I surrendered to the powers and principalities last weekend and signed my first marriage license. I’m sorry Chuck Campbell, who taught me so much about the powers. I’m sorry Stan Saunders, who taught me how to be countercultural. I’m sorry Kim Long, who helped me think about weddings so carefully. But I did it, I signed a marriage license.

Now for most of you, I imagine this strikes you as nothing to be sorry about. And let me be clear: in many ways I signed very happily. It was a wonderful wedding and an honor to preside. Erik and Angela are great for each other, and I see God’s blessing in and through their relationship. It’s nothing about the particular wedding at all, but about the concept of ministers signing marriage licenses in the first place. As I’ve argued for years, in a country where the separation of church and state is upheld so that both might thrive, why in the world are ministers still signing marriage licenses?

I held this perspective even before some states started legalizing gay marriage and others decidedly did not, but our current hodgepodge of marriage laws should make pastors even more suspicious of signing their names to state documents for reasons of their church function. No matter which side of the gay marriage debate you’re on, why do pastors insist in breaking down the wall of church state separation so often and signing our names on the licenses?

Why? Well, I suppose, both out of habit and out of pastoral sensitivity. It is hard to tell a couple whose wedding you’re conducting that you’re not willing to sign the license. That just adds annoyance and expense to an already hectic wedding schedule. And I suppose pastors wiser and smarter than I have been signing licenses for ages. I guess that’s why I relented so quickly when faced with my first wedding.

Ultimately, I tell myself, I signed so happily out of pastoral sensitivity. That makes me feel a little better, I guess, but it could just be a nice story I tell myself to make me feel better.  In the back of my mind I wonder what other strongly held positions I’ll surrender out of “pastoral sensitivity.” Where is the line between pastoral sensitivity and obeying the powers?

I just don’t know, but I know I’m still not comfortable with popping my John Hancock on that license.  Maybe it’s because I’m young and only been ordained for a few months, or maybe it’s because I’m suspicious of institutions telling me what I can and can’t do. Either way, I signed that darn license and a couple is now married in the eyes of the state. Fair enough, I guess, they were already married in the eyes of God — may as well get the tax break. But I’m still not comfortable with what made me break so easily.

image by shho