More nuts

Don't you just hate it when people invoke the Bible in support of something and on close inspection the invocation is complete maudlin, sentimental mush? Ok. Perhaps you do not. But I do. With H/T to Christopher Johnson of MidWestConservative, here is Bishop Marc Andrus responding in an interview for the Examiner:

"If there is a key Bible vision that supports Gay Marriage & Same Sex Blessing, please give a Biblical example and explain something of your vision on interpretation? Who else shares this sensibility and understanding we might know or recognize?

The story of the anointing of David by Samuel in which it editorially says that God does not judge as human’s judge, human’s judge by outward appearances, but God sees the human heart. When The Episcopal Church is looking at a human couple who seeks the blessing of the church on their relationship, we humbly attempt to see as God sees, which reveals certain characteristics – love, fidelity, forgiveness, mutuality, humility — all of which The Episcopal Church considers more important than external considerations."

I am not closed to a good, sound, plausible argument in favour of same sex relationships being blessed by ministers of the church. This is not that argument. This is sentimental mush which could not distinguish between me marrying my sister, forming a civil union with my cat, or entering a lifelong partnership with my favourite rose bush.

Progressives, please do better than this!

Not nuts

Some sagacious wisdom here from Darren C. Marks writing for Christianity Today (h/t to Anglican Curmudgeon):

"The sharp-eyed reader will note two things missing from my argument so far. One is positioning the Bible as the only guide to Christian faith. The other is looking at the role of the Holy Spirit. Both are integral to theology. Without them, doctrine and theology become propositions or proof-texting. The opposite of experience is dogmatism, staid religious scholasticism that sucks the life out of a relationship with God.

We have to begin by acknowledging a reality that rightly makes us nervous: All Christian theology helps us interpret the Bible. Theology is what helps us read disparate writings that span thousands of years and arise out of cultures very different from ours. Further, the Bible comprises many texts that address specific problems in specific places (e.g., sexual immorality in Corinth). It presents ideas that at times seem current and at other times obscure. One seemingly crystal-clear verse (Gal. 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek …") or book (Philemon on slavery) can be interpreted by the faithful in a variety of ways. The earliest Christians knew this all too well.

The first three centuries of Christianity featured a running dialogue with the Bible. In their theology, the earliest Christians had to avoid reading the Bible as too Jewish, too Gentile, too focused on Peter, too focused on Paul, too focused on faith, or too focused on works. To read the Bible through only one interpretive lens could lead to false conclusions, like denying the Trinity or Jesus' humanity or divinity. In each case, a simple reading of a passage, usually through the reader's cultural lens, resulted in a distortion of Christian life. Those who found little biblical evidence for what was emerging as the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, usually ended up with a Christ who never knew humanity (docetism) or a Jesus who was not fully God (Arianism). Thus, doctrine became a yardstick by which to measure various readings and help Christians pinpoint the essentials.

To some people, this will sound like the Bible is not primary, that theological discourse needs to correct Scripture. This could lead some to see the Bible as an interesting historical document to get us started, not the active Word of God that shapes us. And some argue that Christianity is more a communal practice than a personal relationship with the living God. (Schleiermacher would likely agree with that statement.)

But, at its best, Christian theology has never understood itself to be merely a human reflection on contingent truths. The best theology grounds itself in Scripture as the revealed Word of God, not in the religious experiences of ancient people. Scripture's authority is not something that the community relates to first with its own experience. Instead, as Martin Luther put it, Scripture bears authority because it bears Christ—because it points unequivocally and majestically in grace to the living God. Scripture interrogates the community. Because it can be a difficult task to hear Christ speak clearly in Scripture, the church has used theology to test that interrogation. Some may read or hear Scripture in a new manner under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as the 18th- and 19th-century abolitionists did regarding slavery. Theology tests such new readings by asking questions of both the text and the church, helping to clarify the movement of the Spirit."

The article is found here. It is six webpages. The excerpt cited here is from pages 3-4.

Nuts

Here I reproduce a reflection following the TEC HoB theological reports on same sex relationships. It's by George Clifford. What do you think?

"The report, “Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church,” commissioned by the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops and published this Lent merits widespread study within both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion (unless otherwise noted, page numbers refer to this document). The report avoided an overly facile effort to reconcile the diametrically opposed positions about whether the Church should bless same-sex marriages. Instead, the Committee recruited a panel of four Christian ethicists to delineate the arguments against same-sex marriage and another panel of four Christian ethicists the arguments in favor of same-sex marriage, and then each panel responded to the contrary position.

