Redefining so fundamental an institution as marriage should be preceded by a lot of hard thinking about the consequences, and the burden of proof should be set quite high. So far, the hard thinking has mostly been replaced by the equivalent of “Oh, what the hell – why not?” or question-begging slogans like “marriage equality” (the begged question being “what is marriage?”)

There’s no miracle cure for insouciance or sentimentality, but some people are just so busy that they don’t have time to think things through on their own. I’ve thought about the issues a lot, but I’ve been aware that time constraints (if not the constraint of waning cognition) have left me short of the clarity I wanted.

Fortunately, some people really have given this a lot of thought. I’ve been tutored a lot lately by people who’ve either come at it from the somewhat abstract direction of natural law or who have broken out of that mold and just considered practical consequences carefully. But none of the arguments are, so far as anyone has convinced me thus far, compelling in any 5-second sound bite format. Apprehending them, let alone comprehending them, takes sustained attention that’s rare these days.

To start with, when the characterization “redefining marriage” is uttered, I’ve come to realize that many people hear it as something like this:

I have a deep and irrational hatred of gay men and lesbians, but I recognize that such hatred is socially unacceptable. So I’m going to gussy it up with some pseudo-principles and imaginary history.

(Convention requires that I now deny hatred: I do deny it, and that’s all I’m going to say. This isn’t about me.)

I can illustrate, from recent essays by Robin Phillips why “redefining” is quite an appropriate term (along the way hinting at some baneful consequences of the redefinition). The fundamental redefinition involves eliminating the element of consummation from the concept of a real (i.e., complete) marriage:

It is interesting … that in the literature of the gay and lesbian community, the specifically sexual dimensions of marriage are increasingly being downplayed, and that is why I have argued elsewhere … that same-sex ‘marriage’ carries with it many Gnostic assumptions about the body.

The de-emphasis of the physical dimensions of marriage has resulted in the UK government announcing that the concept of consummation and non-consummation will be inapplicable to ‘marriages’ conducted by homosexuals. When the news surfaced … that the government had decided that both consummation and adultery couldn’t be committed by two people of the same sex, many people puzzled at this, even though it was the logical outworking of the sex-less descriptions of “union” propagated amongst the agitators for gay marriage. You see, once our understanding of “union” in marriage is reduced to “a loving relationship between two committed adults”, then what two people do with their bodies becomes extrinsic rather than intrinsic to that union. But in that case, it is possible, in principle, for gay marriages to occur between two people who are celibate. By contrast, for a heterosexual marriage to be “consummated” (that is, to be a fully complete marriage), there is an act the husband and wife must perform with their bodies. Hang on to that thought, because it has profound ramifications for how we understand the family’s relationship to the state.

…

In the case of the conjugal view, there is an empirical reality we can point to when establishing whether a relationship is really a marriage, or at least a complete and consummated marriage. Have they had sexual intercourse? But we have seen that there is no corresponding empirical reality that can constitute what it means to be in a marriage regulated by the first definition [“a committed and loving relationship between two consenting adults”]. Indeed, a person might have a “committed and loving relationship” with any number of other persons without it being marriage.

Now precisely because of this, the only way that a committed and loving relationship can be upgraded into marriage is if the state steps in and declares that relationship to be a marriage, in much the same way as the state might declare something to be a corporation or some other legal entity. By contrast, conjugal marriages have and could exist without the state’s recognition because it is fundamentally a pre-political institution. Marriage is pre-political in the sense that it has intrinsic goods attached to it, not least of which is the assurance of patrimony and thus the integrity of inheritance. Such goods do not exist by the state’s fiat even though the state may recognize, regulate or protect them.

An imaginary example should make my meaning clear. If an unmarried man and a woman are shipwrecked on an island together with no one else around, and they decide to be husband and wife, it is meaningful to talk about them getting married and having a family even in the absence of a civil government … By contrast, one cannot say the same about two homosexual men or two homosexual women on an island who decide to get “married”. Without the mechanisms of the state to confer the status of marriage upon two members of the same sex, there are no acts that organically mark the relationship out as being marriage within a state of nature. Indeed, the philosophy behind same-sex marriage is one which makes both marriage and family entirely the construct, and therefore the province, of positive law.

