Category: Calvinism

On not going away mad

I wrote yesterday about the “conversion (to Orthodoxy) story” of Father John Whiteford, who influenced my conversion from a much different Protestant tradition. Today, I want to share a few more excerpts of his story.

So while at [Southern Nazarene University], my studies went on several tracks at once: there was the material I had to read for class; there was the material I read to counter the [religiously liberal] material I had to read for class; there was the material I read because I became interested in a particular topic; and then there was the material I read because I was looking for something deeper.

Perhaps his professors were trying to “make a new contribution to theology.”

Of a Pastor he encountered at a “non-denominational Church”:

I noticed over time that this pastor would preach based on whatever he happened to be reading at the time. For a while he was preaching sermons based on a Christian novel about spiritual warfare entitled “This Present Darkness.” Then he started preaching from Watchman Nee’s book “Spiritual Authority.” It began to seem like that church’s doctrine hinged on what he had eaten the night before. I increasingly began to see the folly of non-denominational Churches that have no accountability to anyone or anything beyond the whim of the pastors who head them.

Been there, done that. Even a little bit in the Christian Reformed Church, though far oftener in generic Evangelical Churches with no higher authority than the pastor.

Of an early interaction with an Orthodox Priest:

In that same course, our final paper, which we were each in turn to present to the class in the final days of the semester, was to be an exposition of our personal theology of the inspiration of Scripture …

Most of my research on the question of the inspiration of Scripture focused on the question of what Tradition had to say about it, and since at that point I had more or less a “branch-theory” understanding of what constituted the Church, I analyzed it in terms of what the “Early Church” had taught on the question, then what the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, and then the various major branches of Protestantism had historically taught… with a special emphasis on the branch that I was on at the time. What I found was that all Christians had affirmed the idea that the Scriptures were fully inspired, and were in fact inerrant. I had good sources for most of those sections, but not for the Orthodox. But I knew enough about the Orthodox Church to know that I needed to adequately cover their perspective. Since I had met Fr. Anthony Nelson and worked with him on several protests, I decided to call him up and discuss it with him. When he explained the Orthodox understanding of the inerrancy of Scripture, it made so much sense that it essentially became the final conclusion of my paper. In short, his explanation was similar to the one I later found in the writings of St. Augustine (Letter to St. Jerome, 1:3). We believe that the Scriptures are inerrant because God, as the one who inspired them, is on one level the author. If, however, we find something in Scripture that seems at odds with reason, we conclude that either we have flawed reasoning, or we have misunderstood the meaning of the Scriptures, or perhaps we have a bad translation or a bad manuscript… but we know the Scriptures are true… and if we don’t know for sure which of the above factors is the cause for the apparent conflict with reason, we don’t spend too much time worrying about it, because our understanding of the Scriptures as individuals is not infallible, nor should we expect it to be. The Church’s understanding of the Scriptures as a whole is infallible, and if we remain under the guidance of the Church, we will not go too far wrong.

…

No matter the question, one needed only to ask “What has the Church always taught on the matter?” Once you found the answer, the problem was solved; you just needed to conform to the teachings of the Church.

Of his realization that he probably was going to become Orthodox – which he hadn’t even told his wife yet:

[U]ntil I was sure that I wanted to do that, I didn’t let even my wife and closest friends know how serious my interest in Orthodoxy really was. Unfortunately, this had the effect of leaving many of my classmates and acquaintances thinking that one day I was a conservative Nazarene, and then on a whim I one day became Orthodox, but in reality it was the conclusion of a very long process and a great deal of intense study.

I had an analogous experience because I was an Elder in the Christian Reformed Church and had promised at my installation to not stir up trouble over any doctrinal doubts I might develop. For that reason, I bit my tongue and my eventual decision almost certainly seemed abrupt (though I absented myself for the public announcement, not returning except for weddings, funerals and such).

