Covenant Marriage In Comparative Perspective

Covenant marriages requiring premarital counseling and tighter strictures on divorce have recently emerged in some American states. At the same time, the doctrine of covenant has reemerged in religious circles as a common way to map the spiritual dimensions of marriage. Covenant Marriage in Comparative Perspective brings together eminent scholars from Jewish, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic religious traditions as well as experts on American covenant marriage. The introduction carries out an unprecedented comparison of contract and covenant in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim understandings of marriage. The rest of the book elucidates various facets of marriage from the perspectives of both jurisprudence and religion, producing an enlightening integrated picture of the legal and spiritual dimensions of marriage.

The New Covenant as a Paradigm for Optimal Relations regards the New Covenant primarily as a gracious and merciful redemptive deal, springing from God's unilateral, unconditional, and proactive initiative. The New Covenant is adopted as representing both a salvific and an exemplary paradigm that displays God's gracious and merciful ways toward his children. Ten discrete, yet interwoven principles are extracted from, interpreted, and abstracted from Scriptures pertaining to the promised New Covenant. These principles apply to those who, as dearly beloved children, are invited to imitate God's loving ways. God's manner of love defines the foundational basis from which the author derives and elaborates the propositions that guide the considerations pertaining to thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors that enter into play in relational transactions. In terms of style, an architectural design permeates the content of this book, offering and encompassing a metacognitive view of God's covenantal ways: a top-down perspective that applies to bottom-up endeavors of relational nature. The challenges posed by our cultural, postmodern trends--devoid of absolute principles and lacking a moral compass--are countered and addressed by the author in insightful fashion, offering theologically-based guidelines integrated to sound psychological principles, applicable to psychotherapeutic and counseling endeavors as well as to pastoral care.

American family law makes two key assumptions: first, that the civil state possesses sole authority over marriage and divorce; and second, that the civil law may contain only one regulatory regime for such matters. These assumptions run counter to the multicultural and religiously plural nature of our society. This book elaborates how those assumptions are descriptively incorrect, and it begins an important conversation about whether more pluralism in family law is normatively desirable. For example, may couples rely upon religious tribunals (Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise) to decide family law disputes? May couples opt into stricter divorce rules, either through premarital contracts or 'covenant marriages'? How should the state respond? Intentionally interdisciplinary and international in scope, this volume contains contributions from fourteen leading scholars. The authors address the provocative question of whether the state must consider sharing its jurisdictional authority with other groups in family law.

Regardless how you interpret the statistics, the divorce rate in the United States is staggering. But, what if the government could change this? Would families be better off if new public policies made it more difficult for couples to separate? This book explores a movement that emerged over the past fifteen years, which aims to do just that. Guided by certain politicians and religious leaders who herald marriage as a solution to a range of longstanding social problems, a handful of state governments enacted "covenant marriage" laws, which require couples to choose between a conventional and a covenant marriage. While the familiar type of union requires little effort to enter and can be terminated by either party unilaterally, covenant marriage requires premarital counseling, an agreement bound by fault-based rules or lengthy waiting periods to exit, and a legal stipulation that divorce can be granted only after the couple has received counseling. Drawing on interviews with over 700 couples-half of whom have chosen covenant unions-this book not only evaluates the viability of public policy in the intimate affairs of marriage, it also explores how growing public discourse is causing men and women to rethink the meaning of marriage.

Domestic violence is a significant threat to women’s survival. But Christian understandings of marriage often prevent women from resisting abusive relationships. Can the Church’s teaching on marriage be reshaped so that it helps women to survive, rather than encourage them to submit to their husband, bear their cross, or sacrifice themselves for the sake of their marriage? Focusing on everyday practices of marriage in two very different contexts: Argentina and England, Reimagining Theologies of Marriage in Contexts of Domestic Violence considers how Christian understandings of marriage as a covenant or sacrament relate to the lived experience of marriage. Drawing on Augustine’s notion of the goods of marriage, and on belief in the saving power of marriage, this book suggests that only when the wellbeing of bodies is central to a marriage can it have the power to save.

Seamon explores the historical, theological, and societal dynamics of religious intermarriage as a way to introduce scholars to the myriad of factors that have contributed and will continue to contribute to the complete transformation of religion and Christianity in the twenty-first century.

In Intimate Diversity Paul Smith explores the question, 'What grace can be found in the gift of interreligious marriage?' He investigates the experience of interfaith couples for theological themes and from a mssional standpoint.

This remarkable study offers a comprehensive explanation of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sacrament of marriage. Incorporating the rich insights found in St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Dr. Cahall presents a theology of marriage that incorporates the biblical, systematic, pastoral, and historical traditions which have shaped our understanding of this sacrament.