Shame, Sexuality, and Presbyterians

My Presbytery met recently, as it does on a semi-regular basis, to go over items of business and approve and affirm various and sundry overtures to the General Assembly.  Those overtures are a semi-annual process that determines the direction and policy statements of the church.  Generally, these are as interesting to those outside of our shrinking fold as the census of tribal membership in Numbers 2.

The overtures before the body were four, and four was their number, and I read all of them, just as I always read every single action item all the way through.  Two dealt with matters of investment policy and grantmaking, together pushing for a reallocation of resources into sustainable and renewable energy production.  One was a paean to regenerative agriculture, encouraging Presbyterians to engage with systems of food production that don't rely on industrial and extractive methodologies.  These were all well and good, if a teensy little bit on the dry side.

The fourth was...unsettling.   I wrestled with it mightily, and struggled to process it.  

It is my responsibility, as the pastor, to report back on Presbytery goings-on to the elders who lead my little congregation.  When we met last week, I don't think I did the most effective job of it.  I hemmed.  I hawed.  I equivocated, struggling to find words that worked.  It was an awkward moment.

“On Confession, Repentance and Renewed Theological Engagement Regarding HIV/AIDS and Human Sexuality," or so it was named by the folks who want it adopted as the official policy of the church.  The essence of it is veiled in the circuitous semiotics of contemporary progressive language, but there were two primary action points.

Action point number one was a call for the church...by which the authors mean the PC(USA)...to formally confess culpability for causing the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  The logic behind this is a weensy bit convoluted, but as I grasp it, goes as follows:  In 1967, the PC(USA) formally affirmed that entropy in sexual relationships was destructive of human personhood, and that the culture of the "sexual revolution" was antithetical to human thriving.  This was defined using binary and heterosexual language.  This explicit heteronormativity shamed queer folk whose sexuality and desire for sexual expression was neither heterosexual or binary in nature, and the trauma of that shame led to actions that made them vulnerable to AIDS.  Therefore and quod erat demonstrandum, the Presbyterian Church USA and its moral theology are responsible for the AIDS epidemic, and must formally repent for all of the trauma, suffering, and death that it caused.

Action point number two was grounded in the first, and called for a revisiting of the nature of relationship itself, and a formal theological re-imagining of our understanding of the "...full spectrum of relational and family structures, exploring ethical approaches to consent, mutuality, and care."  This action point is a little more linguistically veiled, far less direct than the first.  It involves charging two General Assembly committees with establishing frameworks for the acceptance of "relationship structures beyond traditional monogamy" and "diverse intimate arrangements."

This, to the best of my capacity, is my reflecting back what I read.

To be utterly honest, one part of the reason I struggled to verbally convey this to the good souls on my Session was that the whole thing both alarmed and bugged the crap out of me.   

The call to covenant fidelity in relationship in a confession that's fundamentally about social justice is responsible for the AIDS epidemic?  The Book of Confessions, Section 9, paragraph 47, subsection D is the reason people were infected by HIV?  A denomination that sweated blood and tears and worked for decades to become a place of gracious inclusion of Queer folk must now repent in sackcloth and ashes for inflicting the spiritual trauma that caused AIDS?   Sweet Mary and Joseph, what a wild causal stretch all of that is.   

That most of it is argued using contemporary therapeutic trauma language and Newspeak was equally unsettling.  It doesn't read like theology.  It reads like carefully calibrated psychological manipulation, and in a very particular direction.

That first action point has a particular intent rhetorically.  It is, in design and argumentation, preparing the subject to accept the second action point as the necessary outcome.  Given the language used, the goal is not to get the denomination to affirm the covenant fidelity of Queer folk in their life partnerships.  There'd be no point in that, as that's what the PC(USA) already does.  This is pressing for something more.

The authors of this overture appear to be utilizing a trauma-forward shaming framework as the pretext for a wholesale re-imagining of the concepts of marriage, covenant and fidelity.  Or, to put it as my anger would put it, they're engaging in some weapons-grade gaslighting to coerce the church into blessing open, non-dyadic, and polyamorous relationships.  If you speak Presbyterian, that's what it says, depending on whether you're feeling more neutral or royally pissed off.

So, nothing controversial.  Can't imagine this proving disruptive to my community in any way.  Ahem.

And all of this got dropped on the meeting website just days before the meeting, and on which we were supposed to vote on over...Zoom.  Zoom, where discourse is constrained, and engagement is minimized, and tone and the reality of incarnate presence are missing.

