Neuhaus's Law in action

Church officials said it did not signal a change in policy.

This reminds me of 1930, when the Anglican church, sucking up to growing social pressure, granted that contraception would be allowed in some extreme circumstances. Fast forward 76 years.

Only a matter of time, indeed. Poor Luther.

Evangelical Liberal Church of America (ELCA)

Was that a typo or a deliberate slam? Just curious...

Erik (cradle Lutheran)

I don't know if we're talking 10 years -- it could be 30 -- but barring a seismic shift in the nature I think we're headed to a glorious time when the traditional Christian disapprobation of gay sex and love is a memory, like the many other prohibitions in the Bible that have fallen away over time. (Or approbations, in the case of slavery.)

Next up, hopefully: animal rights.

-O

Erik:

The equation of "liberal" with "evil" was obviously intentional ...

Another cradle Lutheran in support of this move. A number of ELCA churches already define themselves as "Reconciling in Christ" churches, indicating their full acceptance of gays and lesbians among their worshippers. To imply that this was some sort of top-down" move is to not tell the whole truth. I say Hallelujah!

If I say I'm "troubled" by this development in my church, Rod (and others) will accuse me of soft-headedness, or worse. I don't know what the right answer is when it comes to ordaining non-celibate people with same-sex attraction.

However, listening to individuals who can speak convincingly of both their call to ministry and their call to love those of the same sex is, er, convincing. I'm just not all the way there (yet). As far as this movement being led by the elite, I'm pretty sure that more than half the voting delegates at the national convention are laity.

And hey, I call it the Extremely Liberal Church of America all the time.

I think you're mistaken, Rod. I've just known...and been helped by...and been ministered to by...way too many gay and lesbian Christians to think that they are somehow in a peculiar state of sin.

I used to be very traditional on this issue, but have re-examined the Biblical texts...which I believe refer to pagan cultic practices and sex slavery/prostitution, not to modern same-sex couples. Romans 1 is quite clear that the offenders refused all knowledge of God, worshiped idols like four-footed beasts and gave themselves over to depravity. This sounds *nothing* like the many gay and lesbian Christians I have met over the years, who deeply love God but are clearly hard-wired toward romantic affection with the same sex.

In fact, if the Church was wise enough to bless these folks into a faithful and monogamous relationship, and embrace them instead of freezing them out, there would be a lot less promiscuity.

Rod, the Church has been mistaken before, about slavery for example, stupidly quoting the Bible to support oppression and bigotry. I think the Church has also been mistaken about women, ignoring the great women who led God's people, like Deborah and Phoebe and Miriam and Huldah. This is just another case where we are finally hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit applying Galatians 3:28-29 to our consciousness, namely, that in Christ there is no 'male and female' (notice that quote from Genesis 1:26-28!!!), but that 'all are one in Christ Jesus'.

Why is it, Rod, that we Bible-believing Christians are okay with Jacob having two wives and two concubines, or the great faith of Rahab the prostitute, and happily ignore Mosaic laws about widows marrying their dead husband's brother, or fathers selling daughters into slavery, or raped women having to marry their rapists, but we freak out to think that two women or two men might actually lover each other and be Godly on top of it?

Rod, the ELCA is not voting out the Trinity or the resurrection of Jesus. It is just grappling with God's real people, just like the Church grappled with the Roman Gentile Cornelius...and decided he didn't have to be circumcized, even though "the Bible says so". Christ and holy Tradition do not change, but traditions may change.

Neuhaus' former Lutheran communion was actually the LCMS (Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod). He talks a bit about the importance of that communion's attitude towards unity and the Reformation for his conversion to Catholicism in his recent Catholic Matters. The LCMS, according to Neuhaus, has always viewed its ultimate goal as reunion once Rome would change what needed changing (the anti-Catholicism of many members notwithstanding). Thus, it was in some ways easier for Neuhaus to leave the LCMS for Rome.