…

Since consummation is unnecessary for a same-sex union to be called a complete marriage (even putting aside the question of what would count as consummation within a same-sex context), then what determines whether or not a heterosexual marriage is complete? Either we can have two separate non-equal definitions of marriage, or we can realize the logical consequence of same-sex marriage and say that the only thing left to determine what actually makes something a complete marriage or a legitimate family is the law itself.

Why Gay ‘Marriage’ is a Public Threat (part 1 ) (emphasis and hyperlinks in the original)

[P]eople do not understand what a fundamental revision of family law will be required to accommodate gay marriage. For example, in my secular job, I work for the state child support agency, and so deal with questions of paternity and marriage regularly. In our current legal system, the law presumes that any child born within a marriage is the child of the married couple — that presumption can be rebutted with evidence to the contrary, if the husband wish to make that case in court (usually in a divorce), but that is the presumption. When I was born, I did not have a DNA test to prove who my father was, and when my children were born, they did not have a DNA test. We also did not need to go to court to establish that I was the father, because by law, that was presumed to be the case. If you have two lesbians that are married, can we presume that the other woman is the father of the child if their “spouse” has a child? And if they later divorce, and the other spouse wanted to rebut the presumption that they were the parent with DNA (which obviously would not be hard to do), should they be let off the hook when it comes to child support? Does the actual biological father have no rights in such a case? Should such a child have two parents on their birth certificate, or three? These are the kinds of questions that will rewrite our family law if we throw this monkey wrench into the works.

…

The fact is that if the government gets out of “the marriage business” it will result in the government becoming more involved in our personal lives rather than less, because the government will have to set up new laws and new mechanisms to deal with issues that we have always dealt with by basic principles of family law that automatically come into play when a man and a woman are married.

Fr. John Whiteford, quoted in Why Gay ‘Marriage’ is a Public Threat (part 2). I’m tempted to boil that down, but again, it seems to require sustained argument to make the point as it needs to be made. (Yes, I know that surrogacy and artificial insemination by donor in true marriages present similar issues, but I don’t endorse them, either.)

Once the conjugal pairing gives way to “a loving relationship between … committed adults,” my elliptical omission of “two” is justified because “two” becomes just as arbitrary as “male and female.”

These types of warnings are often objected to on the grounds that it is a fallacious ‘slippery slope argument.’ But as Girgis, Anderson and George remind us …,

“there is nothing wrong with arguing against a policy based on reasonable predictions of unwanted consequences. Such predictions would seem quite reasonable in this case, given that prominent figures suchas feminist icon Gloria Steinem, political activist and author Barbara Ehrenreich, and New York University Law Professor Kenji Yoshino have already demanded … legal recognition of multiple-partner sexual relationships.

Why Gay ‘Marriage’ is a Public Threat (part 2).

I’ve blogged on these issues a lot this Winter-into-Spring, motivate by the extensive discussion surrounding Supreme Court arguments in the U.S. If you’re insouciant or incorrigibly sentimental, you won’t have made it this far. If you have made it this far, I commend to your further attention both of the Robin Phillips essays.

It comes down to this in the end: Whatever goods are served by long-term erotic relationships between two members of the same sex, they are not the goods served by marriage. It’s the demonstration of that that takes time.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Society in the United States already has a hard time with the God-given nourishing function of the female breast. Mothers … buy “Hooter Hiders” and cover themselves in order to not offend others or raise eyebrows …

Twenty-first century “lactivists” stage nurse-in protests when businesses like Victoria’s Secret (2006) and Hollister (2013) ask nursing mothers to refrain from nursing in public. Breasts are oversexualized to the point that the mainstream has difficulty accepting breasts as blessings.