It was recommended for concurrence by the committee responsible for such things.  So I realized, Lord help me, am I going to be That Guy in a hundred-plus-participant Zoom where I'm not really personally known, given my increasingly sparse connections to the Presbytery?   Still struggling to process this, I wrestled with participation mightily all day.  On the one hand, I had strong feelings.  On the other, I still had strong feelings.  I got more and more anxious about being That Guy, to where I finally couldn't bring myself to even engage in the meeting.

Which is the other reason I had so much trouble explaining it.  I felt more than a little cowardly, to be honest.

Shame does work, eh?

The Three Reasons Why I Will Not Conduct Same Sex Marriages

Flagrant and willful clickbait aside, I will not conduct same sex marriages for pretty much the same reasons I won't conduct heterosexual marriages.

First, I will not conduct a same sex marriage if a couple doesn't ask me.  So far, that's been the primary reason I've not officiated for a gay or lesbian couple.  The opportunity has not presented itself, as I would not expect it to in the small communities I serve.  Nor do I go out seeking it.  As a pastor, I'm not out there drumming up marriage business.  It's not my thing.  Because my primary job is not to marry people.

I teach the Way of Jesus, guiding whoever wants to listen along that path as best I can.  That involves a laser-like focus on what is fundamental to the Christian journey, which is no more and no less than this: doing what Jesus tells us to do.  It's not about abstracted theological constructs, sociopolitical posturing, or convoluted defenses of textual or ecclesiastical inerrancy.  It's about manifesting, in your life and in all your relationships, the manner of being that Jesus manifested and taught.

Teaching that is my task, and how we live that out in marriage is a part of that Way.  So sure, I'll marry you.  But again, I will only do this if asked.

Second, I will not conduct a same sex marriage if the couple wants a ceremony that has no Christian content.  Over my years of pastoring, I've gotten calls from people wanting me to marry 'em, but wanting that event to, you know, not have any of that faith stuff in it.  "We're just not comfortable with any talk about God or Jesus," I've heard.  To those heterosexuals, I've said, no, that's not what I do.  I have said so politely, keeping my incredulous facepalming to a minimum.

I've sent them on their way, to chapels, and to justices of the peace.  Or to friends who've gotten that endearingly ersatz "Church of the Universal Hupdeehoo" ordination online.  Not that you have to even do that, honestly.  Many states allow you to have a friend or family member conduct the ceremony, no ordination required.  Do that, if that is what you want.

But if you want me to officiate, there's gonna be some Jesus happening, in the same way that a Buddhist would reference their tradition, or a Muslim theirs, or a Hindu theirs.  Or a Unitarian all of the above.  Or a puppeteer with puppets.

Third, I will not proceed with your marriage if it seems inadvisable.  Here, again, I'm not a business.  My job is not just to pump out the "I dos" for three-to-five-hundred a pop. I'm trying to guide you into a covenant.

I expect front end conversations, in which we explore the dynamics of your relationship.  What are your expectations?  How do you handle conflict?  Have you had open conversations about family, faith, and finances?  I'll walk you through your relational systems, exploring both formative and prior relationships.  I will get to know you as both persons and a couple, if I do not already.

And if at any point it looks, to me, like there are critically unresolved issues, I may slow things down.  If it looks like a couple is woefully mismatched, or manifesting abusive/controlling dynamics, or unserious in ways that have a high probability of devolving into dysfunction, I may remove myself, and recommend that they do some more work before barging ahead.

What right do I have to tell two people they don't love each other enough to get married, you might say.  Love!  It's about love!

But marriage isn't just about being in love, right now.  It's about the reality of how that love manifests itself over time.  You are marrying another person, but you are also connecting yourself, through that love, to every other relationship in their lives.  That's complex, and it evolves and changes, and that...not the rings, not the dress, not the reception, not your big feely feels...is what shapes a lifelong covenant between two persons.  Or breaks it.

That is true in every marriage, and you need to take that seriously.

I will not tell you otherwise, because while I'm a fool in many ways, that ain't one of 'em.

The Battle for Marriage in the State of Virginia

Last week, a federal judge ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage in the state of Virginia was unconstitutional, drawing the Old Dominion into a peculiar place.  On the one hand, if the law violates the constitutional rights of citizens, then it's right out.  On the other, if removing it does significant damage to the liberties of citizens, then it should be retained.  That'll be a matter for the Supreme Court of the United States, and when this ruling comes, it'll be a big one in my home state.