Mike, just a couple things. First, the slavery issue: the medieval church ended slavery in its ranks well, well before the commencement of that which we call the 'American experiment.' (Cf. Regine Pernoud, Those Terrible Middle Ages.) You've got a monolithic view when you write about the "church" changing its mind on slavery. Some Christians in the South were pro-slavery, some were not. A few in the North were pro-slavery, many were not. Denominations/communions matter here. Anyway, it's not like there was one entity, "the church", which all of the sudden had a sea change in its thinking. And even if that were true, it wouldn't necessarily legitimate changes in other areas.

Second, the Cornelius card: I know this is a favorite move of gay apologists, but ultimately it doesn't work. The claim is that, if the Holy Spirit moved the early church to accept Gentiles, perhaps the Spirit is moving the contemporary church(es) to accept the practice of homosexuality. This doesn't work for a host of reasons. First, we are not the apostles; what the Spirit did with Peter and Cornelius was unique, and it does not necessarily follow that the breaking of this Jewish boundary marker permits or requires the breaking of others. After all, even the most liberal Christians would say *some* boundaries regarding behavior exist; which boundaries get to become obsolete, and which remain? Second, the prior point raises the issue of interpretive competency and authority. Who knows what the Spirit is really saying? Liberal Christians are pushing hard for these changes, but we conservatives think that "we too have the Holy Spirit." Many who have claimed the Spirit's leading in a given situation apart from Scripture and tradition (and the Church's authority) have done screwy things -- like Thomas Muntzer's leading of the disastrous Battle of Frankenhausen in 1525, or Jim Jones, or any number of pentecostal/charismatic leaders. Third, Galatians 3.28-29 speaks of there being neither Greek nor Jew, slave or free, male or female in Christ; it says nothing about homosexuality, and, as a New Testament scholar, I'd be shocked if the author of these verses, a conservative Jew on issues of morality, would want their principles extended to cover homosexual practice, especially in light of what he says elsewhere (Romans 1, your thoughts thereon notwithstanding, I Cor 6, etc.). Fourth, it's not as if the inclusion of the Gentiles was a totally new thing contrary to what we call the Old Testament. There are many positive statements about Gentiles in the Old Testament, and many of the prophets looked forward to the day when the Gentiles would be brought in. The first Christians -- Paul in particular -- thought that the coming of Jesus meant that the time for such was indeed at hand. We are hard pressed to find anything similar in the Old Testament that looks forward to the acceptance of homosexual practice.

On a macro-level, what's going on in pro-homosexuality exegesis is a grand game of abstraction: general principles are abstracted from the particulars of what is actually said, and then reapplied (awkwardly and selectively, in my view) to issues regarding sexuality. So the inclusion of Gentiles becomes simply a lesson about inclusion in general, applied to issues as liberal theologians and activists see fit; Paul's words in Gal. 3.28 function likewise. The problems with this are that the particulars of the text are obliterated, we assume the place of the apostles, and the real controlling authority becomes the (post)modern worldview of the liberal exegete, in which the Individual is Lord of his or her own self and in which boundaries must be crossed for the sake of crossing boundaries. The Bible becomes a tool filtered through a worldview alien to historic Christian faith.

Anyone who is really interested in learning more about these issues from a traditional perspective could read Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice, for starters.

I'm going to let Joseph Mobberly, S.J., make the case for me on the Jesuit position on slavery in antebellum Maryland. This is from the digital archive of the Jesuit Plantation Project at Georgetown University.

http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/americanstudies/jpp/cham4.html#section5

The history of slavery and the Catholic church is complicated, of course. The website above also contains the text of Gregory XVI's letter forbidding capture of indigenous tribes for slave trading. However, juxtaposed with it is a letter to Catholics pooh-poohing the notion that the Pope's strictures applied to owning domestic slaves obtained by established methods. Bishop John England of Charleston, while concerned for the welfare of slaves, also taught that slavery was permissible and that the Pope's letter did not intend to forbid the practice.

