IN A GLASS, DARKLY

Now that we’ve got the facts out of the way, let me add my opinion here.

I feel that the assembly made the correct decision on all three recommendations. #1 was a “kiss your sister” non-aggression pact, while #2 had the full, continued support of our Conference of Bishops, who felt that it was not in the best interest of church unity to take an aggressive tack when sailing into these waters.

The third recommendation could’ve been seen coming from miles off. We ELCA Lutherans have recently been through an absolute catfight regarding our church’s relationship with the Episcopal Church of the USA. Many ELCA Lutherans (including this one) had big trouble with the terms of our clergy-sharing agreement with ECUSA, which required that future ELCA pastors would be ordained only by bishops (former practice allowed for any pastor to ordain upon approval of the appropriate authorities), and more specifically, required that all future ELCA pastors be absorbed into the ECUSA’s historic episcopate. Those in opposition to this practice won a major concession, by getting rules which permitted for “conscientious objectors” to be ordained outside that episcopate.

This was a more radical move than many people realized. Though these “irregular” ordinations are somewhat rare, the possibility of them represents a major shift away from centralized denominational authority and towards a more congregational polity. While the bishops of our synods still decide how ordinands get ordained, the mere fact that an individual can attempt to move outside the church’s standards is a shift of power, and probably made recommendation #3 inevitable. (In my most cynical moments, I think of it as an attempted quid pro quo, since many–but not all–of those who opposed the historic episcopate also opposed changing ordination standards with regards to sexuality. “If you get your exceptions, we get ours,” in other words. But that would require me to think that the task force was stacked, and I don’t think it was. We’ve been down a similar road once before, and all it got us was a bunch of bad publicity.)

But there is a difference of kind involved in the two decisions, just as there is a difference in kind between the question of whether to ordain women (which we and our predecessor churches have done since 1970) and whether to ordain non-celibate homosexuals. And yet, in the good Lutheran tradition of paradox, there also isn’t a difference.

There is a difference in that there is no place in the Bible where it can be claimed that it is a sin to be a practicing woman. (Many of the early church fathers probably wished there was, but there isn’t. The Gospel of Thomas doesn’t count.) Likewise, there’s nothing which conclusively states that being ordained outside the historic episcopate is or ever has been regarded as sin. But there are Biblical texts which deal with homosexuality. (Well, it seems there’s only one which deals with female homosexuality, but we’ll get to that later.)

I must note that there are passages which state that women are to keep silent in church and are not to be permitted to have authority over men. The ELCA has opted to hear these passages as being Paul’s instructions for churches in a different time and culture. This leaves us open to the charge that we do not consider all Scripture to be inerrant and infallible; it is well to note that the ELCA makes no such claim.

The claim that same-sex unions can be blessed and persons involved in those unions ought to be eligible for ordination depends heavily upon finding a way around those troublesome passages. Two passages in the Levitical Holiness Code (Lev. 18:22 and 20:13) can be dealt with (theoretically) by noting that Christians, for the most part, do not observe this code. We eat shellfish, we wear poly/cotton shirts, and we are allowed to use flush toilets during time of war, for instance. The dietary restrictions are dealt with somewhat in Acts 4:11-18, in which God appears to Peter in a dream and tells him that these restrictions have been lifted. Many Christians have interpreted this to mean that the entire Holiness Code has been lifted, a claim which is not made by the text. So, in theory, a Christian can eat pork and still be regarded as a Biblical literalist, at least as long as he or she is not wearing a polyester/cotton shirt (viz. Lev. 19:19).

Paul’s letters, however, contain more passages which seem to suggest that homosexual activity disqualifies a person from being part of the Christian community, let alone being ordained. Romans 1:26-27, in the midst of a list of strange doings among Rome’s gentile community, discusses the issue by casting homosexual activity in a negative light, strongly implying that both male and female homosexuality is antithetical to the very concept of Christian sexual ethics.

Two words create considerable difficulty with regards to male homosexuality. They are the Greek words malakoi and arsenokoitai. The former is most literally rendered “the soft ones” and the latter “those who go to bed with men.” The problem is that malakoi doesn’t occur anywhere in the New Testament outside of Romans, while arsenokoitai occurs again in 1 Timothy (another discussion about sexual practices and church bondaries) but nowhere else in the New Testament–or, apparently, anywhere else in antiquity. This makes pinning down the precise meanings of these two terms, with any and all possible nuances, exceedingly difficult. (Aristotle used malakoi in reference to those who were morally weak, which doesn’t seem to help us much here. Romans 1:27 would be a strange place for Paul to add an aside about general moral weakness, however.) It would have been better for our purposes here for Paul to avoid using what seem to be euphemistic terms, but we have what we have.

The picture is somewhat less clear regarding female homosexuality, if you can believe that. Paul merely talks about women who have exchanged what is natural for what is against nature (para physein), and it is only by context that you can guess that he is discussing sexual behavior. Moreover, this is the only passage in all of Scripture which directly addresses the question of female homosexuality.

The seeming ambiguity of these terms has opened the door to a variety of interpretations. Many have come to the conclusion that Paul was condemning male prostitution; others have said that the real problem was pederasty. (The preceding link goes to a Wikipedia article which contains some graphic text and images. Consider yourself warned.) No scholars seem to state definitively if Paul’s comments on female homosexuality refer to prostitution, or some little-known analogue to pederasty, or something else.

The problem here, as I see it, is the desire to substitute a highly nuanced interpretation for the plain, facial meaning of these terms. Paul was not really one to mince words, as anybody who’s read Galatians in the original Greek can tell you. To claim that words and phrases like para physein, malakoi, and arsenokoitai mean something other than what they appear to mean on first glance is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and I do not think such proof has been shown by those advancing the cause of ordaining homosexuals. Nor do I think it ever can be, unless some antiquarian finds a manuscript which shows that all these terms had specific non-facial meanings which were well-known in Paul’s times and places. In the absence of compelling proof that Paul meant something other than what it appears he said, the only wise interpretation is the most conservative one.