But that's the issue for the legal system.  As a pastor, my concern is marriage.  Not weddings, mind you.  The Wedding-Industrial-Complex is trucking along just fine, God help us.  I'm talking about marriage, the covenanted relationship that engages two souls in a lifelong commitment to one another.

That institution, as I see it, is in danger right now in the state of Virginia.

Last week's ruling, though, had no impact on marriage at all.  Whether or not gays and lesbians can solemnify their unions is completely immaterial to heterosexual couples.  It doesn't change anything at all, so far as I can see it.   Say you're a heterosexual Bible-believer in Virginia, married to your spouse for a couple of decades.  When you woke up the morning after the ruling, how had your commitment to your husband or wife changed?

Not at all.  Mine didn't.

Neither does it impact religious liberty in any meaningful way.  I cannot, as a pastor, be made to bless and solemnify the union of anyone I choose not to marry.  Neither can I be told what I am allowed to say or not say in a ceremony.  The state does not pay me, nor can it in any other way coerce my behavior within my faith community.  I am, as a faithful person, completely free.

But it's impossible to miss the threat to marriage, because marriages are coming to pieces all around us.  Committed, lifelong relationships are an endangered species, with divorce rates in our country at a painfully high and sustained level.

When I talk with folks who are struggling in their marriages, or folks who are living through the painful process of divorce, gay marriage just isn't a significant factor.  It isn't, quite frankly, a factor at all.

The odd stressors of suburban existence?  That's a powerful enemy of marriage.  The peculiarly joyless demands of anxiety-driven helicopter parenting?  That challenges healthy relationships, as parents neglect one another and forget one another in the stress-mess of activity-wrangling.  Our warped work culture, which drives both spouses to work impossible hours out of fear that we'll be let go the next time folks in the C-suite are looking to justify their absurd salaries?  Yeah, that fear is a factor.

Our consumerist obsession with self-indulgence, which has doubled down deep in the instant gratification of the internet age?  That's an enemy.  Our stresses about finances and debt, as somehow the groaningly abundant cornucopia of food, shelter, and entertainment around us doesn't translate into a sense of wellbeing?  That's an enemy.

In ten thousand ways, the state of mutual, covenant commitment that is marriage is under attack in our society.

But same-sex unions are not part of that war.

They neither threaten an individual's integrity as a person of faith, nor do they have any meaningful impact on marriage as a state of being.

I do not doubt that as this case moves forward, there will be a tremendous amount of heat and light generated by those who view this as a threat.  Much fear will be stoked.  This frustrates me, as a pastor, and not only because I view same-sex marriage as an overdue blessing.  Though I do.

It frustrates me because I care about marriage, and the more energy Christians pour into opposing same-sex relationships, the less energy is retained for the real battle.

Three Ways Conservatives can Defend Marriage

It's been an interesting couple of days in the life of our body politic, as two consecutive Supreme Court decisions have continued to bend our nation towards accepting same-sex unions.  This week's decision means the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, has been significantly gutted.

There have been and will be two significantly different responses to this trend.  First, there will be celebration and relief among those who...like myself...feel that same-sex marriage should be afforded the same legal status as my own marriage.   These unions, like my own marriage, can also be covenanted, meaning they intentionally represent a bond of mutual love and commitment that reflect God's intent for us as human beings.  That such relationships can increasingly be open and spiritually healthy is a good thing.

Then there are those who will take this decision as a source of confusion and spiritual anguish.  They will interpret this as yet another sign of the collapse of marriage, and the gradual decay of our society.  As the attitudes towards gays and lesbians continue to shift, it will become harder and harder for them to make headway in a democratic republic, and that will create a sense of increasing estrangement and isolation.

For Westboro Baptist types, it will likely become the primary explanation for the impacts of climate change.  Of course it's 117 degrees in Las Vegas today!  The Lord hath spoken in His Mighty Wrathy Wrathfulness!  Pat Robertson, bless his soul, has rumbled about God doing something significant at some point that might indicate displeasure.

Within my own denomination, the ultraconservative gadflies haven't yet figured out how to respond.  It's so hard for Presbyterians to process being not only out of step with the culture, but out of step with constitutional precedent.  We're just so danged law abiding.