Yet even as Angelina Jolie has elected a preventative double mastectomy, many God-given, natural means of breast cancer risk reduction already exist. Perhaps these methods of prevention are time-consuming, counter-cultural, and have an effect on one’s career. But a woman’s health is worth protecting …

Here are some steps that are less drastic and dramatic, and which have allowed me to enjoy the blessings of being a woman in today’s world. I practice extended breastfeeding to about three years with each of my children. I have never taken the Pill. We eat a diet that is strong on vegetables and we aim for hormone-free foods. We garden and grow pesticide-free foods. When we can afford it, during winter, we buy foods that are hormone- and pesticide-free. We have reduced our sugar and dairy consumption. We get vitamin D through vitamins and sunshine. For calcium, we eat almonds and bok choy. We avoid the use of plastic in the kitchen by using glass storage containers rather than risking the possible breakdown of bisphenol A (BPA), which is linked to cancer.

Having a baby before age thirty may be hard on a woman’s career, but it is a healthy choice. I am committed to being a mother, to not having abortions. My first child was born when I was twenty-five years old, and I gave birth three times during graduate school. Those births were not always met with welcome by those close to me, but God called me to be a mother and I have welcomed the opportunity with open arms. These are some ways I am trying to prevent breast cancer in my body and in my children.

Second, from the (likely) world’s only Anglophone Islamic-convert, natural law folksinger, Richard Thompson, the inimitable “Dear Janet Jackson” (YouTube) and a transcription thereof so bad I was embarrassed to clip it and didn’t want to take the time to edit it.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

1

I noticed recently that people, including Church-going people, get indignant with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but for all the wrong reasons:

• They don’t salute the flag
• They don’t say the pledge of allegiance
• They don’t take blood transfusions
• They don’t celebrate birthdays, Christmas or any other “special” days

Oh ish! How weird!

Nobody notices that they’re incorrigible adherents of the ancient heresy of Arianism. Most people don’t know what Arianism is, or think it has something to do with Hitler.

People who are too lazy to learn the history of their faith will be easily led astray by any tired old heresy gussied up anew – provided it’s not counter-cultural or unpatriotic.

I’m especially appalled by Christians who can, say, recite the designated hitter rule, Casey at the Bat, or the Gettysburg Address but don’t know the Nicene Creed, and who complain that basic Christian doctrine is “just too complicated.”

2

I’ve tried and failed to make sense of it another way, but I’m unable to escape the idea that a lot of “separation of Church and State” talk, when used to justify inaction against evil, is rooted in a distinction between “personally opposed” and “really opposed,” between “morally wrong” and “really wrong.”

In other words, it’s based on a a tacit belief that morality is merely an individual choice, or at least that the morality their Church teaches, insofar as it differs from the current social consensus, is mere personal choice and quite optional.

My quick antidote is to note that there is no position of moral neutrality on most of the great issues of the day, and that you have as much right to vote based your understanding of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as the elites who would muzzle you have the right to vote based on Marx, Darwin, Dewey and Freud.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

I don’t recall what prompted that thought originally, but I suspect it was my old friend, who considers himself religious (although he might quibble with the word) in the Evangelical Protestant tradition, and who told me point blank, in jargon I knew all too well, that he just wanted to make it into heaven and “would leave all the jewels in the crown for others.” A fair summary of the meaning of this jargon is this, by one Kyle H at the impeccably reliable Yahoo! Answers (emphasis added):

Paul talked many times of running the race, striving for the goal, etc.
Now, we are saved through grace, not by works, lest any man should boast.
Faith saves, works get you rewards in Heaven. Paul knew he was saved but he kept striving for the rewards, a main goal of his.
I have no idea what the rewards may be but they must be very good if Paul was always talking about them.
I believe jewels in your crown = rewards, whatever they are.
There are many people of many faiths that will be in Heaven.
Paul said, if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, (in other words tell people about Him and your belief in Him) and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
He never said you have to first be Baptist, Catholic etc.
I know I will get a lot of the bad thumbs for this, but, believe it or not, there will be a few, (LOL) Catholics in Heaven.
No matter what your creed, your beliefs; your denomination, the first and only requirement to get to Heaven is to accept by faith that Jesus not only died for your sins, but the He was raised from the dead and is now at the right hand of the Throne of God.

