Pastor Physical Challenge: Perform A Wedding Ceremony Without Mentioning God at All

A close buddy of mine who I work with told me recently that in July, he is going to be performing a wedding for a relative.

Only one catch. He can't mention God.

Apparently, his relatives aren't cool with the idea of God. In fact, they made it very clear to my buddy that they want NO reference whatsoever to God in his message. You have to kind of wonder why they'd ask a full-time pastor to do that. Kind of like going to a puppy and saying, "Okay, no cute stuff, okay. No jumping, or licking or wagging your tail or any of that nonsense, okay?"

Personally, I don't know how I'd talk about a marriage with a reference to God. This is all I could come up with.

Areligious Marriage Ceremony

Dearly beloved.

We are gathered here together in the presence of friends and family and - well, that's pretty much it - to witness this sacred celebration. And by sacred I mean, like, not transcendent in any way, really, except that invitations went out, which makes this event more special than normal because it's not everyday that you get a invitation to something. Except for kid's birthday parties, which also has invitations, and cake. But is far less formal. As you can tell by the tuxes and fancy dresses.

At any rate, we're here to see this man and this woman pledge their undying love to each other - and by "undying" I'm certainly not referring that there is an eternity or an after-life. It's more a figure of speech, really. Like, "It's hotter than Hades," which does not, on its face assume that hell exists, just if it did, it'd probably be hot, which is more a reference to popular notions of eternal damnation - made more palpable by literary works like " The Inferno" by Dante - than anything else.

So, these rings symbolize...well...metal. Because as we've already noted, we're not going to start discussing ideas or concepts that are higher than the physical plane. And symbol clearly points to something deeper, which is something clearly not present here.

So will you join me as these two lumps of carbon and water vapor pledge to be in reasonable proximity to each other for an extended period of time, until their biological processes cease.

Amen. Uhh, I mean. The End.