But the truth of most conservative Christians, when you get to know them personally and not their stereotypes, is that they aren't monsters.  For all the cries of bigot and homophobe on the left, most I've known are not hateful people.  They simply aren't.  Not at all.  They try to hold on to what is good, as they've been lead to understand it, and they're deeply worried about losing something that is a deeply positive thing.

For those folks, I have a few humble and well-intentioned offerings:

1) Defend Your Own Marriage.  What you'll notice, in the months and years ahead, is that the legal unions of gays and lesbians have absolutely no impact on your own.  None.  But that isn't to say that there aren't challenges arising directly from our culture.  Financial stresses and the relentless pressures of competitiveness and consumerism drive us to live and act in ways that make sustaining a marriage increasingly challenging.

Resist those pressures.  Fight them from the heart of your faith.  Take time to delight in your husband or wife.  Treat them as the flesh of your flesh, and don't allow the anxieties and bitternesses that can arise from life's frustrations to tear you apart.  By maintaining a healthy, loving mutually-honoring relationship, you'll be showing the world what a relationship grounded in faith really means.  Rather than denigrating and cursing those who you disagree with, bless them with the truth you're living out.

2) Don't Go to Ground.  The temptation to circle the wagons is going to be a powerful one following these decisions.  With a culture that is moving further and further away from the position of the right, there is going to be a strong push to seal the bulkheads and lock down in the underground shelters.  There is a biblical basis for this, I'll admit.  If John of Patmos is your primary biblical author, then the task of every Christian is to maintain purity at all costs in the face of an irredeemably corrupt and decadent culture.  Retreating into an echo chamber does that.  But it also destroys your ability to proclaim and spread the good news.  If you cannot speak the language of Athens, you can't stand on Mars Hill and share the grace of the Gospel.

Paul...whose greatest gift was the capacity to communicate and connect...is a better guide. The Gospel is a robust and powerful thing, when grounded in the reality of God's work in creation. Stay connected. Stay in conversation. Stay out there in the world. Don't hide your light under a lampstand.

Because though I disagree with you on some things, I know I have much to learn from you on others.

3) Take Gamaliel's Advice.  In the Acts of the Apostles, Gamaliel was the venerated rabbinic teacher who saved Christianity.  When the Sanhedrin was in a position to annihilate the fledgling Jesus-movement, Gamaliel had a simple, wise counsel.  He reminded the Sanhedrin that every messianic movement had flamed out or collapsed, and suggested that rather than butcher these individuals, they should let God be at work.  If Christianity was of God, it would thrive.  If it was not, it would fail.  So rather than risk going against God's will, it would be better to simply let this Way stand or fall.

Gamaliel's teaching has purchase now, because evil and sin are self-annihilating.  Every movement or worldview that is grounded in self-seeking power and sinful hunger will tear itself to pieces.  It is the nature of sin that it destroys itself.

If the proponents of same-sex marriage are wrong, then it will prove a ruin.  You won't need to do anything.  If, however, they are right and this represents a new and more spiritually healthy way for gays and lesbians to live into the Kingdom, then this way of being will thrive.

So trust in the Creator of All Things.

Because the Christian calling is not to curse and destroy.  It is to be a beacon of grace, mercy, and kindness, so self-evidently good that those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness are drawn to you.

Defending Marriage

A letter came acros't me pastoral desk the other day, one from a group of well-meaning local Presbyterian folk who are deeply struggling with the transitions in our culture.  They are eager to set themselves as a bulwark against the gradual unravelling of the social bonds that keep our life together from descending into total gnawing entropic madness.

They are doing so by affirming what they view as the central tenets of our faith, and are making a point of highlighting one of the central teachings of our ancient tradition: marriage between one man and one woman.   This is just as Jesus taught it, and Paul taught it.  Right?

I think, rather obviously, that both their diagnosis and methodology are a wee bit off, but I am willing to agree on one significant point.  Those social bonds are increasingly frayed, and that's not a good thing.  In particular, the bonds of sustained, committed, lifelong relationships...marriage...are reaching the tipping point.   

A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that marriage is right on the cusp of being a minority position among American adults.   It's a growing and deepening trend, and one that is entirely comprehensible from a sociological/psychological standpoint.  

Psychologically, it's understandable that the last several generations, who have watched divorce rend apart marriage after marriage, might not view it as quite the bedrock foundation of our culture.

