Melissa and Abed Abouhassam of West Jordan have been married for five years now. They have a 2-year-old son, and Abed is a good stepfather to Melissa's 7-year-old. Their marriage is working so well, in fact, that Melissa's family has come to accept him. At first, she says, "they didn't want me to marry an Arab."
Of course, Melissa and Abed's differences go a little deeper than having been born on separate continents. She was raised Catholic, and he was raised Muslim.
The Abouhassams are one of an increasing number of American couples marrying outside the faith they were born to. According to a 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 22 percent of U.S. households have more than one faith under the same roof. (The survey says Latter-day Saints are the least likely to be living in a multifaith house — only 12 percent do — and Episcopalians and Buddhists are the most likely — at 42 percent and 39 percent, respectively.) In all, more than 28 million Americans must negotiate with their spouses about God, deciding where to worship and how to celebrate religious holidays.
The Abouhassams talked about religion before they married, Melissa says. They still had things to work out as they went along.
In their home, the children celebrate Christmas and Easter as well as the holy days of Islam. Melissa doesn't go to church. Abed takes the 7-year-old to the mosque with him every week. When the 2-year-old is a little older, he'll go, too.
This is how their family operates, she says. She's sure other interfaith couples have their own ways.
In fact, there have been hundreds of studies on interfaith marriage over the past 20 years. Recently, the director of the Center for Marriage and Family at Creighton University (a Jesuit college in Nebraska) wrote a one-paragraph summary of more than 80 of these studies:
For the most part, the studies bear out the common belief: Two-faith marriages are less stable than one-faith marriages. (A few of the newer studies concluded that the difference in divorce rates was too small to be significant.
And more on divorce rates: One study found that Protestant fundamentalists who marry each other have more divorces than interfaith couples, even though their church frowns on divorce. Intensity can be a problem, too, another study found. Even a one-faith marriage can suffer if one spouse changes after the wedding, if one spouse becomes more or less devout.
Of local interest: A 1981 study showed that interfaith marriages involving Latter-day Saints are less stable than Catholic/Protestant marriages.
Several of the studies include a call to action, urging pastors and priests to be more supportive of interfaith couples. Authors urged clergy to recognize each other's baptisms and to work to keep families together. Many theologians see divisions among Christians as basically unchristian. A few go further, urging clergy to accept Christian/Muslim or Muslim/Jewish or Jewish/Hindu unions.
Of course, there are religious leaders of all faiths who call for an end to intermarriage. Writing in response to a survey that showed Americans are accepting of interfaith marriages, Rabbi Jerome Epstein, vice-president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said:
Can it be that the 57 percent of those surveyed who stated that they would approve of rabbinic co-officiation at intermarriages with Gentile clergy really believe that this will create a meaningful Jewish experience? Do the 70 percent who want their rabbis to officiate at intermarriages truly believe that such rabbinic involvement is an appropriate Jewish value based upon their commitment to Jewish living? Can it be that the 56 percent who were either 'neutral' or 'positive' about the marriage between a Jew and a Gentile really believe that such a marriage is ideal for creating a Jewish family?
Epstein also says that just because you are passionate about your own religion doesn't mean you reject people who marry outside the faith. You still love them. They are still part of your community. You hope they will raise their children in the faith.
One study points out the obvious: After people of different faiths marry, a spouse may decide to join the faith of the other spouse. (In most cases, surveys show, the less devout spouse is the one to switch.) Or each spouse could continue in his or her own faith, but raise the children in one faith. Or the family might embrace both faiths.
Dana and Bill Tumpowsky's marriage followed the first pattern. She was raised Lutheran and he was raised Jewish, and from the beginning she knew their children would be Jewish. This was not a major hurdle, since she didn't exactly crave children. ("I had taught at a boarding school," she explains.)
The couple married in a civil ceremony in 1985. In those days, in Salt Lake City, you couldn't find a rabbi who would marry an interfaith couple, she says. The Tumpowskys went along quite happily for a few years, until one day some friends invited them for Passover. Dana loved the family's children, "bright, charming and polite teens," and she loved the holiday, "a family meal with a purpose." All on her own, and much to Bill's surprise, Dana began religious instruction. After a year of classes and preparation, she converted.
When their children were small, Dana spearheaded the family's involvement in the congregation in Park City. "I've really worked very hard at knowing all I can about Jewish cooking, inviting others to our home for Passover, just to provide that family link. I work on the family support," she says. "And we go to services pretty regularly."
Tumpowsky explains why she was able to let go of Christianity. Even as a child, she says, when she learned about the Trinity, her main focus was never on the Son or Holy Ghost, but on God. She finds the God she has always known in Judaism.
As for the Abouhassam family, Melissa was not extremely devout before she married. She has not converted to Islam. She is happy to let Abed be responsible for the children's religious education, happy to let him plan and carry out the family's Islamic holidays.
She is not Muslim, but she has been embraced by her Muslim in-laws, she is glad to report. Three years ago, as the family prepared to visit Lebanon, friends warned her that her older son would not be accepted by her husband's parents. But when they got there, the elder Abouhassams welcomed the boy as if he were their biological grandson.
Where to raise the children was not part of the discussion for John and Martha Wunderli, of Salt Lake City. Their children, from previous marriages, are grown. So it is just the two of them in church, every Sunday, first at her Episcopal cathedral and then at his LDS ward.
The couple married in Elko. Neither has ever said to the other, "Oh, I wish you belonged to my church." John says, "We've stayed away from that. We just feel very comfortable in both places. I've done a lot in the LDS Church. I'm still doing a lot. But I enjoy, I actually enjoy, the Episcopal service. And the people — I like!"
Yes, this is exactly what a man named Mohammed, who lives in Sandy, wants his children to know. That all religions teach people to be good. Maybe if there were more religious diversity within the families, more respect and understanding, we would not be having the problems we are having in the Middle East, he says.
It is because of those problems, and because he is Muslim, that Mohammed doesn't want his last name or his photo in the newspaper.
Mohammed and his wife, Leslie, met in college in Idaho. Later they ran into each other again. They dated for three years before they got engaged. In their mid-30s, they married. Perhaps thinking they were old enough to make their own decisions, their families offered no opinion on their Protestant/Muslim alliance.
Today, Leslie explains, they are raising their 9-year-old and 6-year-old in both faiths. The kids go to her church and his mosque and they take Arabic lessons after school.
She doesn't speak Arabic too well herself, Leslie says. Nor does she know as much as she would like about Islam. But she respects it. "We don't wear our shoes in the house. We don't eat pork. We celebrate Ramadan." And also Christmas.
Whether you pray to Allah or God doesn't matter, Leslie tells her children. What matters is to be honest.
Before Sept. 11, Mohammed was somewhat complacent. He and Leslie have Jewish in-laws and LDS in-laws, and he was happy in his interfaith world. After the terrorism, he decided he needed to get involved in the mosque. To make sure his children were learning from a moderate Muslim, he began teaching their religion classes himself. "I am teaching my children the religion the way I learned it back home" in Egypt, he says. "They are young, but they will grow and they will know Islam and Christianity."
E-mail: susan@desnews.com