Of attending Orthodox Vespers Saturday, then presiding as Associate Pastor of a Nazarene Church on Sunday:

The contrast between these two very different styles of worship on a weekly basis had the effect of increasingly convincing me of the shallowness of Protestant worship in general, but especially the “contemporary” style of worship that my Nazarene Church was using. There were two “worship songs” that stood out as being especially shallow. One was “As David did in Jehovah’s sight, I will dance with all my might” – which had no meaning other than that we were going to jam to the tunes of the rock band that was playing the music. Another was “Blow the Trumpet in Zion,” which was based on words from Joel, chapter 2. However, this song twisted the meaning of the words in that prophecy to suggest that it was talking about what a powerful army the people of God were, when it fact the prophecy is a prophecy of judgment on the people of God who have sinned. The army that is talked about in that passage, that is about to  “run on the city” and “run on the walls” is an army that is coming to destroy Zion (Jerusalem) at God’s command. The trumpet is blown in Zion to sound the alarm, because Jerusalem is under attack. God is calling His people to repent, if they wish to avoid this judgment… but this “contemporary worship” song is anything but a penitential song. One Sunday, when I was asked to preach, I preached on Joel 2, and explained why this song distorted the meaning of the passage, and what it actually meant. Next Sunday, the “worship team” sang it again, as usual.

I managed to keep a fairly safe distance from such stuff even as a Protestant, but as our Church has a “worship skirmish” if not full-blown “worship wars,” I have heard “As a deer panteth for the water” (a “praise song” probably unknown now to anyone under age 15, such is the shelf life of such things) about a million times more than I needed to hear it. Note: The Groove was much more important than the Truth.

When I was studying Martial Arts in High School, the style I studied was a form of Chinese Kung Fu. Now in my Martial Arts school we had a number of “converts” from Tae Kwon Do, who had for some reason decided that they wanted to learn Kung Fu. What was interesting though, is a neophyte could walk in off the street and they would have an easier time learning to do the forms and stances correctly. The problem was that many of the stances and forms, as well as punches and kicks were very similar – but just different enough to make it very difficult to learn to do it the Kung Fu way. But when it came time to put these techniques into practice – when we sparred – this problem became even more apparent. With time, many of these “converts” learned to do the stances and forms correctly (though the Tae Kwon Do influence could still be seen at times) but when they would spar – many of them would spar as if they had never studied Kung Fu at all. The instructor would often stop the action, and tell such people, “Look, Tae Kwon Do is fine, if you want to learn Tae Kwon Do, but you’re here to learn Kung Fu. If you want to learn Kung Fu, you’re going to have to put what you know about Tae Kwon Do aside and use the techniques that you’ve learned here.” The reason these people reverted back to Tae Kwon Do while sparring is simple – when you’re sparring, you’ve got to think and act fast, and Tae Kwon Do was what came natural to them – in fact it was preventing them from arriving at the point at which Kung Fu would become natural, and so until they could come to the point at which they would lay aside their Tae Kwon Do techniques – little progress in Kung Fu could possibly be made.

Similarly, in the Orthodox Church today there are many converts from Protestantism, who have seen in Orthodoxy that which they found lacking in their former Protestant experience, but very often they speak and act in very Protestant ways still. This doesn’t mean that a convert from Protestantism can never really become authentically Orthodox, but it does mean that he has some additional hurdles to overcome. I should also point out, however, that many “cradle” Orthodox who have grown up in America’s Protestant culture, often think in Protestant ways, and so many of them also have to go through a conversion process of sorts, if they are to acquire an authentically Orthodox mindset… and here, they can be even more disadvantaged than a former Protestant, because at least a former Protestant knows that he once was a Protestant. Too many of those born into Orthodox families are completely oblivious to the influence that Protestant thinking has had on them.

This is very, very true. I’ve been lucky enough to become Cantor of my parish, so I’ve been “forced” to attend services and absorb what’s going on, but have never had to ad lib a single word. I can think of far worse regimens for unlearning Protestant ways.

