indicate that death releases the survivor from the vows of fidelity, with respect to being able to marry again. It has been twisted out of context to suit the missionary goals of Mormonism, but I don't think that many Mormons understand what it means in Catholic or mainline Protestant context.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 09:19PM by PtLoma.

So what is the policy in heaven on those who have multiple legal spouses, like several serial marriages not ending in divorce? Is grandma only going to go with the first hubby? What is the thinking on this for those who believe in heaven but not celestial polygamy?
puzzlement!
Librarian

My paternal grandmother was widowed in her forties and five years later married a similarly aged widower. Her (Lutheran) church is silent on whether she is in Heaven with just her first spouse or both spouses. Since my step-grandfather was married before also, I've always imagined that each is with their original spouse. But traditional Christian theology doesn't dwell on this....rather, "til death us do part" simply releases one's vows of fidelity while on earth. However, Mormons who try to sell the religion with the claim of "other religions don't teach that you can be together with your family after death" are twisting the phrase out of context, as if all familial relationships are severed at the moment of death. Of course the phrase does not exist in the LDS sealing ceremony since it would preclude the taking of additional wives (pre-1890) while alive, or sealing of additional wives following death or divorce (present time).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 09:47PM by PtLoma.

Maybe it's because I'm a nevermo, but I've never understood the appeal of being locked to your family for all eternity. There are some real kooks in my family and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them - now or in any supposed afterlife! Even my friends would probably drive me nuts after a while.

What's the appeal, here? It is an extrovert's assumption that OF COURSE you never want to be alone, and that OF COURSE the best people to be with are the ones who you are blood-kin to? I don't get it.

I was raised in a Christian church, and Christians fully expect to see their deceased family members upon their own death. Christian churches do not speculate what might happen after this initial reunion; we’ll find out when we get there.

As to the Mormon "eternal family" principle, I, too, would not want to be stuck with biological family members for eternity!

When taught the “eternal family” principle as an adult Mormon convert, I thought it was B.S., but of course kept my thoughts to myself. Nor could I relate to the notion that God would FORCE people to “earn” the right to be with their family.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2011 09:02PM by WiserWomanNow.

I never really thought of it that way as a Mormon. I actually thought couples would not be allowed to be together in heaven- or at least not allowed to screw. That was a reward reserved for God's favorite Mormons.

But why would I believe in a god that only lets Mormon families hang out together in heaven? Looking at that now, Mormons would have to believe God was kind of mean. What was God going to do, create a private room for each person to make sure they didn't get the privilege of being with family?

Your description of what the phrase means to others makes sense. It would be implied they would be together in heaven. Obviously other Christians don't think death is permanent so parting at death would just mean until both are in an afterlife.

I've always suspected that the "till death you do part" phrase was really just referring to earth time.\

I'm a big fan of the Anglican/Episcopal church and have always enjoyed your posts, Pt Loma. The Anglican Church had a big influence on the early LDS Church largely by the huge numbers of British converts.

Remember that the Pharisees asked Jesus about a woman who had been widowed several times. They asked which husband would be her husband in heaven. He said that they did not understand the scriptures, since there is no such thing as marriage in heaven, implying that the question was irrelevant.

Minor correction: it was the Sadducees. They held strictly to the text. The Pharasees had an oral tradition that often did violence to the written word. Jesus had few, and maybe only one run in, with the Sadducees and it was on this point of marriage in heaven.

To me it "as long as you both shall live means you promise to stay married keep your marriage vows all your life. "Til Death do us part" means that when you're spouse dies, you are apart, separated by death. It says nothing about an automatic divorce or end of the marriage in an after life.

wine country girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To me it "as long as you both shall live means you
> promise to stay married keep your marriage vows
> all your life. "Til Death do us part" means that
> when you're spouse dies, you are apart, separated
> by death. It says nothing about an automatic
> divorce or end of the marriage in an after life.


Excellent, succinct analysis.

Matthew 22:20

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Which would sort of exclude the possibility of marriages or sealings by proxy, wouldn't it? ;)

Of course, Matthew is another one of those books from which many plain and precious things were removed, and which is true only as far as it is correctly translated. Those corrupt early Christians removed all of Jesus's parables approving polygamy. ;)

Good point

When faced with a trick question about who would be married to who in the afterlife, Jesus replied that in Heaven they are neither married nor given in marriage. Mormonism claims that means the sealing ordinance needs to be done on Earth, and by proxy for those who died without The Gospel®. But what it really means is that marriage is irrelevant in Heaven, that it's just something necessary here because we flawed humans wouldn't do the right thing without it. It makes further sense when combined with Jesus's claim you need to forsake family to follow him. That would include following him into Heaven, no?

(But, yes, we're dealing with dubious texts, so it could all be baloney.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2011 11:00AM by Stray Mutt.

I tend to agree with the sentiment that the LDS position eternal marriage being solely within the perview of thier faith is incorrect. Catholics take the "till death do us part vow" probably out of tradition, but the bigger picture of what that means is one of eternal marriage. Look at Matthew and the discourse Christ has with the pharisees on divorce. His words are what God has joined, let no man tear assunder. Basically once you're married, you're married until God says you aren't.

If you want to learn more about the Catholic thought though, you have to go beyond the marriage sacrament to the funeral rite. Read the Catholic prayers said during the funeral mass. Mormons know nothing about this, probably because of the PR their church uses on eternal marriage; however, the funeral prayers during the funeral mass talk at great length of reuniting with loved ones, and continuing our relationships after death. If you ever go to a Catholic funeral, listen very carefully to what the priest says, you'll hear a great deal of support for the idea of eternal families. But LDS seem to think they have a monopoly on this concept.

Growing up, people always told us that non-mormon weddings were SO depressing because they would say "til death do us part" and then everyone would start to cry and be so upset that they couldn't be together in heaven.

Then I attended a non-mormon friend's wedding and it was actually 100 times happier than a mormon wedding.

Same thing goes for funeral too actually - mormons say that only they KNOW there is life after death, but all the non-mormon services I've been to were beautiful.