Case #8: Inter-religious Marriage
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Descriptive Dimension
How does John Paul II describe inter-religious marriage? Is it primarily a problem of individual moral choice, or is it rather a complicated pastoral problem with no easy resolution? How does Jack Wertheimer describe "the religious status of interfaith families" from a Jewish perspective? According to al Faruqi, what if any guidelines exist for inter-religious marriage in Islam?Normative Dimension
Thinking back to our discussion about the meaning of Christian marriage and the goods it facilitates, how would you compare the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian views on the goods of marriage? How, if at all, do the principles governing these religious understandings of marriage differ?
Practical Dimension
What are the important practical considerations governing inter-religious marriage? Is the only concern the different goods and principles employed by each tradition, or is it also important to recognize the differing degrees of understanding about marriage in each religiously motivated person?
Fundamental Dimension
When one marries someone of a different faith, is one's freedom curtailed to some extent? How does one navigate making moral choices based on one's faith when one's spouse feels compelled to make different choices? How does inter-religious marriage effect the education of children?
Sources for Discernment
Focusing on experience as a source of moral knowledge, how does the experience of one's spouse, especially as informed by another religious tradition, function as a source of moral knowledge for oneself? How should one distinguish between morally relevant experience and morally irrelevant (or even immoral) experience in making decisions for oneself or one's family?
