What we are seeing here is an inability to agree on a definition of marriage, the modern church accomodating a broad range of lifestyles in the name of inclusiveness in order to be 'relevant' to the world. Fornication becoming pretty much meaningless.
I guess we will have to wait for the next revival to understand again how He views such matters.
What we are seeing is that the interplay between ecclesiastical practice and civil arrangements aren't uniform.
Historically, in the Christian Church, a marriage has been two people promising themselves to one another, and usually with the presumption that offspring will be the fruit of that union. However, not all marriages do result in offspring, for any number of potential reasons. And ecclesiastical views themselves differ across traditions and denominational backgrounds. Further, given that the specifics of how a marriage gets done, in a culturally relevant way and in accordance with civil jurisdictions is not (and most certainly never has been) uniform.
The Church functions in a dysfunctional world, the real world, with real people, who are messy and complicated; and the situations and circumstances of life in which people exist is messy and complicated.
I suspect what might be a more accurate observation is simply that many churches, with centuries of tradition and precedent to rely on, are more equipped to address complicated matters of life because the circumstances of life have never been clean and consistent and the Church persists through all these things.
You mentioned earlier atheists seeking baptism purely for business contracts; and yet churches have set precedents for baptismal candidates.
An atheist can't just walk off the street into a church, say "I want to be baptized" and then get baptized right that moment; unless it's an emergency that's not going to happen. What would happen is that such a person would be called and invited into a period of instruction and teaching, it is expected that an adult convert
wants to be a Christian. It's the same reason that two unbelieving parents can't bring their infant child to a church, say, "The mother-in-law wants us to baptize the baby", churches aren't going to go along with that, because essential and intrinsic to baptizing infants is the parent or guardian's intent for the child to be raised in the faith, to under go instruction and teaching and brought up as a Christian.
This, again, is why there seems to be some confusion about traditional baptismal beliefs and practices among historic, traditional churches. We do not believe simply receiving baptism means someone has gained their golden ticket to paradise. Baptism is the new birth, the point at which we are transformed from death to life, being transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Christ. We can rely on this, we can hang our hat on this, because God Himself has staked His own honor here, that the one who has been baptized into Christ has been baptized into Christ's death, and having partaken of His death, are buried with Him, and share in the new life which is in Christ. It is the water the gives drink to the germinating seed, but that seedling still must be nurtured, that is why we are sustained and nourished by the word of God, by the Eucharist, through the preaching, teaching, the Sacraments, the koinonia and life we have together from the Spirit, in Christ, as the Body.
So if a church baptizes a couple who are not formally married, rather than simply assume that this is some kind of sanction of fornication; why not consider the possibility that this represents two thousand years of faithful Christian praxis being put into place, involving a proper understanding of the administering of the Sacrament, and general pastoral care?
-CryptoLutheran
