In Opposition

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? -1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Almost three months ago, I wrote a blog post called The Unequal Yoke, specifically addressing Christian/Jewish intermarriages in the Messianic community (and to a certain degree, the larger world of Christian-Jewish intermarriage). More recently, I've been following the comments on the Be All You Can Be blog post at Spiritually Unequal Marriage, which seems to be a blog crafted primarily for Christian women who are married to unbelieving husbands.

I occasionally comment on that blog (though I'm not a Christian woman and my wife has a faith) because I am an "intermarried" and believe I can add a unique and hopefully valuable insight to various conversations. In reading some of the comments on the aforementioned blog post, I'm reminded of a more expansive issue in both Christianity and Judaism.

Families can be fractured when one spouse "has faith" and the other does not. It's most typical, at least in my experience, for the woman of the household to be the "faithful" one, often taking the children with her to church or synagogue while the husband stays home or does errands. This is ironic because in both Christian and Jewish traditions, the husband is identified as the "spiritual leader" of the family and has specific behavioral responsibilities (particularly in Judaism) relative to God and family. Nevertheless, women seem to have been designed to be more "spiritually sensitive" than men, perhaps because women are more often communally and relationship oriented than men.

But where does that leave the wives and mothers? Not in a very good spot.

Often, this schism puts the woman at odds with her husband as she tries to balance her responsibilities to both the home and the church or synagogue. While all people of faith can sometimes experience a "higher calling" to God than to the family, in fact, our first "ministry" is in our home. This is more easily realized in Judaism than in Christianity, since the primary focus of worship occurs in the home, particularly for women who are considered exempt halachically from many of the commandments related to praying with a minyan in the synagogue (and in Orthodox Judaism, women cannot make up a minyan, although in a Reform shul, it would be allowed).

Besides being conflicted and feeling guilty, what can women do when they are the person of faith in the marriage and the husband is either indifferent or actively opposed to her religious activities?

I don't have a pat answer for that one. I do know that my own small congregation typically has members and attendees who come without their spouses for exactly this reason. In my case, my wife's faith does not accept Christ as the Messiah, and so she "declines" to attend services with me, even on an occasional basis. There are a wide variety of reasons why I cannot currently attend any activities at the Chabad or Reform synagogues with her in our community, so our active, communal worship lives are isolated from one another.

One of our fellows attends our congregation alone on Saturdays and goes to a more traditional church with his wife and grandchildren on Sundays. A woman, who has been with us for many years, has just recently convinced her husband to begin attending our classes and services, but for a long time, he refused. This illustrates that it is not just marriages in which one spouse is religious and the other is not where this dynamic can be found, but in relationships where each spouse belongs to different religions or different "denominations" within the same basic faith.

Almost always, there's a certain amount of tension in the home as a result of such a conflict and a sense of loss during worship, even as we pray and draw closer to God, because our loved one is not at our side (and while in an Orthodox Jewish setting, men and women do not sit with each other, they are both aware that each is praying within their own context in the synagogue).

I write all this, not to try and solve a problem which perhaps has no visible solution, but to offer a thought. It's not as if God isn't aware of our circumstances and is unconcerned. However, like many of our other needs and difficulties, God doesn't always choose to immediately intervene and "solve" the problem for us.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” -Luke 11:9-13

From this and many other writings about prayer we see in the Bible, believers sometimes get the impression that all we have to do is pray and God will immediately give us what we have asked for and then some. However, God is not like the genie in the story about Aladdin. Faith, prayer, and our relationship with God isn't quite that simple. There is much we can and must learn from the experience of God not solving all of our problems the minute we realize we have them. If He did, that would pretty much do away with the requirement to have faith, particularly under duress.

In Mark 10:7-9, Jesus, referring to Genesis 2:24 says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate”. From this, we see that except under specific circumstances (referring back to 1 Corinthians 7:10-16), a "mixed marriage" is not reason enough to separate a couple and in fact, God expects us to keep the vows we made on our wedding day ("for better or for worse" may come to mind).

Your unbelieving spouse is not your enemy. He (or she) is by design, the closest human being to you on the planet. Depending on your view of marriage as seen through the lens of faith, you may have an understanding that God specifically arranged for you to be married to your spouse and yes, knowing that one of you would be believing and the other would not have faith. God does, or at least allows, a lot of other things we don't understand and sometimes these are things that cause us pain. Why does God allow a child to be born with Down's Syndrome? Why do some children die? Why do some Christian families lose their jobs, their homes, and end up living in poverty?

Why are you a Christian while your spouse is an atheist?

The point isn't that God has the answer and isn't telling, but that you are a person of faith and you are in distress.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth. -Psalm 121:1-2

I know that doesn't always help (and maybe you feel guilty because your faith isn't stronger so you "feel" faith instead of frustration), but it's true nonetheless.

In Genesis 32, Jacob's famous struggle with the angel is understood as a struggle with faith. He was about to face his brother Esau, the one who had vowed to kill Jacob, for the first time in decades and Jacob didn't know how he'd handle it. God showed Jacob that he could indeed struggle with even divine adversity and still win.

So can we, but as Jacob's example teaches us, sometimes it takes awhile (Jacob wrestled all night and the match wasn't over by dawn) and sometimes it hurts (after the struggle, Jacob walked with a limp for the rest of his life).

Yet we struggle...because that is life and that is faith.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.