Mobberly's lengthy tirade on the iniquity of preaching that all men deserve freedom, copiously citing Scripture, is well worth reading. One should continue to the end and hear this Jesuit's beliefs about why black men are black, and how this is a sign of their unique fitness for slavery.

Here is a brief excerpt from a report on needed improvements in conditions on the Jesuit plantations, which were evidently less than ideal.

4. That pregnant women should not be whipped --

5. That this chastise[ment] should not be inflicted on any female in the house, where the priest lives -- sometimes they have been tied up in the priests own parlour, which is very indecorous --

6. that they should all be sent to Church on Ash-Wednesday & Good Friday, & on the patron Saint of the Churchs or place, if kept with solemnity, tho of course, they be made to work the rest of the day --

Distasteful as it is, of course none of this speaks directly to the issue of how to treat gay people. However, in my opinion, it amply demonstrates that the Church has vigorously espoused and justified postions we now see as unjustifiable. By analogy, one may hope that anti-gay discrimination may be seen in the future as a similar error.

Both Mike and Susan make claims that seemingly have importance, but are in fact irrelevant to the discussions. It is what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery. There seems to be an assumption that the modern world is now so different, that Biblical ideals no longer apply, or that somehow our new knowledge of things invalidates certain long held moral doctrines. But that is nothing new; that attitude has been around since recorded history, and has been used by every new generation to counter the old. Of course, there is no evidence that homosexuality is "hardwired" whatever that means. But even if it were, I would suggest that many men are "hardwired" to be adulterers or fornicators, but this does not mean they should pursue their vices. Some have a more difficult cross to bear than others, but it does not absolve a free will from acting freely despite some constraints imposed upon it, that is to say, we must always do battle against committing sin no matter how difficult it is, rather than transmute sin into something good and therefore desirable.

Of course the fundamental question is with authority, that is to say, who has the authority to decide what the Scriptures mean? What chronological snobbery means is that the modern world decides this, rather than the Church through its Scriptures and Tradition. But the modern world is in a sense irrelevant: the Church is meant to change the modern world, not be changed by it. So it comes down to a question of the value of Faith, of which is more important: the Scriptures and the Church, or the modern ethos that is not founded on Scripture?

"I would reiterate Mike's question, which is one the gays and lesbians ask: is it your position that everyone who is hard-wired for same sex attraction has also the gift of celibacy? And if not, what exactly are they supposed to do, in your view?"

The answer that seems to come through repeatedly, not only to this question, but to a whole bunch of others, is that they are supposed to suffer. I do not believe liberalism is a "culture of death", but I do increasingly believe that conservatism is a culture of suffering.
Don't tell your kids about condoms; preach abstinence at them, and if they can't conform to it, let them get AIDS.
Don't tell them about designated drivers; just tell them not to drink, and let them take the consequences if they do.
Don't worry about overpopulation. It's more important for the Right People to increase and multiply, even if the Wrong People are also doing it and jointly we are using up the earth, and will all ultimately suffer for it (but the Wrong People will suffer first, so that's okay.)
Don't offer clean needles to drug users; if they can't Just Say No, they deserve to get hepatitis and whatever else is going around, and if their wives and kids get it too, that's tough.

If this is what the City of God has to offer, I'll take the City of Man, thankyouverymuch.

"That could be an overgeneralization. Still, overgeneralizations do have some value."

Gee, I hope so. Otherwise, the fact that my post got on here (and in two slightly different versions yet) would be a total waste! Sorry, all.

Interesting points, Marian. I hadn't put all that together before.

I guess what bothers me about a lot - not all - of what we may lump together as "conservatism" (what Rock calls "discipline") is that what it too often works out to in practice is The Devil Take The Hindmost. You're gay? Tough on you, you have to be celibate. Or fry in hell. You're the wife of a man with AIDS? Tough on you too, you can't use condoms, and if he isn't willing to be celibate (fat chance, where did he get AIDS in the first place?) you get to die of AIDS. And your kids too maybe. You're struggling with drug addiction? We aren't going to supply you clean needles, you and we will be better off when you die of Hep C or AIDS, tough on you. You're too poor to afford health insurance and you get sick? Well, tough on you too, you'll get what treatment is available in the emergency room.

