Good afternoon Dr. Neder,

I have a girlfriend and she and I are in love. Almost everything is perfect – almost. We would really like to get married soon but there is a very subtle and fragile thing that seems to hinder the relationship and seeks to destroy it: Our religious beliefs. My girlfriend and I are of different faiths – I am Christian and she is not. I am not very devout in my religion but I believe some precious principles of it. I want to get married in a religious context, and have unity of religion with my partner. She wants to marry in a non-religious ceremony. There is also a rule of my faith that prevents me from getting married to her because she is not Christian.

She gave me the strong reasons why she doesn't want to become a Christian and told me that I should accept her like she is. I have no problem with that and I don't want to change her, but I still worry about this rule.

I really want to save this relationship but I don't know what to do. Can you help us?

Thanks,

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Hello!

In effect, you are a religion-racist - a "religionist"! Take a look at your letter and substitute "race" for "religion" and some ethnicity for "Christian" and you'll see what I mean.

Just as I hope you'd see it would be wrong to dislike someone because of their race, you need to understand that it's also wrong to dislike or to disagree with someone for their beliefs. You've even stated that you're not that devout, yet you still want to hold on to this belief that your girlfriend has to participate in your beliefs in order to marry you. That's not a very "mature" position on this in my opinion - especially when you consider that this is your wedding - and hers too! What's next? Will you also insist that she goes to church with you on Sundays, that she reads the bible with you, that she believes in exactly the same things you do in exactly the same way and not believe in others just as you do, and that your kids have to be raised exactly like that too - all for some principal that you, yourself don't even fully accept?

Obviously, a person's beliefs are important to them, but the mistake you're making is that since your beliefs are of value and meaning to you, they should be of value and meaning to everyone else.

I'd suggest you do one of the following:

1) Decide that your beliefs are more important to you than your girlfriend and if so, break up and go find a girl that believes exactly as you do.

2) Try to find a compromise between what you want and what she wants. You do this by first deciding just what's important to you. Do you love her enough to let go of things that are less important than she is?

The bottom line is this: any God(s) in any faiths that demand someone follow every piece of doctrine blindly and with prejudice probably isn't a God I'd want to follow. Remember: this is your FAITH; it's not everyone else’s FACT. There is a difference. Many faiths demand that you ignore this principle. All of the strife in the Middle East is based on this ignorance as an example.

Best regards...

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