can we marry?

Dear Suzie, my boyfriend is a christian and i am not. i will never understand what he believes in and i don’t think i want to be a christian. the problem is that he cannot marry a non christian yet we love each other so much. i really don’t know what to do.

You could stay as an unmarried couple but I’m afraid if you want to marry there ARE only two choices; you become a believer or he marries a non-believer. Or you split up. One of you, or this relationship, has to give.

It has always struck me as deeply ironic that a religion allegedly based on brotherly love and tolerance seems, in some hands, to be so unkind and intolerant. But there you are. If I could wave a magic wand and make the world’s religions and the world’s religious less insular, fanatical and bigoted, I would. Since I can’t I’m afraid you and your boyfriend will have to work this out yourself.

All I can say is that I would find someone who preaches, or agrees to, a creed that says so much about forbearance and acceptance but then says “But only our side can play” may not be someone I’d want to share my life with. What happens if you convert, and then find he has a further list of things you have to do or not do, believe or be or not be in order to be considered okay? If he can’t love you for yourself, is it worth it? But that’s just my prejudice, you might say.

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