If this is "discipline" (which I take to be praise), well, maybe we need to re-think it. Maybe "therapy" (which would perhaps better be phrased as "healing") might serve us better.

As it happens I'm heterosexual, my husband does not have and is not likely to get AIDS, no one in my family uses hard drugs, we have the money for health insurance, so we're fine, right?

I assume that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity could have arranged to be born as a man - assuming He even bothered with that - anywhere and under any circumstances. He could have been born a prince, like Siddhartha. Or into a family which would have seen to it that he was very well educated. Or whatever.

Instead He chose to be born under humble circumstances, and to associate as an adult with the poor and the marginalized. And was criticized for it, by the "righteous" of the time. The "disciplined" if you will.

I'm slowly getting to know Him better. So far as I've gotten, I just don't think He'd tell me to sit comfortably in my comfort (90% of which was NOT earned, and if you're "comfortable" like me I'd say the same of you) and say, well, tough on everyone else. And I don't think He approves when the Churches in effect do that in His name.

It's not the City of God, Marian, and don't let anyone tell you that it is.

.... to elaborate a bit on my last comment .....

Much of what is happening in France and Germany demonstrates what happens when a nation's social-welfare policy includes too many theraputic ingredients and too few ingredients of discipline.

Unemployment is near 10 percent in both nations. Some of the most talented French and Germans are leaving their native country for places where it's easier to hang on to one's income and wealth.

Sarkozy actually campaigned in London, England even though he was running for president of France a few months ago. So many Frenchmen had left France for Great Britain that Sarkozy felt it necessary to say, "Hey, guys. Come back. Your country needs you." And he promised to reform France's economic system so that investors and workers would be drawn back to France.

Jesus Christ would possibly look at those former Frenchmen and former Germans with disapproval (we don't know for sure what marginal tax rate Jesus Christ favored, nor do we know what Jesus Christ would say about the various schools of economic theory). But that fact of the matter is that human beings are pretty much wired to think selfishly.

Selfishly? Yes. Think about it.

If some guy you don't know breaks his leg skiing, do you feel a sharp pain in your leg?

If some child dies of malaria in Africa, do you even know the name of this child?

The answer to both questions is probably "No."

That doesn't make you an uncaring person. It's just the way a human being is set up.

If some man and women in Kentucky got divorced last week, I don't know about it.

It's not that I don't care. It's just that human beings are limited in so many ways.

Intellectually and neurologically are probably the most significant ways in which human beings are limited and, thus, wired to be more selfish than we wish they were.

Jesus Christ might wish that those Frenchmen would return from Great Britain to France and quit dodging the high taxing, high spending government of France. But it's not likely to happen.

That's why constructing a social-welfare policy that takes the nature of human beings into account is probably better than constructing a social-welfare policy based on the way we wish human being acted.

I guess the problem I have with Rock is that he takes for granted that nobody would work, or behave decently, except under threat of starvation or some other dire punishment. Maybe it's a male thing--women are used to working, and expecting to work, at things that they never get paid for, and then having to hold down a paid job on top of that if they want to avoid being called welfare queens. Most of us know retired people who work harder now than they did when they were getting paid (as my father did, among many others.) But then, I somehow suspect Rock does all kinds of useful things he doesn't get paid for, and would behave decently if every jot and tittle of the criminal code were repealed.

This, of course, is the difference between Augustinians and Pelagians (you don't need to be a Christian to be literate in church history.) We Jews don't exactly believe in original sin (partly because, like the Jesuit who told me that after his first month of hearing confessions, he no longer believed in original sin because there was nothing original about it). Instead we believe in the "Evil Urge", which has a certain head start on the Good Urge, but which is also essential to life in the world (kind of like Freud's libido, or Erasmus' Folly.)