I should point out that I did not leave the Church of the Nazarene angry. I was grateful for all that I had learned that was good and true, and the many sincere and loving people I had encountered. At the time I left, I thought of the Church of the Nazarene as a conservative denomination with many good qualities, but after discovering the patristic views of what constituted the Church, I simply became convinced that, as well meaning as it was, it just wasn’t the Church of the Fathers.

Amen!

* * * * *

“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.

My Evil Twin and “deluded evangelical evildoers”

I alluded briefly to Frank Schaeffer’s fatwa (calling for “a way to expose and stop deluded evangelical evildoers”) in Thursday’s potpourri, which was released in RSS at 4 am. By the time I rose at 5:30, concerned that I had let my chronic irritation with my evil twin Franky get the better of me, I revisited and edited my characterization.

In any event, the story he was getting the vapors over is one in a loosely-related series of similar charges, and deserves more than brief allusion.

The story is about the alleged nexus between American Evangelicals and African anti-homosexual legislation and violence. My Evil Twin and I both have concerns about the Evangelicalism from which we came. Mine results in pointed barbs, intending to induce repentance. His results in vicious slander, intending to produce suppression. But then, Schaeffer has always had issues with anger and with scapegoating. Only the identity of the scapegoat varies.

It’s notable to me that Schaeffer’s stridency was much greater than that of the documentary filmmaker whose video he embedded. But the video he embedded is disturbing on many levels, of which what follows are a few.

In the U.S. scenes, the “International House of Prayer” is disturbing because what they’re doing is not recognizably Christian worship in any historic sense. A Christian from anywhere in the world, from any portion of the first millenium-and-a-half, if time-transported to the International House of Prayer and given the gift of understanding foreign languages, simply would not know that he or she was in what purports to be Christian worship. I hope, but do not know, that this sort of contrived emotional frenzy – a sort of orgy with clothes still on – is not what has become of “mainstream” Evangelicalism.

We then are whisked away and invited by implication to consider some Ugandan assemblies a counterpart, if not an actual sister congregation, of the International House of Prayer. The Ugandan scenes are disturbing for the same bizarre worship style plus a literal call for a show of hands of those willing to kill homosexuals. That’s awfuller than the awful worship stateside.

Third, the video is disturbing because it alleges, but quite thoroughly fails to demonstrate, any nexus between the U.S. scenes and the African anti-homosexual extremism. The only demonstrated nexus is two-fold and very weak:

  1. The soft-spoken, clerical-collared African exile narrator. He claims that American Evangelicals, perceiving that they’ve lost the culture wars here, are seeking to establish Biblical Law™ as civil law in majority-Christian countries in Africa.
  2. A female American missionary. In a clip lacking any real context other than the filmmaker’s juxtaposition, she says she would support leaving some criminal penalties (penalties she did not specify) in a Bill that in fact included a mandatory death penalty for recidivist homosexual offenders. At least I’m supposed to think that’s the Bill she was referring to. I really don’t know.

Other scenes simply show no nexus in any sense.

The U.S. scenes included a man saying he doesn’t think homosexuality is consistent with God’s law and a young woman winsomely saying God’s law guides us to fulfilling lives. Nothing in those sentiments necessarily eventuates in criminalization of anything, and the filmmaker doesn’t even claim it does.

The U.S. scenes where people are trying to raise money for African missionary activity include no inducements whatever to give because the gifts will support establishment of Biblical Law™ in Africa, let alone the establishment of laws criminalizing homosexuality. They are pretty straightforward calls to support missions in areas where the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

What the filmmaker claims through the soft-spoken narrator is that historic Christian opposition to homosexual behavior can be turned into an ideology of violence and legal repression of homosexual persons. That true. Ideology can produce terrible distortions and excesses. But that does not warrant stopping American support of missionary activities.

When you let go of a dollar for any charitable cause, you lose control of it. You can be prudent. You can question just what version of “Christianity” the recipients are promoting. But nobody has the right to forbid you from giving without exercising such diligence.

Finally, lest I forget, the International House of Prayer looks to me like a charismatic or pentecostal assembly. That’s one kind of Evangelicalism. There are others.