The view with which I profoundly disagree, that against recognizing same-sex marriage (“Same-Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology: A View from the Traditionalists,” pp. 1-39), prompted some fresh reflections about natural law. The traditionalists correctly contend that natural law (as heretofore understood) supports heterosexual but not same-sex marriage. The panel does not inquire whether the received interpretation of natural law might be wrong. Had the panel done so, its members might have altered their views.

Natural law claims to identify principles or “laws” that govern the natural world. Pre-Enlightenment “scientists” often defined those laws based upon a priori arguments or scriptural interpretation rather than the scientific method (determining the validity of a hypothesis by measuring its predictive power). The Enlightenment heralded a new and enduring reliance on the scientific method, triggering a succession of clashes between conflicting understandings of natural processes. The sixteenth century dispute between proponents of a geo-centric and helio-centric solar system was one such clash.

In the twenty-first century, “discerning the sexual pattern in creation” (p. 22) probably demarcates another pending clash. As the traditionalists note in their report, the natural law tradition has until now argued, in species with two genders, that heterosexual relationships and reproduction are normative (pp. 31-33).

Although scientific data remains inconclusive in the estimation of the traditionalists (p. 25), the weight of accumulating data points increasingly toward proving the assessment of heterosexual relationships and reproduction as normative wrong. Nature exhibits incredible diversity and contending that any one pattern of sexual behavior is normative has become very problematic. That natural diversity has become more apparent as researchers greatly improve the accuracy of their observations, vastly expand the quantity of observations, and compile an every growing, ever more fully nuanced body of evidence based theory.

The following seem relevant to any discussion of natural law and human relationships:
• All life forms appear to have evolved from a common source.
• Patterns of behavior in other life forms, especially in primates may therefore shed light on human behavior.
• Some animal species, including chimps with whom humans share 96% of their genome, exhibit diverse mating patterns, i.e., both opposite and same-sex.
• Some of these relationships, both opposite and same-sex, are monogamous and last for years.
• Reproductive patterns among species with two sexes also vary widely, e.g., species in which some females morph into males, a species in which male fish mate by biting a female’s back and then being permanently absorbed into the female to ensure a ready supply of sperm, etc.
• Some same-sex non-human animal couples rear offspring.
In other words, the implicit presumption of natural law as traditionally formulated that only heterosexual couples mate, procreate, and nurture children is wrong. (For a highly readable synopsis of current research on gay animals, cf. Jon Mooallem, “Can Animals Be Gay?” New York Times, April 3, 2010.)

The traditionalists candidly remark (p. 16) that attempting to learn what the Bible says about same-sex relationships “involves looking to it for answers to questions it does not pose, at least not in the form we want to ask them. The notion of same-sex marriage did not exist in Scripture or in its contemporary contexts.” The Anglican tradition only maintains that the Bible is the repository of all information necessary for salvation and not all important or even useful information (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 513, 526).

In the absence of biblical answers to our questions, we have no choice but to search for other approaches to find answers to our questions. One of those approaches may be natural law, which, as outlined above, offers a far more complex and nuanced picture of relationships and reproduction than the historic formulation of natural law presumes. (I have admittedly formulated that picture to support my views as strongly as possible but the actual picture does not cohere to the historic view of natural law and is complex.) Another approach relies not on specific passages but broad biblical themes to extract from them a tentative answer. The Liberals utilized this method in “A Theology of Marriage including Same-Sex Couples: A View from the Liberals” (pp. 40-69).

Within the Christian tradition, views about marriage have evolved as Christians faithfully sought to interpret Scripture in the light of both tradition and reason. For example, Christian thinking about marriage shifted from marry if you must to avoid sin (expecting an imminent parousia, celibacy is better), to sex is only for the purpose of procreation, to marriage is for the community’s benefit, the mutual well-being of both partners, and the procreation and nurture of children.

My reading of the traditionalist position in the report is that this last issue – procreation of children – constitutes the major obstacle to accepting gay unions as marriage. Obviously, the traditionalists interpose other objections to the idea of same-sex relationships, such as natural law and their understanding of what the Bible teaches. The traditionalists do not seem to question the mutual well-being that a same-sex relationship may provide the two partners. The value to the community of same-sex relationships is largely a function of the degree to which that community accepts or rejects such relationships.