Sociologically, there are several factors driving the fading of marriage as an institution.  First, there's the unwillingness to shun those who have experienced divorce, or to belittle and devalue those who aren't married.   This, quite frankly, is a Good Thing.  Yeah, sure, there are plenty of Pastor Mark Q. JudgeyPants out there still, willing to tell you how pathetic you are if you're not married or if you're struggling with challenges in relationships.  But there've always been Pharisees with well-weighted stones in hand, and diminishing the power of their voices in culture is welcome.

Second, and this is Not A Good Thing, there are powerful social pressures coming from our culture that tend to break apart relationships.  There's increasing social isolation and fragmentation, which makes commitment more and more challenging.  There's the radical cult of the self, driven by consumerism, which makes life about the Me and the lizard-brain-immediate, and not about the Us and grace-filled relationship.  We're taught to believe that our value as persons can be measured independently of the way we relate to others, to Creation, and to our Maker.  This is not true.  It leads us to very unpleasant places, personally, socially, and spiritually.

Ultimately, the faithful response is to counterculturally resist those powers.  Where folks of a more progressive bent can find commonality with our more conservative brethren and sistren is in affirming that there is, in fact, value in sustained, committed human relationships.  

Loving relationships and caring, connected communities are blessings from our Creator, and they are well worth encouraging, supporting, and defending.

Proposition 8, Gay Marriage, and the Challenge for Conservatism

As the dust settles from Proposition 8's overturn by a Reagan-nominated federal judge, it is settling in some anticipated ways. Those who support gay marriage are heartened by the vigorous and far-reaching character of the ruling by Justice Vaughn Walker. Opponents are falling back and retrenching, and likely hoping that the conservative Supreme Court will choose to overturn the ruling.

The challenge for the conservative position, unfortunately, is that it is clearly and objectively weaker. That weakness comes because in the public arena, the literalist interpretation of Scripture that is the basic foundation of most opposition to gay marriage has no purchase. You cannot argue an effective constitutional case from a few snippets in Leviticus and Paul. Honestly, you can't make an effective scriptural case, either, but that's a topic I've explored elsewhere. In the absence of the literalist framework, the argumentation comes across as fundamentally shallow. Take, for instance, three current pillars of conservative argumentation.

1) Gay marriage threatens marriage. This stance, which is a standard position, has the unfortunate character of being self-evidently wrong. Anyone who is married knows this. My heterosexual marriage is not impacted in any way by gay marriage. Period. If the state chooses to extend those rights to another class of citizen, that does not in any way abrogate my own rights. No matter where you stand on the issue, that remains true. It also in no way impacts the sanctity of a covenantal union. If you believe that marriage is fundamentally a covenant between a man and a woman, bound together by the grace and power of their Creator, then the extension of legal and civil rights to gays and lesbians can in no way impact those covenants. One is an action of the state, and the other is an action taken from within the framework of faith.

2) Proposition 8 was overturned by a judge who was defying the will of the people. This is materially correct. Justice Walker did overturn a referendum. Problem is, that's the entire purpose of the judiciary in the American Constitutional system of governance. The judiciary exists to serve the law...and the Constitutional liberties of all Americans...over and above the will of the majority. That is its purpose. If a justice is doing his or her job, their fealty is first and foremost to the Constitution. Unfortunately, the case for Proposition 8 has little foundation in our Constitution. Its clear purpose was to deny a particular minority class of citizens a right held by the majority.
3) The overturn of Proposition 8 decision threatens religious liberty. This argument plays directly into the culture of self-entitled aggrievement that seems to define so much of American life. The argument goes like this: I believe, from my faith, that homosexuality is sinful. If I am required to provide benefits to gays and lesbians or tolerate their unions, the requirement that I be tolerant is a fundamental violation of my religious freedom.

This argument seems not to grasp the nature of freedom. Within our constitutional republic, the rights of every individual are protected, in so far as they do not impinge on the rights of other individuals. That's the purpose of the Constitution. There is no evidence that permitting same sex marriage in any way impinges on the rights of conservatives to believe that homosexuality is sinful. This ruling has no impact whatsoever on the proclamation or teaching of that particular approach to faith.

What might be limited is the right of a small business owner to deny health care benefits to same-sex partners, or to refuse to hire/rent or sell to/serve individuals who they view as basically evil. Here, conservatism faces within itself a clear ideological conundrum. Within our republic, freedom is not without limits. If an individual acts in such a way as to restrict the liberty of another, they are using their freedom in a way that undercuts the freedoms of others. Again,the purpose of the government in a constitutional republic is to balance the liberty of all, at the least possible cost to liberty.