But the supporters of Biblical Law™ that I have known – and I have known some who were trying 30 years ago to draw me into their circle – clearly were not mainstream Evangelicals at all. They were what I would call hyper-Calvinists. Their worship, if filmed, would be four boring bare walls and a Bible. There would be no musical instruments. The only singing would be somber Psalm settings, perhaps from the Genevan Psalter. Their guiding lights are not Pat Robertson or his ilk, but Rousas John Rushdoony.

So I remain very skeptical of the chorus of claims, almost as if orchestrated, that places like the charismatic International House of Prayer have become powerful proponents of hyper-Calvinist Reconstructionist ideas, or that anyone has picked up those ideas in numbers sufficient to constitute a real threat to freedom.

But I’m out of that whole world for more than 15 years now, so you may take with a grain of salt my skepticism — provided you take the video’s insinuations with equal skepticism.

What I ended up with about Schaeffer was “calling for ‘a way to expose and stop deluded [mainstream] evangelical evildoers’ from supporting Christian missions in countries where there has been violence toward, and efforts to criminalize, homosexual behavior.” The RSS version had ended with “sending money to Africa for missionary activities that may include some ugly surprises.”

The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse. And this blog entry.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Inscrutable Justice

There is a media ritual that I detest even more than most media rituals: the televised thrusting of microphones into the faces of bereaved crime victims to get their opinions on what should be done to the accused. The bereaved, true sons and daughters of our extraordinarily punitive culture (compare our rates of incarceration), almost always take the bait and express some blood-curdling call for vengeance.

I wish I could rush through the screen and say “No! Hold that thought! Don’t say it! You don’t need to prove you loved the victim! Don’t debase yourself!”

As one who prays regularly “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” few phrases so terrify me as “I will never forgive,” which is the gist of what those cameras, microphones, and prosecutor-solicited “victim impact statements” encourage.

Victim impact statements are, now that I mention it, another, er, pet peeve. The criminal court system works on the theory that the “State of Indiana” (or whatever) is prosecuting the Defendant because he breached the peace, security and good order of the State by his deed. It is not “Family of Victim” versus Defendant. Victim Impact Statements thus are a solecism on the grammar of the criminal law, and, once again, merely invite vindictive expressions that imperil the souls of victims and their families as they’re incited not to forgive.

Oh: do you have any doubt that crimes against victims with articulate white family member/victims end up seen as particularly heinous?

A mediation-type setting, where victims could tell the offender how his act affected them outside the hearing of judge or jury might actually serve restoration of the offender. Victim impact statements, in contrast, are oriented more toward exacting extra retribution and trying to assure that the offender never gets out, never gets restored.

These concerns flooded over me as I browsed my blog feeds while waiting for lunch to come today:

The [Church] fathers have a term for insatiable desires: passions. What human beings experience as a desire for justice is not a virtue – it is a passion, a disordered desire of the soul.
Virtues, the desires that are rightly ordered, have a proper end to their desire. They can be satisfied because they have a proper end. The experience of hunger, when rightly ordered, is perfectly natural and is able to know and experience a sense of completion. Enough is enough. When hunger is disordered it cannot rightly discern its end. The desire for food becomes confused. The result is gluttony – experienced by too much or too little food. I recall a friend, a recovering alcoholic, who said that the problem with alcohol was that “there was never enough.”
The Law in the Old Testament recognized the disordered character of human justice. It placed limits on our desire for justice. The Lex Talionis, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” is not a prescription for what must be paid for an injury: it is a limit on the maximum that may be extracted. Our desire for justice is never satisfied with an eye for an eye. We would like two eyes, a hand, a foot, an electronic ankle bracelet and 6 million dollars in punitive damages (and even then we are not actually satisfied).

But Father Stephen isn’t out to reform the criminal justice system. He’s using an analogy to introduce some truths about God.