The fact is that Augustinianism doesn't seem to reduce the amount of sin in the world; it just increases the amount of punishment. Which leads one to suspect that some people just get a kick out of knowing that other people are suffering.

Marian Neudel,

I guess the problem I have with Rock is that he takes for granted that nobody would work, or behave decently, except under threat of starvation or some other dire punishment.

Nothing should be taken for granted. We should test arguments against reality.

That's why international comparisons in economics is productive. If policy A has been tried in country X while policy B is being tried in country Z, we can look at the results and see what we think.

Too often people are just arguing as if the world started yesterday and that these policies have never been tried before.

sigaliris,

I'm interested in your hypothesis that large numbers of Americans are itching to lose their jobs and go on welfare, Rock. So tell me, at what point will the social welfare system become so attractive to you that you will quit your current job, which I'm assuming pays you a decent salary, and agree to live fat and happy on welfare and food stamps, in the housing and neighborhood to which this will entitle you?

The US has a small social-welfare system for people of working age compared to many European nations. So, America's social welfare state would probably have to grow quite a bit and tax rates would have to climb a little for me to take a "aw, why work? What's the point?" attitude.

I am, however, 41 years old. And I have been saving for retirement.

Do I factor in how much Social Security will pay me in retirment? Well, I can only guess how much SS will actually pay when I reach retirement age.

So, in tiny little ways, we are all affected to some degree by how generous the government/taxpayer is and how generous we as workers/investors want to be with out time.

I know many people who would prefer spending more time with their family than working at a stressful job.

I just got out of the emergency room this afternoon. From a selfish perspective, I'm glad that the doctor, nurses and technicians were there, at the hospital and weren't home with their families.

So, for every ying there's a yang.

Yes, I think people are hard-wired for same-sex attraction, and every "ex-gay" Christian I have ever met or read about will admit that, behold, they still have "struggles" and "temptations" with same-sex attraction. Which means that they are still gay: straight men don't have "struggles" and "temptations" with same-sex attraction!

Interestingly, virtually all major Christian churches...including the Roman Catholic which not only has tens of thousands of "annulments" every year in the U.S., but has also for decades been "dissolving" marriages for a modest fee using the "Petrine privilege"...and the Orthodox churches which allow for up to four marriages...and the Anglicans and Lutherans who remarry divorced people all the time...

have no trouble applying "mercy" and "ekonomia" and "leniency" and "second chances" and "grace" to divorced and remarried people...

but somehow the spigot for the milk of human kindness seems not to be so available to gay and lesbian Christians.

Why is that? Hypocrisy, perhaps?

Marian Neudel,

"I just got out of the emergency room this afternoon. From a selfish perspective, I'm glad that the doctor, nurses and technicians were there, at the hospital and weren't home with their families."

So am I, of course. But I'd feel better knowing that they hadn't been on the job more than 80 hours in the last week. Wouldn't you?

Agreed. But on the other hand, if we enforced a French-style 35 hour work week on all health care professionals, we might wonder why when you call to get a doctor's appointment they pencil you in for the year 2012.

We should encourage the highly intelligent, highly dedicated people who go into intellectually demanding fields like medicine to work longer hours than the guy who serves coffee at Starbucks.

Interestingly, virtually all major Christian churches...including the Roman Catholic which not only has tens of thousands of "annulments" every year in the U.S., but has also for decades been "dissolving" marriages for a modest fee using the "Petrine privilege"...and the Orthodox churches which allow for up to four marriages...and the Anglicans and Lutherans who remarry divorced people all the time...

have no trouble applying "mercy" and "ekonomia" and "leniency" and "second chances" and "grace" to divorced and remarried people...

but somehow the spigot for the milk of human kindness seems not to be so available to gay and lesbian Christians.

