I think there is a lot of truth in this analysis. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to think that a Christian wedding is in some sense more real than registry office weddings. In the sense that a marriage is a commitment between two people then they should be considered equal, but in the sense that it is also a commitment before God then they are not equal.
Given that we live in a Christian, or post-Christian country - some people will think that a church wedding is more proper than a non-Church one. The kind of people I'm thinking of are the kind who consider themselves to be Christian in some sense, but don't attend church, pray, or know very much about Christianity (and all the shades before and beyond that). i.e. not regular church-goers or 'practising Christians', but people with some kind of belief which is associated with Christianity.
Personally I am happy for such people to get married in CofE churches (and I feel like I have a bit of extra license to say this now that I am a member of a CofE church so am in some sense an Anglican) if there reasons are associated with what I said in the previous paragraph. Or in other words, if people want to get married at church because they kind of believe in God (or culturally think God is a good idea), I'd much rather them be allowed to do that than to go to a registry office.
Generally speaking vicars seem moderately happy about this too (unless they have a particularly beautiful church which means they're innundated with requests [my ex's church had this problem]), because often they will say you can get married there as long as you attend for a bit / meet up with the vicar a bit / attend a marriage course. Which is good from the vicar's perspective as he has an opportunity to share his more active view of Christianity with the less actively Christian people.
I can completely understand how annoying it would be to have completely irreligious people want to use the church because it is a fancy building though. The tanglement of the church and state is not so good in this respect.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-22 08:59 pm (UTC)Given that we live in a Christian, or post-Christian country - some people will think that a church wedding is more proper than a non-Church one. The kind of people I'm thinking of are the kind who consider themselves to be Christian in some sense, but don't attend church, pray, or know very much about Christianity (and all the shades before and beyond that). i.e. not regular church-goers or 'practising Christians', but people with some kind of belief which is associated with Christianity.
Personally I am happy for such people to get married in CofE churches (and I feel like I have a bit of extra license to say this now that I am a member of a CofE church so am in some sense an Anglican) if there reasons are associated with what I said in the previous paragraph. Or in other words, if people want to get married at church because they kind of believe in God (or culturally think God is a good idea), I'd much rather them be allowed to do that than to go to a registry office.
Generally speaking vicars seem moderately happy about this too (unless they have a particularly beautiful church which means they're innundated with requests [my ex's church had this problem]), because often they will say you can get married there as long as you attend for a bit / meet up with the vicar a bit / attend a marriage course. Which is good from the vicar's perspective as he has an opportunity to share his more active view of Christianity with the less actively Christian people.
I can completely understand how annoying it would be to have completely irreligious people want to use the church because it is a fancy building though. The tanglement of the church and state is not so good in this respect.