Pastors Sign Pledge to Separate Christian, Civil Marriage

Heather Sells
12-31-1969

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A new LifeWay Research survey on marriage and an online pledge drive shows support for a movement to further separate church and state roles in marriage.

Six in 10 responding to the survey said the government should not define or regulate marriage. More than a third also said that clergy should get out of the civil marriage business.

LifeWay researchers interviewed 2,000 Americans and 1,000 Protestant senior pastors.

Only a quarter of the pastors surveyed agreed, however, that clergy should give up on performing civil weddings. Right now, most U.S. clergy are able to sign legally binding marriage licenses.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pastors have joined an online pledge saying they will no longer sign the licenses.

The conservative Christian magazine First Things is sponsoring the drive.

The pledge states, "We will ask couples to seek civil marriage separately from their church-related vows and blessings. We will preside only at those weddings that seek to establish a Christian marriage in accord with the principles articulated and lived out from the beginning of the Church's life."

CBN News spoke with Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research, about the survey and trend towards separating Christian marriage from civil marriage.

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim
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