An article in Christian Today made the point that the church should be doing more to encourage people to get married in church, at a time when more and more secular locations are offering weddings. I am grateful to Mother Doreen for finding this article.
It was a very UK-centric article, where things are slightly different from our experience here in Malaga, as in the UK the parish priest is also the registrar, so the provision is somewhat more streamlined. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, the custom is to get married in the town hall first, and then go onto church to have the marriage blessed or to secular location to celebrate.
The article supported its concern with some interesting figures, albeit from 2022 as the author had not been able to find anything more recent, but assumed “the situation today remains much the same”. But in 2022, the Office for National Statistics reported 246,897 marriages in England and Wales, of which only 41,915 (16.97%) were conducted by any religious body, Christian or non-Christian. Of these weddings 29,045 (so 11.74% of the whole) took place in Anglican churches. “Getting married in church”, the author could see, “is now very much a minority pursuit.”
The author then turns to the opening words of the Book of Common Prayer marriage service, for guidance as to why a Christian marriage is important, and concludes there are four key reasons why people should get married in church rather than in a secular venue:
- that if you want to have a Christian wedding ceremony, the law requires that you have it in a place of Christian worship: you cannot hold a Christian wedding service at a secular venue
- that only in a place of Christian worship will you hear “the Christian understanding of marriage clearly and comprehensively proclaimed”
- that living out our marriage in a godly way and bringing up children ‘in the fear and nurture of the Lord’ is best done in the context of the church community and works best if that community is there from the start of the marriage, and
- that Christian marriage in a place of worship is a public statement that you aim to live your family life with certain values and certain truths.
It was an interesting article that helped to position, in today’s world, the Church’s Unique Selling Point for marriage. Read the article here in Christian Today.