I haven’t written on this topic for a good three years or so. I suppose I had nothing particular to add or say beyond what I had already said. But occasionally I see someone ask a question or make a comment that causes me to rehash my thoughts on this. This particular time, it was somebody asking whether our churches have a policy on who and to whom we would marry people. And so, that means it is time for another episode of the fantastically titled: The-Church-Should-Not-Conduct-Marriages-But-If-You’re-Going-To-Make-Us-We-Should-Only-Do-It-For-Church-Members.

If you want the long form of my reasoning for why I think, both biblically and culturally, the church should get out of the marriage game altogether, you can read this post from 2021. If you want to understand why, biblically, I think the church should get out of doing marriages but, pragmatically, if you are going to insist on it, they should only be done for church members, then this post from 2019 is the one to read. Reading both will obviously give you the clearest picture of how I understand the scriptures and which theologians you probably love I land on for historical support. Of course, if you can’t be bothered to read both of those, let me give you the gist.

In essence, it is Roman Catholic theology that teaches marriage is a sacrament of the church. One of their seven. This was roundly rejected in the Protestant Reformation, which insisted there were only two: baptism and communion. Instead, the Reformers argued that marriage was a creation ordinance, not a sacrament of the church. That is, it was instituted by God at creation, it is a societal good that does not belong exclusively to the church alone, but to all people everywhere, hence why we can recognise non-Christian marriages that take place in non-Christian places (such as those conducted under sharia law or those that take place in secular registry offices) and these can rightly still be considered good. Indeed, marriage existed before there were any Christians and exists everywhere apart from Christians. There is nothing uniquely Christian about the institution of marriage, it is a creation ordinance that is a societal good.

This means that marriage is only marriage when it is recognised by the established and widely recognised authority of a region. For the most part in the modern world, that is going to be the state. The church do not officiate marriages, but the state does on behalf of the community. It is why there is no such thing – despite popular mythology – as common law marriage. There is no marriage just because a couple insist there is. Equally, it is why the church cannot and do not simply pronounce a marriage exists either, as we are not the constitutionally recognised authority of the region. Rather, the church must read the banns (if you are Anglican) or have notice put up in a registry office before the event, so that the general public can be involved in the event. It is why wedding ceremonies, as distinct from wedding receptions, are public events that anyone can attend. It is a societal matter, for the good of society and can only be recognised as a marriage when the community at large (the state, for the most part, on behalf of its citizens) recognises it. For those reasons, conducting marriages in the church is often confusing and leads people to think it is a church sacrament, or solely a religious matter, when it is no such thing.

But further to all that, conducting marriages in the church means that those who conduct them are not functioning as ministers of the gospel at that point, but as agents of the state. This is a point that is particularly easy to see if you are not an Anglican, who are the only religious institution with the right to read banns and conduct marriages entirely internally. If you are any other sort of Christian, the couple must give notice at the registry office before they marry (there are no banns to be read) and those churches must have a person functioning as a registrar with legal duties or else call a secular registrar to attend the event. If you are any other religion outside of Christianity, you were not even allowed to conduct weddings in your own buildings nor to do them yourself at all. Only Anglicanism can offer the total mirage that marriage is primarily a church matter. The rest of us are simply pretending to a much lesser, and far more obvious degree, it is a societal and state matter. But this means, when we are pronouncing specific legal wording and filling in legal registers, we are conducting a legal matter on behalf of the state and functioning as agents of the state. Which I would have thought – though it is interesting for this Socialist to be the one to point it out – most the libertarians who bang on about government overreach would be crowing most loudly about this but there is nary a whimper!

