Today I came accross an article on the Washington Post about a couple who got married with a bunch of key elements of the Jewish Wedding. First I was intrigued and even curious about this idea, thinking that several jewish components are really nice such as the Huppa for instance, and that it was an interesting and creative view to borrow some pretty elements from other religions to enhance a wedding.
But then I started thinking about deep considerations and the fact that this mix is a little bit disturbing. Although I am not a practicing Catholic, I still have an important respect for faith and traditions. I don’t agree with the fact that we can just say “Catholic wedding is boring, it’s just like church, let’s do a jewish wedding” without any strong commitment to this “new” religious beliefs. And actually without having any religious belief. Jonathan Stein notices aptly that they may not even understand the real meaning of what they do.
I happily welcome interfaith weddings but I have some concern about where is the yellow line when couples customize their wedding. The Faith cannot be selectively picked up for creating entertaining wedding. Some ceremonies may look boring to some peoples, however they have a meaning. Religions are not some shopping malls where you can mix and match aspects.
Several alternative exist for un-religious weddings. One of them, for example, is the unity candle. This part of the ceremony represent the union of the Bride and the Groom without borrowing the meaningful Kiddush ritual.
SchinTeth
/ November 30, 2011Interesting thoughts.
Even though I think that I still have to make up my mind about this I would like to inject some more ideas from my (atheist) perspective here.
Did you know that Religions are taking ideas from other religions; Christianity for example took over stuff from paganism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Paganism; http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/pagan-symbols.html)
Lets say we understand the meanings of these traditions and symbols, why would it be bad to mix? Could not this lead to a better intercultural/interreligious understanding? Is taking over an idea not a way of showing interest and respect to the initial idea; after all if I do not see it as interesting I would take something else?
clairesouchet
/ December 8, 2011Hi SchinTeth, Thank you for your comment, I am sorry that I answer that late but I am currently in my final exam period…
I agree about what you said and as you I needed some time to make up my mind about that wedding.
I know that religions are borrowing symbols and ideas from each other not only for wedding but for more, like eastern for example.
And I believe that embedding some symbols into a atheist ceremony was interesting. Personaly I like the huppa and its meaning of home open to friends and family etc. and as you may notice at the beginning of the post I wrote that it was interesting and creative.
But the article mentionned this “borring Catholic marriage ceremony” and this was the starting point of my concern. Although borrowing for the meaning is beautiful, borrowing for the style is kind of disturbing for me.
What do you think?