People today can procreate a child through intercourse, in utero artificial insemination, or in vitro fertilization with subsequent embryo implant in either one of the partner’s wombs or a surrogate’s womb. Perhaps can also “procreate” by adopting a child(ren). Most of theological and ethical thinking is woefully inadequate with respect to procreation in the twenty-first century, cf. Ellen Painter Dollar’s three part essay, “Why Episcopalians need to care about reproductive ethics,” Daily Episcopalian, March 9, 2010. If nothing else, available procreation options offer all couples, regardless of their gender composition, the option of having children. Even as improved insights into how the world functions call for an updated natural theology, so do scientific advances that expand the options for procreation call for Christians to rethink associated theological and ethical concepts.

Neither the release of “Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church” nor the upcoming consecration of the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool as Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese Los Angeles has led to a cataclysmic outpouring of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and consternation among most Episcopalians. Easter is dawning! In the meantime, thanks be to God that dialogue continues, at least some of the discourse exhibits Christian respect for the dignity and worth of those who disagree, and the Episcopal Church in good Anglican fashion continues to incorporate diverse viewpoints.


The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh and blogs at Ethical Musings."

I think this is nuts. The normative pattern in creation for reproduction, as exemplified by vast numbers of people, is man+woman*sex=child. Possibilities otherwise are available. Does anyone know anyone who has resorted to them save in the sorrow of man+woman*sex=child not being possible? Statements like this, "Nature exhibits incredible diversity and contending that any one pattern of sexual behavior is normative has become very problematic." means what? That all sorts of variations take place within humanity all the time? Not in my world. That world is heteronormative. And it is resolutely so. There are exceptions. But they are rare, and certainly not normative. But I do understand one thing about these kinds of views: they have a hold on a lot of people and they drive a lot of Western society's movers and shakers. Well, let's see where this world-view takes us. But one place I guarantee it will not take us to is this: a healthy, growing Western population.

Girard

I have heard of this guy. Not read his works. Probably should have. But, via Fulcrum, came across a link to an introduction to his thought, by James Alison.

Some taster/tasty paragraphs ... and as you read them, could be worth thinking about some ways in which we make certain people in the church the 'fall guys or girls' for the chaotic, tempestuous state we seem to be in:

"Readers with theological antennae will-quickly grasp the significance of this: the possibility of an anthropology which is, at last, compatible with the Catholic faith. If human desire is in principle a good thing, however distorted and inflected it may become by differing sorts of violence in practice, then at last we begin to be able to make anthropological sense of the Church’s teaching on Original Sin – that the Fall did not make us essentially corrupt in such a way that there is no possible reasonable link at all between our ways and God’s ways, God’s action and our action. However, there is nothing rose-tinted about Professor Girard’s understanding of desire (in fact, he is usually accused by those who read him too fast of far too grim a view of human desire). Professor Girard is well aware that human culture since its inception has been lived out with human desire distorted into rivalry and violence leading to and flowing from death.

What he is able to show (exhaustively) is the relationship between that distorted human desire and the foundational mechanism of what he calls surrogate victimage (more popularly called “The Scapegoat Mechanism”). That is to say, human desire, as we live it (and thus the formation from within of our ‘self’ and our consciousness) derives, as a cultural fact, from desire becoming distorted by rivalry, until there is a point where there is so much group violence that unanimity (and thus peace and the avoidance of the collapse of the group) can only be restored when, apparently mysteriously, all become fixated on someone who can be held responsible for the collapse of unity and order within the group and then expelled, permitting the establishment of a new social unity over against the expelled one.

That is to say, an act of collective fratricide against a victim is foundational to all human cultures, with its being absolutely vital for the cultures so founded that they believe in the culpability of the rejected one (or group), and continue to bolster up this belief by forging prohibitions, myths and rituals.

Professor Girard had assumed that the Jewish and Christian sacred texts would show exactly the same thing as all other ancient texts and myths – the threat of collapsing social unity leading to violence and the emergence of a new peace around the cadaver of the victim. To his amazement he found that although they did exactly that – they really are structured around sacralised violence – there was a unique and astonishing difference: the Jewish texts, starting with Cain and Abel – gradually dissociate the divinity from participation in the violence until, in the New Testament, God is entirely set free from participation in our violence – the victim is entirely innocent, and hated without cause – and indeed God is revealed not as the one who expels us, but the One whom we expel, and who allowed himself to be expelled so as to make of his expulsion a revelation of what he is really like, and of what we really, typically do to each other, so that we can begin to learn to get beyond this."

The whole essay is here.

Helpful summary of TEC House of Bishops report

Thanks Church Times!