However intriguing it may be, the larger-than-life hubbub surrounding this Saturday evening's Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding -- who is invited and who feels snubbed, what the menu and wine list are, what the bride and her party will wear, who will be officiating and who will be entertaining, and all the levels of secrecy -- actually does not affect the vast majority of Americans except as voyeuristic entertainment. There is, however, an important, challenging, and hopeful story worth telling about the nature of America reflected in this high-profile wedding.
The Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding is a perfect expression of the emerging American religious and social landscape in which one's inherited group identity bears little or no significance on one's marriage. As a consequence of the unprecedented freedom we enjoy to cross boundaries that even a generation ago would have been taboo, the majority of Americans, including more than 80 percent of those under 30 years of age, accept marriage across all types of boundaries, including ethnic and racial. The silos between groups are rapidly becoming permeable, and this shift in notions of group loyalty and exclusivity, especially as individuals form their most intimate relationships independent of any restrictive creedal or tribal inheritances, marks an uncharted world.
Welcome to the new world of religion in America. Chelsea's parents were an interdenominational marriage of a social justice Methodist and a Baptist, which would have been unheard of 50 years ago. Chelsea grew up proudly within mainstream Protestantism, while Marc was raised clearly identified in a mainstream Jewish denomination. Their marriage is the next generational step in crossing borders -- from Methodist-Baptist to Christian-Jew. What is unprecedented -- wonderful for some and horrifying to others -- is that in this era no one needs to reject his or her identity to cross these century-old boundaries. Multiple identities -- in the example of the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, at least three different traditions being brought to bear -- is the new reality.
None of this should be surprising, as we Americans have been significantly changing the ways we identity ourselves by religion. The fastest-growing religious identity, now the third largest in the United States according to the 2009 American Religious Identity Study (ARIS), is "none" (18 percent), which is not to be confused with either atheist or agnostic. Moreover, according to all surveys on religious identities, including those done by traditional evangelicals, we Americans are increasingly becoming what I call "mixers, blenders, benders and switchers" (MBBS). We customize our religious identities -- less in terms of some group-belonging need, creedal purity, or theological consistency, and more in order to get a job done -- and in doing so, we find greater meaning and purpose. Identity, including our religious identity, is becoming fluid, permeable, and an ongoing construction -- a verb rather than a noun.
Millions of us are moving from the cathedral to the bazaar. Of course, you cannot have people mixing religious ideas and practices in a divine smorgasbord of choice, creating families with diverse inheritances, and, because of new powerful technologies from search engines to connection technologies, getting their religious and spiritual resources independent of religious authorities and expect existing religious institutions to be unaffected. The existing business models and organizational structures of mainstream religion are, as in many fields of meaning-making today (journalism, film, and music), increasingly unsustainable. Fewer and fewer Americans are getting religion in the cathedrals. They are getting what they need to get their spiritual/meaning-making job done in the bazaar, which has a very different model of authority and hierarchy, has very limited barriers of entry and far more choices, and which tends to be a user-friendly and open source environment.
This is unnerving stuff, and predictably, we have some religious communities becoming more conformist, exclusive, and intolerant while others are becoming more diverse, inclusive, and syncretistic -- all this as mainstream religious institutions in America have dramatically weakened over the past two decades, according to all measures (affiliation, membership, and attendance). Note that the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding is being held in neither a church nor a synagogue and that finding clergy that can speak across boundaries while retaining the integrity of each tradition Chelsea and Marc bring to their wedding is no easy task. (In fact, no Conservative rabbi, the tradition in which the groom was raised, is permitted to officiate at an inter-marriage.)
Religious leaders who do not see these changes as threatening the integrity of their faiths and groups will need to be concerned less with creating good upstanding members of their group (theologically or sociologically) and more with providing wisdom and practice drawn from their tradition that is accessible, usable, and good enough to get the job done: helping "mixers, blenders, benders, and switchers" construct ever-changing lives that are more ethical, vital, and loving within their already-existing webs of relations.
Yes, there will be loss, about which traditionalists are appropriately feeling scared and angry and which liberals and secularists tend to deny. But just as the most important part of a bowl is the empty space that can be filled, so this loss can open space for a new reality, one that holds the potential for a much richer and better world as we transcend the exclusivity of our creeds, dogmas, and tribes, and -- here is the contemporary challenge -- as we include the best of our inherited traditions. Loving each other across boundaries and building families to which multiple traditions are brought is far better for the planet than what our religions have too often done: demonizing the other.
