Today Show/NewsBusters ping.
Frankly, I disagree.
It seems to be a nice compromise. And its probably better than providing them with no religion at all.
Raise a kid with no religion, Jewish or Christian, and might end up with a wacko like Bill Maher.
Baruch habba b'shem Adonai!
If it's insane to raise children in different religions, and I believe it is, why then is it alright if God raises his children in thousands of different denominations, sects, etc.?
I always wondered about that. My friend is Jewish and he married a Christian woman who converted. I know they celebrate both now, although growing up, he always said that doesn't fly with him. I don't understand how you really do both with any real sincerity.
"They were predictably shown admiring both a menorah and a Christmas tree."
When this is considered "equivalency," we're wrong from the get-go.
I think the problems begin when a couple starts dating and one or both of them are not all that serious about practicing their faith, and an expection is formed that religion will not be an issue. They then get married and have children, an event which in many people triggers a renewed interest in their religion, and conflicts arise.
Wow! A Today Show "Holiday Shocker"!
Typically what seems to happen with these couples is that religion is never considered until the kids come along. Why should they think about religion? Everything they learn in school and from the media is that it isn't very important, at least in comparison to career, looks and compatibility.
I'm not surprised that the rabbi was so straightforward about this issue. Interfaith marriages are especially bad for the Jewish community. There was an article on FR awhile back that analyzed the stats on marriages between Jews and Gentiles. Very few of the children of these marriages became practicing Jews as adults. It was something like less than 10% were practicing. Most of the children became non-religious.
Many children of interfaith marriages end up with no religion at all. Sometimes the interfaith marriage is the cause - the child is exposed to two contradictory religions and concludes that religion in general is just a pointless shame.
Other times the interfaith marriage is a result of a bigger problem. Namely parents who do not take their religion seriously. In my experience, if a kid's parents, whether they are Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant don't take their religion seriously, the kid will not be religious at all by the time he or she is an adult. If parents see religion as meaning we go to church or temple a few times a year, we put up nice decorations in December, or we just *are* a religion because our ancestors were and this should have no bearing on our behavior and beliefs, then children will rarely carry this weak faith into adulthood.
Adults who take their faith seriously do a better job of passing their faith on to their kids. But adults like this usually don't marry outside the faith. Usually they insist that their spouse be of the same faith. It's not that they hate other faiths or won't socialize with people of other faiths. But when it comes to the person you spend your life with and raise a family with, faith is usually a non-negotiable.
Meanwhile people who are nominal Catholics, Protestants, and Jews seem to be more likely to marry outside their faith. It doesn't bother them because they don't see religion as being terribly important. So we celebrate different holidays in December, so what? If religion is nothing but different customs then it shouldn't be so hard to combine and compromise. This kind of approach to religion is a sure-fire way to produce children who end up with no religion.
But this isn't an interfaith marriage problem alone. I can think of some nominal Catholics who have married nominal Jews and end up with children who are neither Catholic nor Jewish. But considering the attitudes towards religion that some of these Catholics already had, I can't imagine that if they had married another Catholic who was just as nominal, the children would have turned out any less secular.
People need to learn their faith, live their faith, and love their faith if they want to pass it on to their kids. Often people see an interfaith marriage as an obstacle to doing this. But if one doesn't have the right attitude towards religion, marrying someone of the same religious background will not do much to stop one's children from becoming secular.
People should stay within their respective faiths. There are always people of the same faith to love and marry.
While I'?m glad that the Rabbi pierced the PC template of the Today Show, there are PLENTY of marriages around that survive and flourish when the husband "is one thing", the wife "is another thing"?, and hence the child or children
are "a third thing". In those cases the entire family becomes "the third thing". The key to ALL of it is whether the religious backgrounds held by the parents are the be-all and end=all of personal and family life. OF COURSE it wouldn't work if the Christian husband and Jewish wife, (or vice-versa) are perfectly settled with compromising their faiths with one another, but choose to use the child as a battleground for exacerbating what they thought were comfortably compromised issues held by one another. The rabbi, of course, finds all these questions TERRIBLY IMPORTANT IN AND OF THEMSELVES, as I DO NOT. So maybe that'/s the real problem. OF course, the REAL problems are trying to combine ISLAM with just about anything else.
That is refreshing. Kids appreciate consistancy and honesty in their home, and pretending to be Jewish and Christian is idiotic, not to mention confusing.
I still like the picture of the menorah with the 8 tiny lighted Christmas trees on it.