Inculturating the Marriage Service Rite
This issue of Liturgy dealing with “Weddings,” guest-edited by Ruth Meyers, explores the changing face of marriage, reconsiderations about the agency of the couple, and the church’s responses to new understandings of scripture regarding relationships.
What follows is an excerpt from Chun-wai Lam’s essay detailing the considerations that went into revisions of the marriage rite for Anglicans who are Chinese so the cultural familial values could be expressed in the rite itself. Their amendments of the rite are instructive for all churches. –– Melinda Quivik
~~~~~
It has been long held in Chinese society that family ties, with parents as the figureheads, are most essential to achieving one’s personal development and social stability. One of the classical writings that most Confucian teachers would refer to is “Great Learning” (da xue), which was collected in the Book of Ritual (li ji) written long before Confucius was born. It has been influential in the history of China because it states that a learned person regards it as one’s duty to be concerned about the whole world. To achieve the goal, one has to understand the four progressive ways: self-cultivation (xiu shen), regulating the family (qi jia), governing the country (zhi guo), and finally making peace in the world (ping tian xia). In order to move toward the final achievement, that is, to make peace in the world, one has to start by cultivating oneself, or in Christian terms, grow spiritually from within. It is the very basis for a person to be a person. After that, one should start a family, which is the best way to learn how to interact with someone whom one loves and cares for. When one is able to manage one’s family, one can go further to seek a position in the government and to rule the country well. When all can do their parts diligently and respectfully, the peace of the world will only be a small step away. So in a way, family is the testing ground from which one can further explore and develop one’s career to bring stability and peace to the community and the world. From this perspective, marriage in Chinese society is also a cultural expression of one being not only mature and responsible to oneself, but also able to extend one’s concern to others and to one’s surroundings.
This is still believed and upheld by Chinese society in a grave and sober manner, and such familial value has been long expressed in the form of filial piety. The long-standing image of “family” in Chinese culture and society is what we finally considered in developing an inculturated marriage rite. But what was left for composing the IMS [Inculturated Marriage Service Rite] was the question of how the image of family could be inculturated so that it looked both Chinese and Anglican.
We cannot deny the reality that there are quite a large number of Chinese Anglicans who are reluctant to see anything they consider “weird” added to the liturgies, out of their concern for keeping the Anglican liturgy “intact” in order to maintain the beauty, solemnity, and concinnity of Anglican liturgy. It may signal that we are not looking for the kind of liturgical inculturation that stresses exterior expressions, but rather something that can draw people together as long as they feel the marriage service is familiar and accessible. Participation is an important concept not to be ignored. In a word, we preferred to keep the exterior liturgical structure of the Anglican marriage rite intact but make it able to cohere and to connect each and every member of the family under the headship of the parents who are to foster care and nurture of their children, on which filial piety depends.
~~~~~
Lam’s full essay in Liturgy 34, no. 3 is available now online by personal subscription and through many libraries.
Chun-wai Lam, an Anglican priest serving St. Peter’s Church North Point in the Diocese of Hong Kong Island of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, is a member of the Standing Commission on Liturgical Matters and lectures in liturgics in Ming Hua Theological College, Hong Kong.
Chun-wai Lam, “A Marriage Service Rite Inculturated for Use in a Context both Anglican and Chinese,” Liturgy 34, no. 3 (2019): 3-11