Interfaith America: 'Being both' is a rising trend in the US

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http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2014/1123/Interfaith-America-Being-both-is-a-rising-trend-in-the-US

Interfaith marriages that remain with mixed-faith partners has shot up to 40 percent, from 20 percent in the 1960s. And raising interfaith families is increasingly common and supported by a growing number of grass-roots organizations.

By Stephanie Hanes, Correspondent NOVEMBER 23, 2014



The Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, D.C., a faith community integrating Christian and Jewish traditions, has weekly gatherings at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, Md.
Ann Hermes/Staff

KENSINGTON, MD. — Jean Tutt was a freshman at Harper College in Palatine, Ill., when she met Brian Saucier. He was not at all her type, she recalls – but not because of their different religions. He had long hair and wore a denim jacket with skulls on it; she had more the button-down cardigan style. He was a member of the College Republicans, while she was a fairly uninterested Democrat. Considering all this, the fact that she was Jewish and he was Roman Catholic barely registered.

Then the two got to know each other better. Jean realized she liked Brian’s sarcastic sense of humor and found him to be incredibly kind. They started dating, and by the time they graduated, they’d decided to marry.

And then, the religions did matter. While they hadn’t cared much about their faith differences while dating – the attitude still held by the majority of Americans under 35 – they wanted to get a better sense of how their mixed family would work before they tied the knot. Neither wanted to convert – the standard solution a generation ago when people of different faiths wanted to get married. And neither wanted to drop his or her religious affiliations, which is another typical path today for the rapidly growing number of American interfaith couples.

Then they discovered the Jewish-Catholic Couples Dialogue Group – a support network for interfaith couples that was connected to the Chicago Interfaith Family School, which taught both Catholicism and Judaism. The people involved were welcoming, and had a message nearly unthinkable a generation ago: It was possible, even advantageous, to raise a family that was actively and faithfully two religions.

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