Courtney McGrailWho Owns Marriage? A Conversation about Religion, Government, Marriage, and civil Society
ed. by Nick Park
(Evangelical Association of Ireland, € 9.99)
Louis Hemmings
Brave the person querying the media-darlings on the same-sex marriage referendum. Even braver the talk show host giving unprejudiced and generous space to cultural contrarians.
Who Owns Marriage? is a first for Irish publishing, drawing together pastors, theologians, atheists and gay activists, edited by Nick Park, the director of the Evangelical Alliance Ireland, from an over-all Evangelical point of view.
In his essay he writes of the dangers of redefining and minimising ‘marriage’. He confidently states that most people take a high view of marriage. Most people yearn for some religious/ceremonial element in a marriage ceremony, other than merely exchanging legal contracts!
Does that universal element indicate a primal religious urge? For Park, our essential identity is not to be covered by some social label.
As our identity is to be in Christ, renders all other labels, whether political, sexual or ethnic, as inappropriate.
All authors present compelling arguments for their strongly held positions. The tone of each contributor is respectful and also forthright. But I was sorry to not see any Muslim or Jewish contributions.
A laudable cornucopia of ideas and concepts, Who Owns Marriage? is a compelling and in the main easy read.