Against that metric, the conservative position falters. Gays and lesbians who seek legally recognized marriage are not meaningfully limiting the religious or personal liberty of those who view their behavior as undesirable. It does no harm to the liberty of a conservative, to the life they choose to lead, or to the faith they choose to practice. That's not the way it's going to be played, of course. But it is, nonetheless, true.

What will be interesting is seeing how the Supreme Court handles this. Having read the ruling in some detail, it's striking how deeply founded it is in precedent and "original intent" of the Constitution.

Sex and Intimacy

We just got Fios TV. Not just regular Fios TV, but the EXTREEEEME HD version. I'd been fighting it for years. I'm not a big TV fan generally, choosing instead to squander my free time meandering around the blogosphere. Many moons ago, we did have cable, but when we moved into our current residence, we ditched it.

I didn't miss it. Not having it saved us money, and with two young boys in the house, it meant one less negative input to worry about.

After years of gentle pressure, I finally decided to give fiber optic tee vee to my wife for her birthday. This last week, late in the night after it had been installed, she and I waded into the endless depths of pay tv.

Those depths went down to some rather darker places than I'd anticipated, places that provided some pretty compelling motivation to figure out and engage the parental controls.

The wife and I were particularly struck by what appeared to be an ongoing graphic documentary series on the various manifestations of human sexuality. I will not be providing a link here, much to your undoubted disappointment. What was most interesting was how...well...utterly unarousing the show was. It was engaging on an anthropological level, but it was about as erotic as watching someone gut a flounder.

That wasn't because of the absence of nekkid people. There were plenty of nekkid people, sometimes large piles of nekkid people. There were nekkid people on stage, nekkid people in boxes, nekkid people hanging from the ceiling, all while doing the things one would expect, and occasionally things one would not.

It was because of a total absence of intimacy. Human sexuality is a complex thing, and something deeply hardwired into our nature. It's part of our animal nature, but it's also part of the way that we relate to other beings. Though "having relations" is inherently relational, much of the way our culture approaches sexuality now is utterly depersonalized. Oh, desire is there, in a meat-self sort of way. But the desire is utterly indiscriminate, disconnected from any interest in the person inhabiting the flesh. Folks who engage in this sort of sexual expression will argue that they are liberating sexuality from shame. Do what you want! Whenever you want! We're free!

But while the ethic of shame has no place in a healthy sexuality, our society is well on the way to losing a sense of the importance of intimacy. Though we've found all sorts of ways to "know one another Biblically," we increasingly decouple this intense, passionate, and fundamentally creative experience from healthy emotional and spiritual connections with others. We are not interested in knowing them.

In doing so, we haven't freed sexuality. We've rendered it meaningless. And that's a significant loss.

Sex Before Marriage

I've been reflecting on the latest editorial fulmination from the good brothers over at the Layman. That organization, in case you're not familiar with Presbyterian in-group politicking, is a group of folks committed to renewing my denomination by first driving everyone from it.

They and some fellow travellers are deeply concerned that the progressives and moderates within our denomination are utterly gutting the sexual ethic we get from scripture. By being open to "adulterers and homosexuals" being a part of our church, we're consigning ourselves to collapse and failure, as the Lord God Almighty shifts his divine endorsement to nondenominational Bible-believing megachurches.

I've discussed my scriptural response to homosexuality...but what about where I feel scripture stands on premarital sexuality?

To that question, the Bible read in a literal sense doesn't give you much wiggle room. There are many folks on my side of the aisle who will try to point to the variety of acceptable sexual expressions in the Old Testament as permission. Did David sin with his many, many wives, or when he tried and failed to get Abishag to *cough* warm him up? Ruth and her possible seduction of a tipsy Boaz invariably surfaces, although I would contend that seminary grads who argue that "feet" are a euphemism for a particular part of the male anatomy need to never, ever be put in charge of a foot washing service. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, people.

They'll point to the folk tale that gleefully and approvingly recounts Tamar's sexual trickery of her father-in-law Judah. If pretending to be a ho, getting pregnant, and blackmailing your family to get revenge can make the Torah proclaim you "righteous," well, golly, all bets are off. Or so the argument goes.

