Interfaith Marriage in America

Erika B. Seamon is a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown University, where she teaches in the American Studies Program and the Theology Department.

"Interfaith Marriage in America is a fascinating and well-researched book about a phenomenon that is of significance not only to a growing number of Americans, but also to our understanding of American religion itself. Adding value to this work is the impressive historical and theological sophistication of Seamon's analysis." - Robert Wuthnow, author of America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity "Here is a scholarly work that looks more positively upon the growing phenomenon of interfaith marriages in the United States than do most commentators. Individuals in these marriages, Erika Seamon notes, are religious innovators: they are building bridges across traditions and in doing so are renegotiating and redefining social and theological boundaries practices that are transforming how many Americans live and practice their faith. An important book for religion scholars and religious leaders alike to read." - Wade Clark Roof, University of California, Santa Barbara "Erika B. Seamon details and creatively analyzes a new phenomenon in America interfaith marriages between partners of all the major religious traditions. Exogamy has always created familial, social, and religious frictions, but the quantity and quality of these new marriages are creating a new 'interfaith space' and reshaping the boundaries between religious traditions. Seamon's work is an informative, creative, and sound introduction to what will surely be an expanding field." - Michael G. Lawler, Amelia and Emil Graff Professor Emeritus of Catholic Theology, Creighton University

• PART I: HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS INTERMARRIAGE: A STORY OF LIBERATION AND SHIFTING BOUNDARIES Seeds of Liberation: Theological and Legal Doors Open in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries An Era of Intra-Religious Marriage: Societal Doors Begin to Open in the Nineteenth Century An Era of Interreligious Marriage: Societal Doors Open in the Twentieth Century PART II: CONTEMPORARY INTERMARRIAGES: A STORY OF NEGOTIATION, INNOVATION, AND THE DEFIANCE OF BOUNDARIES Boundaries and Parameters: Normative Boundaries among Religions and between the Religious and Secular Stories of Contemporary Intermarriages: Paradox and Ambiguity An Era of Interfaith Marriage: The Defiance of Boundaries Transforming Religion and Christianity: The Emergence of Interfaith Space