As a Christian, I married an atheist. He is a hardworking and responsible man, and supports me in going to church and having a prayer life, but an issue has come up: he likes heavy metal rock music. Honestly, it has been a shock because I wish he would spend time in prayer with me, but as I said, he is an atheist. Now I’m not sure if I rushed into getting married…. I don’t know what to do.
Dear Friend,
It is amazing and wonderful that your atheist husband supports you in going to church and in having a prayer life. We hope that you let him know often how much you appreciate it.
When followers of Christ are willing to date people and then fall in love with them in spite of knowing that those people are not followers of Christ, they end up in situations such as yours. You have put a priority on going to church to worship God and on praying when outside of church. But when you dated and then married an atheist, your highest priority was on having a romantic relationship and not on seeking God’s will for your life.
The Bible is full of stories of people who claimed to love God, yet married people who worshipped other gods or no god at all. And in almost every case, the follower of God eventually abandoned Him and instead began to worship the idols and statues that their spouse worshipped.
With this pattern that we find repeatedly in the Bible, you should have never expected that your atheist husband would pray with you, go to church with you, or listen to the music that you prefer. You say that you have been shocked that he has those preferences, but we are bewildered by how they could have shocked you. Did you not know the meaning of the word atheist? Or are you one of the naïve young women who think that they will be able to change their husbands after the marriage ceremony?
It’s time for you to face facts. Your husband did not deceive you. You agreed to marry him knowing that he was an atheist. He accepted you as a follower of Christ, and has even been supportive of your church attendance and prayer. Yet even though you accepted him as an atheist, you are now not supportive of his music or his lack of desire to pray with you.
No wonder you question if you made a mistake by marrying him! However, it doesn’t matter if you made a mistake or not. You made vows to love him and be faithful to him for your entire lifetime, so you can’t reconsider your vows just because you have finally understood the consequences of what you did.
Be thankful for the ways that your husband supports you. Don’t nag him for more. Don’t preach to him with words; instead, preach to him by the way that you live and the way that you treat him. He is observing you as the true-to-life version of what a Christ follower really is.
We wish you well,
Linda