I don't generally find those arguments compelling. They presume that the Christian moral imperative is somehow bound to the folk ethics of an ancient near-Eastern culture. While we have our moral foundation in that culture, I don't think you can reasonably say that such stories represent the highest governing principles of that culture. They don't really capture the moral ethos of that society, or of a Christ-centered faith.

The Apostle Paul, while no great fan of marriage, makes a sustained and consistent argument against non-connubial nookie. Paul makes it clear in a range of different places...and particularly in 1 Corinthians 7...that he expects Christians to contain their sexuality within the bounds of a covenant union.

I don't tend to view this as Paul being oppressive. He's just being consistent with his repeated articulation of the core Golden Rule teaching of Christian faith. It's better to commit to another than to use another for one's own pleasure. Marriage, even in the rather more amorphous form that existed in 1st Century Rome, could give a clear framework for that commitment. It could also, of course, just be another way of securing worldly power over another child of God. It's conflation with property rights in the ancient world certainly didn't help.

While not rejecting Paul's gracious intent, I tend to go directly to our Man in Nazareth for advice on the issue. When we listen for Christ's sexual ethic, we get something that is...to be frank...even more challenging than Paul. Jesus makes it clear that Christians aren't called to just attend to the law. We're called to go well beyond it. Mechanistic chastity or by-the-book fidelity within the bounds of a marriage between a man and a woman means exactly jack to Jesus. Thinking that's our unbreachable bulwark against sin is the error of Pharisees, because Jesus here turns it up to eleven.

It's not just our practice. It's our desire. If you look at Halle Berry with lust in your heart, you are an adulterer. That is equally true of Scarlett Johannsen. It is exponentially more true of some creative combination of the both.

Um.

Where was I? I seem to have lost my train of thought. Oh yes...

What Jesus lays before us is a sexual ethic that both affirms marriage and transcends marriage. It affirms commitment to another, but it also forces us to admit that the reason that commitment is meaningful rests in our love for the other and an honoring of the other that goes to our purpose as human and sexual beings. Ultimately, I think that's where the heart of scripture leads us. The boundary that defines acceptable sexuality is love.

When I say that, though, I'm not saying that this is an easier standard. The "love" I describe is not to be confused with erotic desire. It also isn't fervid romance-novel emoting or the we're-celebrating-our-two-week-anniversary puppyness of adolescent infatuation. It is agape love, Essential Nature of the Almighty God love, Our God is a Consuming Fire love. It is an awareness that the way in which we interact with other souls has eternal weight. We are each accountable for how our actions impact the other, and if you have even the tiniest sliver of awareness of the nature of God's love, it can scare the pants right back on you.

I would hold that our actions as sexual beings are judged against the same essential standard as our other social and interpersonal relations. That means absolute injunctions against sexuality in it's predatory form or any sexual expression in which the other becomes primarily an object and not a Thou. Any authentic Christian sexual expression is fundamentally opposed to the culture of the hookup and the culture of sexual objectification.

Can sexual expression exist outside of marriage and not be inherently sin? I believe so. But if we take our role as disciples seriously, we're not going to take this intense and intimate part of our created nature lightly.

Once Again Into the Breach

I've spent chunks of time here and there over the past few days continuing the migration of my old xanga site to this little bit of blogosphere real estate. Xanga being what it is, I can't do that as a simple xml export/import. It's cutting. It's pasting. Whee. It's not tedious at all. No sirree. Then again, that means that I have to do some reading. I have to pick and choose. What's important? What's worth bringing over here? It's an interesting opportunity to reassess and examine some of my own theological babbling.

One of the things I'm most interested in having here is my perspective on the hot-button issue that has driven such a deep divide into so many of the oldline denominations: homosexuality.

My own little corner of the Christian faith is about to go back at it within the next month or so, as a proposal to re-change our Constitution to be more open and affirming of gay and lesbian partnerships comes before us. On the one hand, it's a good thing to be talking about this. On the other, I think it's easy for these conversations to become shout-fests, as the opposing sides lob mortars at one another from their deeply entrenched positions.

A while back, I compiled all of my thinking on this subject at a topical mini-blog entitled "Pastor Strangelove," which I've now re-re-updated to reflect my new location in the blogosphere. As I read through my thinking on the subject, that I find myself agreeing with myself is no surprise. We're all great at agreeing with ourselves.