But first, let’s start with a near-slander of God from Jonathan “Sinners in the Hands of Angry God” Edwards:

…if the obligation to love, honour, and obey God be infinite, then sin which is the violation of this obligation, is a violation of infinite obligation, and so is an infinite evil. Once more, sin being an infinite evil, deserves an infinite punishment, an infinite punishment is no more than it deserves: therefore such punishment is just; which was the thing to be proved. (Jonathan Edwards, “The Eternity of Hell Torments” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (vol. 2, Edinburgh, Banner of Truth, 1974) 83.)

Even Father Stephen admits:

His reasoning appears flawless. Our obligation to God is infinite, so its violation is infinite. Infinite crime warrants and infinite punishment: ergo eternity in the torments of hell.

Theology that ends with “Q.E.D.” There was a time when I’d have eaten that up.

Time out: Might such Calvinism, which sees God as the possessor of an infinite victim impact statement, have something to do with how we view, and pursue, criminal offenders?

Time back in: But what if God is not a thin-skinned medieval lord (the medieval period being when this notion gained currency)? What if He’s not “infinitely offended”?

Infinite is simply an inappropriate adjective to use in our relationship with God. It brings inappropriate and incommensurate results in its train. It is more accurate to say of our relationship to God, and those things that belong to it, that they are “immeasurable.” What is required is not without limit (for the infinite cannot be required of the finite), but it is beyond our finite ability to measure.
This is a far more accurate way to approach the justice of God. His justice is not properly described as infinite (what would that mean?). His justice is inscrutable – we simply cannot know it, fathom it, or understand it. It is a useless concept when it comes to understanding our obligations to God. God is just – because He is not unjust. But what it means to say that “God is just,” is beyond our ken.
The result of the distortions caused by faulty theologizing about God’s justice, is a God who is not worthy of worship. There are those who not only glibly consign sinners to hell, but also postulate that the righteous will rejoice in the torment of sinners because of their delight in the goodness of God’s justice. Those with normal human sensibilities are repulsed by such notions. Those who embrace such heresy have their soul’s perverted desire for infinite justice confirmed. Such theology does not heal the soul – it corrupts it further and feeds its passions.

Yes, I think we’re back to things like what God do atheists “not believe in”? A “God” who consigns people to hell because of his anger problem? I don’t believe in that one, either. I don’t think people believed in that one for the first millennium or so of the Christian era.

How can anyone say “God is love” if that’s what he has in mind? How can anyone “worship” him? Is it worship or toadying?

Much more quoting and I’ll transgress (not infinitely) against the dignity of Fr. Stephen. If you have any concern with (a) justice and forgiveness among humans or (b) the nature of God’s justice, I commend the whole article to you.

Evangelicals & Contraception

[I’ve encountered a few things worth digging into a bit, and have been left with too little time for collections. I’ve not foresworn them, though.]

The Spring 2012 Human Life Review opens with 21st-Century Evangelicals Revisit Contraception and Abortion.

You need to realize that the Review is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. That’s just a fact. The Founder was Catholic, his Catholic family carries on the work, most contributors are Catholic (the regulars on the masthead are 4 Catholics, 1 Orthodox, 1 Episcopalian, and 1 Jewish atheist) – and frankly, almost all of the really rigorous prolife thought has been Catholic during my lifetime at least. Thank God for them.

Add that Evangelicalism is decentralized in the extreme, and changes, chameleon-like, to remain “relevant” and I was skeptical that the piece could say much. But it’s one of the great marketing coups of our time that Evangelicals think they’re united, and have largely succeeded in getting people to identify their peculiar sensibility as “Christianity” rather than as a subset or sect. And since there are a lot of folks with that sensibility, if you want a political movement, it will generally be good to enlist them.

I was right about the article not measuring up:

While the evidence is largely anecdotal, there appears to have been an increase over the past two decades in the number of Evangelicals who are reconsidering their support of contraception as they seek to develop a more consistent pro-life witness.

“Anecdotal” is a near necessity, I suppose, as it would be hard to do a study of Evangelicals that wasn’t methodologically dubious.