So my friend apparently wants (a) to accept by faith that Jesus not only died for his sins, but the He was raised from the dead and is now at the right hand of the Throne of God but then (b) direct his own life, march to his own drummer, and have as good a time as possible without voiding the fire insurance policy.

When last I was deeply immersed in the Evangelical world, that attitude was epidemic. It would be unfair to say “pandemic.”

Prooftext battles are useless and futile, but my citation to Mark 12 says:

And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

So if you ask “what must I do to be saved?,” you’re asking a good question. If you ask “what must I do to be saved?,” intending to do no more and intending in particular not to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, you’re violating the first and greatest commandment, and the only possible answer is “repent.”

Unpacking “repent” is beyond the scope I’m willing to take up today except to say that nobody who’s grudging toward God deserves any “eternal security” he or she may delusionally feel.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Whenever a movie theater (or anything else, but celluloid had a certain combustible je ne sais quoi that memorably forshadowed what awaited movie-goers in the hereafter) burned downtown, Silver’s would have a Fire Sale, though Mother insisted the only smoke damage was from the cigars the owner (I thought his name was Ben, but I think I’ve got the name confused with another haberdasher) smoked in the back room.

Now I’m an obese man, often categorized as “morbidly” obese. Now there‘s a label that should get your attention – insofar as fat is voluntary, which isn’t very far. The appropriate testimonial tone at this point would be “I’ve tried every diet ever invented,” but that wouldn’t be true. Some of them were just too bogus.

This time I’ve found the ticket, though. Yup. You betcha. I can imagine following it forever,  and it seems to have some benefit beyond a downward slope on the weight graph. I’ll tell you all about it 50 pounds from now, when I’m just husky again. Better yet, I’ll link to the book. (You knew there was a book, didn’t you?)

But it occurred to me yesterday that all the diets I’ve panned, and all that I’ve tried, have a common element: a Just So Story to explain that this diet is how humans are supposed to eat, and that ignoring it is How the Modern Man Got His Fat.

They’re not altogether mutually contradictory, but the omissions and shifting emphases are comical in juxtaposition. We’re assured in one book that cave men ate meat almost exclusively because, well, they were cave men, and too busy watching ESPN to grow grain. (Sad side effect: No craft-brewed beer.) Our evolution hasn’t caught up with all this grain stuff, so it makes us sick. Another book, though, assures us that our serf ancestors (Ah, yes! There’s something to aspire too: the radiant good health of the Bubonic era!) couldn’t afford meat, and ate mostly plants. Our evolution hasn’t caught up with all this meat stuff, so it makes us sick.

Evolution is so powerful a scientific theory that there’s no conceivable set of biological facts it can’t seamlessly explain.

Going back 40 years, to Francis Moore Lappé, we were assured that there’s a really crappy conversion rate turning grain into animal protein, and that we should just eat the grain ourselves (sad side effect: what will our cars eat if we greedily eat the raw material of ethanol?) and we’ll live happily ever after – along with the other billions of the earth, not coincidentally. The supersecret plan I’m on now echoes that line. (Yes, it leans vegan.)

But I’ve read my Joel Salatin, so I know a stunning secret: cows can eat grass, from untillable terrain, and grass-fed beef is far healthier than foie gras or other products from animals confined and fed a “scientific” diet to produce lots and lots of luscious fat. (Special dietary bonus of grass-fed beef: it’s so tough and tasteless, unless cooked painstakingly, that you’ll eat less of it!)

