{"id":6561,"date":"2017-08-07T17:40:03","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T21:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=6561"},"modified":"2017-08-07T17:40:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T21:40:03","slug":"a-secular-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=6561","title":{"rendered":"A secular wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is fun. Though fewer and fewer people want to get married in a church, plenty are willing to seek a retired judge<\/a> to oversee the nuptials.<\/p>\n

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For a long time, people dreaded seeing Justice Alan D. Marrus. <\/p>\n

Justice Marrus spent 30 years on the New York State Supreme Court, so meeting him often meant something had gone terribly wrong.<\/p>\n

In his retirement, Justice Marrus has become one of five Judges for Love, a group of former New York Supreme Court justices who perform civil marriage ceremonies for couples who want more pomp and circumstance than is provided by a quick trip to City Hall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Y’all will probably not be surprised to learn that Albert the Pious is displeased<\/a> by the news.<\/p>\n

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Is it a commitment to the lifelong covenant of marriage? That\u2019s not really likely because these very judges are part of a judicial system that has made possible what\u2019s called no-fault divorce. No, it\u2019s more likely merely that this is what Peter Berger, the late sociologist called, a rumor of transcendence. In his book The Rumor of Angels, he discussed the fact that even in a secular society wants to continue with the trappings of transcendence and that becomes especially acute at ceremonies such as a wedding. There\u2019s no shortage of irony in this story, but this is where Christians have to understand that we know that people are not just seeking a rumor of transcendence. They are actually, whether they know it or not, seeking the real thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The judge lends an air of gravity to the proceedings, which it deserves. And he does that without some nuisance Holy Man reminding everybody that it’s a sin to attach more importance to the wedding vows than his club.<\/p>\n

It isn’t the preacher’s say-so that makes it a marriage; it’s the mutual loyalty and shared ambitions, the striving together to build satisfying lives. Christian teachings, when taken seriously, are an obstacle to that. Win-Win, looks like to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is fun. Though fewer and fewer people want to get married in a church, plenty are willing to seek a retired judge to oversee the nuptials. For a long time, people dreaded seeing Justice Alan D. Marrus. Justice Marrus … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6563,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions\/6563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}