But the article did pull up some interesting history, parts of which have delighted the “progressives” who aren’t religiously illiterate (think Slacktivist, for instance). I’m going to summarize, with my own personal observations italicized):

  • The Reformers joined Rome (as far back as Augustine, pre-schism but proto-western in his thought) in their condemnation of Onanism – which is about the best one can do at gauging what their view of contraception would have been.
  • Evangelicals (at least as the author views them – consider that caveat as applying to each subsequent occurrence of the term and its cognates) were among the earliest and fiercest opponents of birth control in the late 19th Century. This came as news to me.
  • Anthony Comstock was Evangelical, not Catholic. This, too, came as news to me.
  • Opposition to birth control was generally seen as a reformist and heroic cause.
  • After Comstock’s death, his nemesis Margaret Sanger became ascendant, and the Episcopalians broke millennia of Christian tradition in 1930 by a timid endorsement of contraception for those who can’t remain abstinent, so long as they adhere to Christian principles – principles that the endorsement itself was ambiguating. Soon, “most Protestant groups came to accept the use of modern contraceptives as a matter of Biblically allowable freedom of conscience” (Wikipedia).
  • After World War II, worries about overpopulation became pandemic.
  • By 1950, arch-fundamentalist Dr. Bob Jones Sr., of Bob Jones University, was demanding that newlywed aspiring dorm parents promise to practice birth control if they got the position.
  • By 1973, many Evangelicals viewed Roe v. Wade as a blow for religious liberty. The Southern Baptist Convention was particularly equivocal. (I was then unequivocally Evangelical, and was vaguely uneasy about pro-abortion clergy – none of them Evangelical, in my experience – playing Harriet Tubman to “enslaved” pregnant women. But I was not activated until 1980.)
  • Beginning in late 1979 or so, Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop enlisted Evangelicals in the anti-abortion cause with their film and book, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? I was one of those enlisted.
  • Evangelicals, however, were still very friendly to contraception.
  • By hanging out with Catholic pro-lifers, some Evangelicals anecdotally are reconsidering contraception, and one of the niche Evangelical markets is “the Quiverfull movement.” But the leaders he cites in support (all three listed here, with a fourth) are generally fringe figures in Evangelicalism – serious Calvinists, in my experience, aren’t entirely certain whether they remain “Evangelical.” 

I have always, since my earliest days of enlistment in the pro-life cause, thought the Bible case against abortion, if all we had was Bible, was one that Evangelicals would never buy if an argument of equal strength told them to do something they found uncongenial. But then, with Bible only, I doubt that Evangelicals would believe in the Holy Trinity or have a remotely correct Christology. They owe a very large unacknowledged debt to the Church that preceded them, and that they typically think is quite corrupt and paganized. Sigh.

But the Church has always opposed abortion, and I’ve come to appreciate the strength of theological arguments (in addition to things I learned in biology class) that are not narrowly Biblical.

In theory, at least, Evangelicals don’t like theological arguments of that sort, so I don’t know how much staying power their renewed opposition to contraception and abortion will show.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Saturday, 7/28/12

  1. Citizens United.
  2. Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day (and invisible Christians).
  3. I bet my life on that.
  4. What will embarrass you in 20 years?
  5. Same-sex attraction as “Eucatastrophe.”
  6. Reed Heustis was half right.

1

I’m not a fan of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision, but it does produce some interesting humor (“With polls this week showing the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tightening even further, a growing number of political experts have declared this year’s election will almost certainly be decided by a small handful of swing corporations”) and it’s not easy to get rid of without really bad consequences or fresh Constitutional violations.

2

In support of Chick-fil-A and of the traditional Christian conception of marriage (you know the one: the odious, indefensible, homophobic view that President Obama officially held as recently as 6 months ago, before the Overton Window shifted), former Presidential candidate and Baptist Minister Mike (“Gosh! He’s Lost A Ton!”) Huckabee and CatholicVote are encouraging everyone to go eat at Chick-fil-A on Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, Wednesday, August 1 — a day on which the most traditional Christians will be fasting from meat, poultry and other things because (a) it’s Wednesday and (b) the first day of a major Fast for those on the Gregorian (“new”) calendar.