So anyway, I’m off on another dietary adventure. And now that I’m on blood pressure again, I can do all things addito salis grano. Don’t touch that dial.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

1. 
   Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   And, of course, Jen Krouse was right about sitting near the back. She is always right. #NYCNU

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2. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Okay, Kunstler is done. Bring in the grief counselors. #NYCNU

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3. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: The age of the 400 acre TND is ending. New Urbanists need to become small scale builders and developers. #NYCNU

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4. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   @lisaschamess Parody of whom? No, BTW.

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5. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: The action is going to shift to the places scaled to the energy and capital realities of the world, small towns. #NYCNU

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6. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: The future is not going to be bigger towers in bigger cities. Big cities are going to contract too. #NYCNU

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7. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: We have a great inland waterway system. The towns on these inland waterways are going to become much more important. #NYCNU

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8. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: We’re not going to build high speed rail across America. No capital. We need to rebuild the conventional RR system. #NYCNU

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9. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

   Kunstler: Aspiring cubical serfs will find themselves as farmers of the future. This will emerge to organize itself. #NYCNU

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10. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: Vertical farming – more BS. Techno narcissism. Complete f’ing nonsense. #NYCNU

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11. Mitchell Austin ‏@msaplanner19h

    @clmarohn When gambling was illegal they called it running numbers…now that it’s state sponsored it’s called a lottery.

     Retweeted by Charles Marohn

     View conversation

12. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: We need to reactivate the main streets of America and put commercial activity back into them. #NYCNU

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13. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: The future rural landscape needs to be a productive one. #NYCNU

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14. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: The Congress for the New Urbanism is the only organization that understands how we need to change things. #NYCNU

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15. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    @glhjr Yeah, there are a couple grief counselors waiting in back for when this is done. #NYCNU

     View conversation

16. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: We have a psychology of previous investment, doesn’t allow us to address the problem because we poured our wealth into it. #NYCNU

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17. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: Suburbia is over. Life is tragic and we won’t be excused for the bad choices we made. #NYCNU

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18. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: We are in the twilight of happy motoring. Motoring is going to become far less democratic with more not participating. #NYCNU

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19. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: Agriculture is going to be local and smaller. Agribusiness won’t continue. People may starve if we don’t get it together. #NYCNU

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20. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: Instead of “solutions” we need to talk about “intelligent responses” and a list of tasks for changing everyday life. #NYCNU

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21. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: We need to relocalize and downscale everything in American society, something we can’t even have a conversation about. #NYCNU

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22. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: Tom Friedman did US society a disservice by making it seem like globalization was a permanent condition. It is not. #NYCNU

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23. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: The global economy is over, we just don’t know it yet. Currency wars are the latest manifestation. #NYCNU

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24. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn19h

    Kunstler: We need to make new arrangements. We’re not going to be able to continue to drive to Walmart forever. #NYCNU

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25. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: All the municipalities and states are broke and we can’t afford to fix everything we’ve committed to. #NYCNU

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26. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Beware of the term “solutions”. What is being peddled is BS. #NYCNU

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27. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We’ve become a schlerotic society unable to deal with reality. #NYCNU

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28. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We believe that “they” will come up with a rescue remedy. There is no “they” and it is not going to happen. #NYCNU

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29. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We’re not in a recession, Great Recession, New Depression or any of the names we like to use. We are in contraction. #NYCNU

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30. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We are entering an era of energy scarcity and capital scarcity. #NYCNU

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31. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Gambling used to be a marginal activity combined to the margins of life. Now it’s normal with even governments taking part. #NYCNU

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32. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Financial innovation was an attempt to make up for the lack of productive activity in the economy. Something for nothing. #NYCNU

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33. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Accounting fraud now making up for the lack of capital formation. #NYCNU

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34. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We broke the link between capital formation and productive activity. Energy Return on Investment is the culprit. #NYCNU

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35. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: American economy was built on productive economic activity. This is no longer the case. We are in a new era. #NYCNU