It also seems worth pointing out that the scriptures nowhere command the church to conduct weddings. Whatever else you might make of that, I think it means it is not part of the mission of the church. Nowhere does Jesus suggest weddings should be conducted in churches, that churches must be involved in the event nor that it has anything particularly to do with them. I would go as far as to say that ministers of the gospel are actively taken away from their primary calling when they are busy and tied up conducting weddings. Despite the claims of some, they really are not a significant part of gospel ministry. I accept you may be able to preach a gospel sermon, but I am also minded to think you have opportunity to do that every week. One might argue that there will be people there who haven’t heard the gospel before. Perhaps so. But I would venture that few people will cite a wedding sermon as central to their coming to faith (indeed, the talking Jesus research puts it fairly low on the list of fruitful activities) and we are placing a lot of store on the gospel opportunity, and pouring a lot of time and energy into something that is statistically deeply unfruitful, for reasons that are well beyond anything scripture asks of us. That does not seem like a solid basis for arguing for the involvement of churches. Rather, the fruitful work of gospel ministry is frustrated by the time and effort expended on weddings.

So, as I argued in those earlier posts, I don’t think the church should be involved in the business of weddings. I think everyone should go to the registry office and have the state legally recognise their marriage. If anybody wants a service celebrating their wedding after the fact, by all means the church could do that in a service that has no legal standing. This means the state and wider society are recognised rightly as the true arbiters of when a marriage exists, marriage can be rightly seen as a societal good for all rather than a specifically Christian thing and gospel ministers can focus on the business of the gospel rather than being drawn into affairs of the state (as many of them insist they are not there to do!)

Of course, I recognise that we are not culturally there. As much as I think this ought to be the case, I accept it is not. So what if people insist we must keep doing weddings? I would suggest the best course of action under those circumstances is only to marry those where at least one party is in membership of your church.

If we don’t want to confuse people with the idea that marriage is specifically Christian, we need to be clear that the church conducting a marriage suggests something particularly Christian about it. But marriage, in and of itself, is a creation ordinance and societal good. There is nothing uniquely Christian about marriage itself. Nevertheless, there is something that might make something a Christian marriage in a meaningful sense: the gospel. As I have said previously:

In a world where I can’t insist only the state conduct marriages, I think it better for the church to recognise and celebrate the marriages of those that belong to it. We can applaud the marriages that happen in registry offices, going along to celebrate the goodness of the gift given as a creation ordinance. But in the church, we can give thanks that in this marriage, the gospel has transformed it into a true picture of Christ and the church to which the couple belong.

Of course, we can only really do that with people we have affirmed as actually belonging to Christ. The way the church does this is through the ordinances of baptism and communion. That is, by bringing them into membership of the church. If we are going to convey the only unique thing about this marriage being Christian – that it has been transformed by the fact that both those entering into it love Jesus and believe the gospel – we can only meaningfully do that for those we recognise as being in that position. Which is, to all intents and purposes, those who are in membership with us.

The other elephant in the room here, given churches are acting on behalf of the state when they conduct marriages, we don’t have a great deal of wiggle room when it comes to whom we will marry. Minimally, we cannot offer to marry some and not others, which presents something of a problem for the orthodox view of marriage. But if we insist that we will only conduct weddings for those who are in membership of our church, we are putting a uniform control on the matter much as we do with communion (supposing you are being biblical and only giving that to people in membership of churches too). Otherwise, you open yourself up to the entirely right and proper criticism that it is legal for two people to marry and yet you are denying some their legal right and yet permitting it for others.

Of course, the best solution to that problem (as I argued above) is for the church not to marry anyone at all for all the reasons I gave. Let anyone the state will marry be married by the state and let the church recognise, without legal standing, all those it determines are married biblically. But if we insist on conducting weddings and being registered as agents of the state, then the only uniform ground we can have is to only marry those in membership of the church in good standing; that is, conducting only Christian marriages for those we recognise through the church ordinances as properly Christian.

Let me close how I finished up one of my earlier posts with a few minor corrections:

I appreciate this view isn’t likely to be popular. I know it sounds a bit tight to say I don’t think the church should marry anyone but, given our cultural context [if we must], I’ll [only] concede to the marriage of church members. But I fear a greater problem if we don’t draw such a line. I fear our time taken away from actual gospel work in favour of pseudo-gospel work driven by culturally misguided views of why the church exists at all. I worry that in a bid to do something good, we will lose what is most good and even communicate what may well prove to be, in the final analysis, detrimental.