The greatest challenge as we move into these exchanges is to remember to be open and gracious to those who disagree with our stance. We're going to have some difficult conversations...but if those conversations aren't governed by grace, they're going to serve no purpose. It's far too easy to demonize, to condemn, and to curse. But if we're to move forward on this issue, and do so according to the Spirit, we're going to need to show grace and forbearance...even to those with whom we vigorously disagree.

Women, Men, and Christian Marriage

I spoke several years ago to a young evangelical on Christian women submitting to their husbands. She spoke openly and earnestly about how eager she was to enter into a relationship that has that dynamic. While I don't reject all marriages that take a more traditional form, I'm really uncomfortable with the assumption that true covenant marriage *must* have this structure.

Having been challenged by the good sister to a genial scriptural battle royale on that point, it's hard to know where to begin. 1 Timothy seems a good place to start, as it's usually where folks go to make this point.

Of course, if we take 1 Timothy 2:12 as literalists read it, I win by default. Yield to my inherent God-breathed chromosomal superiority! Submit to my saying you don't need to be submissive! Hee hee. But that would be cheating.

The issue with 1 Timothy (and the other epistles) is whether we read them as speaking to an eternal ideal, or to the way that that eternal ideal expresses itself in the particular context of 1st century Roman society.

As an example, the repeated exhortations for slaves to be submissive to their masters (Titus 2:9; Colossians 3:2; Ephesians 6:5) assume a societal situation that we now universally reject. The assumptions about women in Roman society are similarly outdated.

Yes, scripture says it. But if you accept --and you must--that slavery is an institution that is antithetical to Christ, then it is important to understand that the assumptions made about Roman marriage were very similar. A wife was understood as part of the household, with status not considerably higher than a slave or a Barcalounger. Though a tiny minority of women had property rights under Roman law, most were, de facto, owned.

We no longer live--nor should we in Christ desire to live--in the world to which that scripture spoke. But other scripture speaks on the subject as well.

Genesis 2 and 3 provide the foundation for most of church attitudes towards women. Eve, or so the story goes, is responsible for messing us all up by chowing down on the fruit of the tree of good and evil. She falls from her created purpose—which was what?

Woman was made to be “a helper.” (Genesis 2:18) Viewed through the lens of tradition, this gets interpreted as implying a submissive role. Adam decides, Eve helps. Preferably with the laundry and the diapers and the vacuuming.

Yet the Hebrew term for “helper” in Genesis 2:18 is "ezer," which does not have a submissive connotation. It is used, for instance, in 1 Kings 20:16, to mean “ally.” In Psalm 30:11 and Psalm 54:6, it is used to describe the help that comes from the Lord. Not what one would call subordinate, eh?

The ideal for the relationship between men and women is found in Genesis 22:23-24, where they are united “as one flesh.” This form of union is affirmed by Christ in his teachings on divorce (Mark 10:1-9, Matthew 19:1-6). It does not seem to necessitate one having inherent authority over another.

But the Yahwist story of creation in Genesis 2 and 3 goes on to describe our fall from grace. Our key verse relative to the issue at hand is Genesis 3:16, where the Hebrew Issha (she wasn’t Eve yet) is told that for her disobedience “..your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” So what does this tell us? Is a man's rule over woman part of the goodness of God’s creation? No. It’s part of the curse that befell humanity when we fell away from God and God's intent for us. So should Christian marriage reflect our fallen state? I obviously don’t think so.

We are in Christ a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). Through Christ, we are--men and women alike-- liberated from Adam’s fall (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22). If Christ is the new Adam who restores us to right relationship with God, does that curse of submission still rest on womankind? As Paul would say, “By no means!”

There are some other overarching principles in Paul that are worth surfacing when you try to understand Christian marriage.

First, Paul’s organic approach to the church. Again and again, Paul returns to the idea of the church as the body of Christ (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27). Within that body, there exist a variety of roles and gifts, but it is not for us to prioritize among those gifts. They are each necessary and complementary to one another. (1 Corinthians 12:1-28) In challenging the assumptions of the fiercely competitive Corinthian Christians, Paul aggressively rejects the idea of hierarchical authority within the body of Christ—of which married Christians are most certainly a part.

Further, if we claim that gender should provide a basis for authority in Christ, that would require us to reject Paul’s soaring and revolutionary assertion in Galatians 3:28, that “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Ancient Rome didn’t have the ears to hear that, but that’s no excuse for us.