3

A campaign to “end AIDS” is in the news lately.

AIDS is only one disease acquired (mostly) by reckless behavior, and we treat diseases whatever the cause, from Pepto Bismol (remember “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”?) to surgery, radiation, chemo and whatever for cigarette-induced lung cancer. But it’s an enduring annoyance to me that our public health approach to AIDS is condoms rather than chastity. Would we congratulate ourselves on promoting the great health benefit of filters on cigarettes without encouraging people simply to stop?

A sexually faithful couple does not need condoms. I bet my life on that.

4

I’ll give him credit for not comparing it to black civil rights, but I think Michael Kinsley may be trying consciously to create a halo effect over same-sex marriage by associating it with future, not past, social reform movements:

  • Prisons. We incarcerate more of our population than any country in the world. Jokes about prison rape are staples of American comedy. In 20 years, we may look back in amazement that people would think this was funny.
  • Industrial farming. The longstanding discussion of the conditions under which animals are grown for food is turning into a discussion of the morality of using other animals for food at all.
  • The elderly. Baby boomers already feel guilty about how their parents spend their last years. Just wait until it’s the boomers’ turn.
  • Greenery. Environmental degradation is a debt to our children that parallels the debt to our parents.
  • My own favorite nominee will win me no friends: high school football.

I agree that all of these are scandals waiting to be perceived broadly, though I don’t think that vegetarianism is the logical and necessary consequence of opposition to industrial farming. I cite in support unrepentant carnivore Joel Salatin.

And on the same-sex marriage subject, I’ve weighed in enough times that I’ll take a pass this time. I may be shouted down, but I expect to be saying it’s a bad idea in 20 years just as now.

5

I am fascinated in these latitudinarian times with the stories of faithful Christians who struggle with, rather than capitulate to, same-sex attraction. The latest installment coming to my attention is from a man involved in the arts in the midwest who does not call himself a “gay Christian”:

I do not identify as “gay.” Rather, I say that “I live with same-sex attraction.” Like “consubstantial,” it is an awkward phrase, nearly absent from common usage. I refuse to identify myself as gay because the label “gay” does not accurately describe who (or what) I am. More fundamentally, I refuse to use that label because I desire to be faithful to the theological anthropology of the Church.

In 1986, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the “Pastoral Letter on the Care of the Homosexual Person.” In it, we read:

The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a “heterosexual” or a “homosexual” and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.

With confidence in the Church, I embrace this teaching about my identity in the same way that I have accepted the word “consubstantial” in the Creed. I accept all of the words of the Catechism concerning who I am in nature and in grace. I take no umbrage at the phrase “objectively disordered” and feel no shame that it truthfully describes my sexual desires. I view my same-sex attraction as a disability, in some ways similar to blindness, or deafness, and I view it with the same hope communicated by Jesus about the man born blind: It has been allowed in my life, so that God’s work would be made manifest in me (cf. John 9:3). In the words of Tolkein, I view it as my personal “Eucatastrophe.”

In an age that’s forgotten that sex is optional, such voices need to be heard. I’ve subscribed to his blog.

6

In 2002, I made the acquaintance of a California Attorney, Reed R. Heustis, Jr., under Religious Right auspices the details of which aren’t relevant. We remained in a sort of contact via e-mail or listserv for some years thereafter, and I became quite annoyed when he began lambasting the GOP as worthless and insincere on issues that mutually concerned us, and pledged his support to the Constitution Party.

I eventually dropped out, and have mostly stayed out, of the Culture Wars, though my sympathies, subject to several qualifications, generally remain with the Right side of those wars. But the last time I glanced at the Constitution Party platform, my blood ran a bit cold. The goal to “restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations,” for instance, is one that I’m disinclined to entrust for implementation to a “Reformed Baptist” like Heustis.

So although the Constitution Party is, I think, the wrong cure, I now agree with Heustis’ diagnosis of the GOP, and if he’s reading this (fat chance) or has a Google alert set for his distinctive name (likelier), I thought I’d give him his due on that.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.