No. of Recommendations: 7
I've only been to two weddings in my adult life (three total...). One in 2019, one last weekend. It's dangerous to declare a trend from two weddings but one thing struck me at both. In both cases, the weddings not only weren't IN a physical church, they were not "in" any church at all, in any sense of the word. The officiant at each was a friend of the couple who possibly obtained their credential for conducting a marriage by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to an address in an ad in the back of Rolling Stone. In both weddings, the couples wrote and read their own vows (about 90-120 seconds each) and NOTHING in those vows mentioned anything about God at all.
That doesn't bother me at all but it was interesting to think that organized religion has so thoroughly screwed the proverbial pooch with its protection and coverup of sexual abuse in pretty much every denomination, it has lost all moral authority and claim on the minds of upcoming generations. They DO NOT CARE at all about anything even hinting about religion. I suspect most treat religion as another category of politics -- something they see as completely disconnected from meaningful (positive) impacts on their life and therefore only eyeroll-worthy. And in both of these cases, these were couples of really well-adjusted, hard working kids who seemed to have a really good set of friends around them who are all likely pretty similar in their thinking.
WTH