Why is that? Hypocrisy, perhaps?

That's the one that really nails it down, isn't it. We don't have to "imply" anything into the words of Jesus on this one, we don't have to hang our entire hat on three ambiguous words in Paul, we have the Lord himself discoursing at length and in no uncertain terms about divorce and remarriage. And yet we're prepared to overlook all that. But the gays, well, there's no hope for them. This makes the whole "well the Bible says homosexuality is a sin" argument look positively embarrassing.

I just think it's easier to be compassionate about the behavior of ourselves and people like us than it is to do the same for people we don't know and maybe don't like. It turns out that what "the Bible says" doesn't have anything to do with it.

Ron,

With all due respect, if you go to AOL and do a search of profiles of straights, you'll find mostly a bunch of ill-adjusted folks who can't make normal connections normally. Some of THEM will make you sick at your stomach. I'm not sure how much this has to do with orientation, frankly. Who goes to AOL or Yahoo to meet people? Normal people, gay or straight, don't need that, they have friends and associates in real life.

My next door neighbors are a gay couple, oh, probably Rod's age. They've lived there for some years. I know these guys pretty well. They're committed Christians and decent people. Perfect? I daresay not, but certainly no more and probably less "deviant" than my husband and I. I absolutely refuse to believe that Brad and Jeff are living some kind of secret kinky life over there. They both work too hard, for one thing. Their idea of a wild night out is to sit on their front steps with a glass of wine. They give happy, fairly quiet, mixed-gender parties with lots of kids around.

My best friend is a lesbian my own age. I think I know Kate pretty well. I'm fond of her and her partner of many years, Angela. Kate and Ang are the heart and soul of their Episcopal parish, and I can testify both to the depth of Kate's love for Christ and to her kindness to me and to so many others. She's one of these Christians who believe that you can't follow Christ if you're not continually extending yourself for those who need help.

I don't know where you are geographically, but if you're in the midwest I would suggest that you leave. It has been my impression that very many homosexuals do, and I certainly know plenty of gays and lesbians out here in San Francisco who are no weirder than the average of human being. Not all of them are Christians of course - not all straights are Christians either - and any big city has its share of very very strange people, both gay and straight, but it hasn't been my impression living here for 62 years that the "private life" of gays is, on the average, any stranger than that of anyone else.

Ted,

"Of course, there is no evidence that homosexuality is "hardwired" whatever that means."

Of course, there is no evidence that heterosexuality is "hardwired" whatever that means too.

"But even if it were, I would suggest that many men are "hardwired" to be adulterers or fornicators, but this does not mean they should pursue their vices."

Ted, you confuse committed relationships with adultery. Sorry, that doesn't cut it. Speak to us of the committed same-sex couples that are being discussed, please.

Ron,

I just can't get past the idea that you are using your orientation as an excuse for not getting a life. There are lonely and dysfunctional straights too, but at least they don't have that excuse. Like a black person who can't hold a job who thinks everything's about racial discrimination. If they were white they'd have to think of something else.

You're 45, you say. My experience is that people who can make relationships work have mostly done so by the time they're your age.

Houston may not be the best venue. (No!!!) Go west, middle aged man. Or, east. (Manhattan, not Atlanta!)

Here's a challenge. If you accept it, say so, and I'll give you my email. Then you can come to my house as a guest, and meet Brad, Jeff, Kate and Angela. If any one of them invites you to an "orgy" I'll give you $1,000. If after due time they don't, you owe ME $1,000.

I won't load the dice. I can just see myself going to Jeff, who's a senior exec at Apple and working 80 hours a week, and saying, "Hey there Jeff, don't have any orgies, OK?" He'd think I'd gone off my nut.

My position is, I believe what people tell me about their inner lives until someone comes up with clear and convincing evidence to the contrary - which will be hard to come by.

For example, I'll tell you I'm heterosexual, and I'm not prepared to have you say that I'm "really" a lesbian. And vice versa, of course.