At their best, ancient religious traditions know this, which is why at some level, they all teach that we are one global family. Well, from climate change to terrorism, from SARS to markets, our problems clearly cross all borders. Now we are transitioning into some next expression of this intuition, culturally and religiously. This is hard for the purists and fundamentalists, and so we are seeing backlash all over the planet, and indeed there are no roadmaps -- so we are making it up as we go along. But the more people love each other, and the more people with different inheritances and traditions form intimate relationships and families, the better we will understand each other across all boundaries, and the wiser we will be at knowing what from our rich traditions we need to let go of and transcend, and what we need to bring along with us to help us create better lives and build a better world.
Mazel Tov, Marc and Chelsea!
Follow Rabbi Irwin Kula on Twitter: www.twitter.com/irwinkula
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I appreciate your expression of support for this inter-faith marriage. It shocks me how many people are up in arms about it, in this day and age.
I think some of the worry is that moving out of conventional religion means we (as human beings) will devolve into some kind of selfish, hurtful creatures - that we need traditional religion to be good people, as motivation to serve others and improve ourselves. But I don't believe that is the case. I believe positive qualities of empathy and tolerance to be closer to our true nature, and mixing and blending contain just as much possibility of helping us to be our best selves.
I wholeheartedly concur with your statement that "the contemporary challenge" is to "include the best of our inherited traditions." I hope that as we come together across racial, religious, and national boundaries, as we mix, blend, bend, and shake, that we will hold on to the best of our ancient religious traditions and not completely lose sight of them - that we will succeed in carrying forward the stuff that still helps us "get the job done" - in terms of being compassionate, forgiving, loving, generous, and committed to service.
MeiMei Fox
I am hoping that she has enough integrity to chose her religion based on her principles and not based on the needs of his religion.
Same goes for him.
is Humor, then, the great mystical secret of the infinite?
T.'.
To each is own...
I read your article with interest. Though I understand that intermarriage is a situation that must be acknowledged in today's open society, how does embracing it as you seem to do strengthen Judaism in America and how do you see the faith (not just the cultural identity of Judaism) being maintained in such a society? As someone raised in Christianity who converted to Judaism after several years in Messianic Judaism (Jews who hold to Jewish identity and practice while following Jesus as messiah) I'm also curious as to how your syncretic view would place this group in regards to Judaism - would they be considered a fringe sect of Judaism?
I am not insisting that anybody be what they can't be. The process of change and adaptation and resistance and loss and renewal and tradition and innovation and purity and mixture is always happening and the critical thing is to know where we are in this drama, where on the continuum of these dualities do we feel comfortable - your own journey is proof of the dance of our identities.Our job is not to worry about Judaism or Christianity. Our job is to build spiritually alive, ethical and loving lives using whatever tools we can. Ultimately, a healthy culture has as many places as possible on the continuum with as many bridges or portals between places.
Finally, there has always been and always will be groups that consider other groups heretics or fringe just as there will always be groups who innovate and experiment at the edge. All sides are interdependent and all help us move the human adventure ahead.
Thank you for your response and clarification. I feel I understand your position better now.
In reference to my own journey, I'd like to point out that, although there were the emotional, intellectual and theological transitions that such a journey entails, each step also included a definable point of change where I clearly moved from one community to the other: Christian by profession and baptism who resigns church membership to become Messianic after a course of study. Messianic who studied with a Conservative rabbi and went to mikveh becoming a Jew. Without these clear points of change, my identity would be confused and chaotic, for myself and those around me. This is much like those who live in a romantic relationship with no clear start, definable boundaries or commitment vs. those who choose to marry and know by virtue of document, ceremony and declaration that they are in a covenantal relationship with boundaries and commitment.
Personally, my goal is not just to build a spiritual and moral life filled with love, but to do it as a Jew - using the tools Judaism affords me applied through my own unique spiritual prism thereby enriching not only myself and my immediate circle, but Judaism and the Jewish people as a whole. This sense of connection and commitment to faith and community is one I hope we will not choose to let go of in the long run.
First, alliances between the European Aristocracy and the Jewish Elite have been common for hundreds of years. Oftentimes Jews would manage the financial accounts of European Royalty. In the 1900's in Poland, Russia and other Eastern European Countries Jews would often maintain the grounds and oversee the peasants for the European Aristocracy. In fact, back in Roman times it was very common to encourage good will between the non-Jewish Elite and Jewish Elite to throw parties in order to foster alliances.
So in that vein, this 'alliance' between Chelsea and Marc is in keeping with the historical norm.
That being said however, I think the odds are stacked against them. Jew to non-Jew marriages have an incredibly high 5 year divorce rate and their body language is NEVER aligned (when she is smiling he never smiles, when her body language is open his is closed.) Not to mention the fact that Marc comes from a family with a very iffy background (his father was in jail for Investment Fraud for 7 years!)
Now back to my real life----In real life I actually see very little blurring of the lines. There is an ugly secret in my circle that no one cares to admit. The only people who do not marry their own are people who are undesirable. Harsh but true. (Good example- nerdy white guy with asian girl scenario that has become commonplace.)