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36. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: 1 million barrels per day of shale oil. US daily consumption: 18-19 million barrels. Shale not going to get us there. #NYCNU

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37. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Bakken oil well depletion relate 30-50% per year. To maintain production levels requires continuous drilling. $$$ #NYCNU

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38. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Current flows from Alaska pipeline are so low the line is nearly not usable. #NYCNU

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39. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Reagan & Thatcher economies benefited from the last great conventional, non-OPEC oil finds. Juiced the economy. #NYCNU

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40. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: Oil then, oil cheap and easy w/ high flow. Oil now, pricey oil w/ low flow. #NYCNU

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41. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: The more distressed we become, the more delusional our thinking. It’s showing up at the highest levels of public discourse. #NYCNU

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42. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We don’t have 100 years of shale gas. There is no chance we become energy independent living the way we are living. #NYCNU

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43. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Kunstler: We are unable to construct a coherent story about what is happening to us. We therefore have no coherent responses. #NYCNU

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44. Charles Marohn ‏@clmarohn20h

    Am here with Jen Krouse. She insisted on sitting further back to steer clear of the fury of Jim. #NYCNU

    * * * * *

    “The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

    Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

In the coffin was a 32-year-old man-boy. In line as one approached mother and step-father, were scrapbook pictures of his younger versions, beaming with delight at 4th of July sparklers and other such simple pleasures. He “enjoyed listening to music, watching movies, and sharing his contagious joy. He fought the good fight and is awaiting his crown of glory.”

In the coffin was a bearer of the image of God, knees pulled up, wrists permanently bent, teeth crooked, face oddly shaped. Oh, my! I’d forgotten in the years since I last saw him.

He was born on April Fools Day. His syndrome has a dozen sufferers, maybe, world-wide. I don’t know the name. I couldn’t look it up on Google if I did, probably. Who writes about a disease that afflicts only a dozen people or so in the world at a time?

If I want to know about it, we’d better take mom and step-dad to dinner; she’s the world expert. The life expectancy from birth is two years. Did I mention that the man-boy in the coffin was 32?

Step-dad married mom 20 years ago, eyes wide open. She’d have it no other way. Her first husband, her son’s father, headed for divorce court, then “for the hills,” about 31 years, 364 days ago. May God have mercy on him anyway.

Caring for her son was the dominant feature of their lives. Step-dad’s grieving with mom.

Mom’s a teacher. The Middle Schoolers from her school came and sang at the funeral. They returned to school shaken. Some of them had never been to a funeral. Many of them, probably, had never met teacher’s son. If the image of God, twisted and angular, shocked this jaded old curmudgeon, I reckon it was a real eye-opener for them.

Mom and step-dad can’t sleep. The house is too quiet. The life-supporting machinery is off. This respiratory infection, starting like all the others, ended quickly in death despite treatment.

God bless and comfort them. May they have, for their remaining lives and into eternity, all the blessings none of us deserve, but some of us don’t deserve a lot less than others.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

But until noon yesterday, I’d not heard of Jodi Arias and had no idea such a person was on trial. I must rummage my memory banks for who Amanda Knox is, and I probably wouldn’t know at all were there not some legal news in there like reversal on appeal.

Yet I have been beating the crap out of Mark Sanford — not because he strayed, and not even because he’s not still hiding in shame, but because his mumbled apologies are excuses in disguise. In my Church, if a man went to confession and said “I committed adultery, but she was my sould-mate,” any Priest worth his salt would say “go away and come back for absolution when you can leave off the part after the comma.” I consider the self-consciously Christian Sanford voters of South Carolina to be enablers, not forgivers.

And Frank Bruni? Does he want us to hold men to a higher standard or women to a lower one?

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

It occurs to me that I may not be the only person for whom “Mars Hill” are magic words. But beware!

1

The Areopagus or Areios Pagos (Ancient Greek: Ἄρειος Πάγος) is the “Rock of Ares”, north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon’s son Alirrothios (a typical example of an aetiological myth).
…
The origin of its name is not clear. In Greek, pagos means big piece of rock. Areios could have come from Ares or from the Erinyes, as on its foot was erected a temple dedicated to the Erinyes where murderers used to find shelter so as not to face the consequences of their actions. Later, the Romans referred to the rocky hill as “Mars Hill”, after Mars, the Roman God of War.

(Wikipedia, footnotes and hyperlinks omitted) On that site, the Apostle Paul preached a sermon that notably appealed to religious glimmerings of his audience:

And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Ye men of Athens, in all things, I perceive that ye are very religious.

For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you.

In some Christian circles, the sermon is referred to as Paul’s Mars Hill oration, and is taken as a model for evangelistic engagement with the surrounding culture.

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It no doubt was to this usage that Ken Myers, formerly of NPR, alluded in naming his priceless Mars Hill Audio Journal, the ne plus ultra of thoughtful engagement in America today. You really should subscribe, you know.

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Maybe it was to this usage as well that religiopreneur Mark Driscoll alluded in naming Mars Hill Church, now a megachurch, in Seattle. Or maybe he named it after the Roman god of war.

I allowed the cachet of Paul’s Mars Hill oration and Ken Myers’ Mars Hill Audio Journal to spill over into tacit admiration of Drisoll. But he regrettably engages macho culture by appealing to the gods of SUVs and fellatio. I only wish this were The Onion.

I should have know better. Has anything spiritually healthy ever come out of the great ego-stroking, market-driven megachurch model?  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Let the prudent reader act accordingly.

Any questions? Glad I could help.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

An old and admirable friend posted on Facebook, but now seems to have taken down, a link and apocalyptic commentary on a story about a supposed effort to make it a court martial offense to share one’s Christian faith in the military.

An individual Orthodox Christian (whose blog, in fairness to him, posts many stories without much filtering) passed on this similar story. Excerpts:

So President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime–possibly resulting in imprisonment–for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains …

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life …

(Emphasis in original)

I earlier said “This sounds too lurid and absurd to be true, but it’s from several sources. Stay tuned.”

This morning, I saw another item from the Western Center for Journalism, which appears to be, er, more partisan that one might gather from its name:

According to Obama’s advisor on religious tolerance within the U.S. military, Christians sharing their faith, including chaplains, present “… a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs is to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” …

And what does the Obama administration do in the face of Muslim war declared against the U.S.?

He threatens to court-martial all U.S. military personnel, including chaplains, if they share their faith ….

What are the facts behind these lurid opinions-masquerading-as-facts? Everyone is citing Breibart:

“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”
Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.

(Emphasis added) Read the whole Breibart piece; don’t trust me. It’s loaded with lots of inflammatory adjectives, but generally seems to state as fact only that which is fact. “Generally,” though, is important. There is no supporting citation or link for the assertion that the ”policies on religious tolerance,” which apparently have not begun to be drafted, will include any “policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.”

So: Weinstein is going to be a Pentagon advisor on new policies on religious tolerance. He’s not the one-and-only Obama advisor.

I’ve heard of Mikey Weinstein. He’s a bat-shit crazy but very loud voice of intolerance, who conflates soldiers’ ”solemnly sworn oath to the Constitution” and “follow[ing] the military’s regulations regarding religion” — which he hopes to shape. It’s ominous that the Pentagon feels obliged to include him as a consultant. I’m on record against the Obama administration’s already-execrable record on domestic religious freedom, and this proposed appointment does not bode well.

But we are not yet where the “Christian” liars say we are, and they should be ashamed of themselves. There’s no exemption from the command against false witness for political “war.”

UPDATE: Breibart has a followup story May 1.

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense…Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis…”.

Neither Breibart nor Fox News linked to the written statement for anyone who might care to look at the context, but it appears that the Pentagon is alluding to some existing regulation, not to anything concocted in whole or part by Weinstein.

More update (May 6). It looks like thanks are due ADF.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.