And this is why I feel there isn’t a difference between the question of ordaining non-celibate gays and ordaining women, nor between permitting conscientious objection to the historic episcopate and and permitting such objection to standards of sexual behavior. In the former case, we have Biblical women who were in leadership positions, who were actively involved in the act of proclamation. In the latter, you have the priesthood of Melchizedek, a priesthood which existed outside the Levitical framework. There is no evidence suggesting that the standards of sexual behavior are similarly porous. To misappropriate some Catholic language, even if we can craft an exegetical nihil obstat, we’re still a long way from getting an imprimatur. Thus, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly made the right choice on Recommendation #3.

VALLEY OF DECISION

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has just declined to make any changes in current policies regarding the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians. The measure, which required a 2/3rds majority to be approved, failed by a 49%-51% margin. More comment forthcoming.

UPDATE: As promised earlier, here is more on the decision.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has, from its 1987 inception, been tormented by issues of human sexuality. Well, okay, that’s overstating it a bit. The ELCA has been tormented by the question of how the church ought to deal with the issue of homosexuality as it relates to society, as it relates to our parishioners, and as it relates to ordination.

The 1999 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA directed the church’s Division for Church and Society to come up with some recommendations for consideration at this year’s assembly. The Division came up with a document called Journey Together Faithfully which explored (in what I thought was a fairly evenhanded fashion) a variety of opinions related to the question of homosexuality as it relates to Scripture, doctrine, and the life of the church. The task force which crafted this study solicited responses from both individuals and congregations which were then used to help craft the task force’s recommendations for action.

After taking the church’s temperature, the task force found, to the surprise of no one, that there was deep division within our church on this issue, although, overall, most respondents seemed to be in opposition to changing current policies. They came back with a threefold recommendation regarding the issue of homosexuality:

1. Given the deep divisions and high level of emotion involved in the debate, we should pledge ourselves to live in unity, since there are forces right now tending to break the church’s unity.
2. The church should not at this time grant blanket approval to same-sex unions throughout the ELCA, even though some of our 65 synods currently permit this.
3. No changes to our standards for ordination (which state that ordained ministers who are “homosexual in their own self-understanding” should refrain from sexual relationships) should be made, but the church may opt not to discipline those who refuse to comply with these standards and may even allow for an alternate process by which exceptions to those standards could be granted.

The first of these was fairly non-controversial and passed easily, but not unanimously. The second was approved by a 2-1 margin, but a motion to reconsider that decision remains on the floor of the assembly. The third was far and away the most controversial of the recommendations. (It required a two-thirds majority to pass because it amended the church’s bylaws; the other two recommendations required only simple majorities.) Recommendation #3 failed by 49% in favor to 51% opposed. While there were only fourteen votes preventing this recommendation from getting a simple majority, it fell far short of the 66%-plus-one needed for approval.

Caution should be taken in interpreting these numbers. It is possible (though, in my opinion, not likely) that a significant number of those in favor of ordaining non-celibate homosexuals voted ‘no’ on this recommendation because they felt it didn’t go far enough.

Again, more coming later, albeit under a separate post.

(BELTWAY TRAFFIC JAM for August 12, 2005)

BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN

This is one of the most horrifying things I’ve read recently. And the most horrifying thing about is that the woman has left me wondering what is the more depressing thought: that somebody like this, who goes off the pill because it makes her “moody,” might wind up raising three small children . . . or that she wound up raising even one?:

When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It’s not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I’m going to have to move to Staten Island. I’ll never leave my house because I’ll have to care for these children. I’ll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.

Oh, the horror. Staten Island and 64-ounce jars of mayonnaise? If that’s so horrible, well, no offense, lady, but did you ever consider, y’know, keeping your pants on? Because apparently all the joys of your sexual adventures weren’t worth riding the Staten Island Ferry and eating warehouse-club condiments.

Steven and Bryan both brought their personal perspectives to this story, and here’s mine: There was a six-hour period back in early April when it very much looked like we might lose our baby, which was only about seven weeks old at the time. I had to rush my wife to the hospital 20 miles away for an emergency examination, including an ultrasound. So we got to see the baby.

It didn’t look like much. Just a little seed-shaped blob with a beating heart. But I’ve never been so relieved as I was to see that our baby was fine and would be fine. It was simultaneously the worst and best morning of my life. And I knew one thing in that instant: Even though it’s a good bet that that child will irritate the ever-loving crap out me 1,246,784 times before its fifth birthday, I knew at that point I loved it, and, so long as I didn’t do anything dumb to screw things up, that love would be returned to me. I could not, for the life of me, think of deciding, “Ehh, I’d rather have a Mustang convertible. You can’t put a kid in a convertible, though. This child just doesn’t fit my self-image.”

And that’s why I can’t make up my mind–is it more tragic that she snuffed out two of the three babies , or that she kept one? I mean, I’m glad at least one baby survived this lifestyle audit, but really, I’m not sure she has what it takes to raise to a kid.

I’m not 100% sure I have it either, but at least I’m willing to make the major sacrifices, like, y’know, shopping at warehouse clubs and things like that.

THE WAR BEGINS

A new phase in the gay marriage debate began in earnest today, when Jason West, the mayor of New Paltz, New York, was charged with 19 counts of solemnizing marriages without a license, based on West’s performance of wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. The phrase “media circus” was coined to describe what’s about to happen in Ulster County, NY.

But elsewhere in the Empire State, another front has opened (pay attention to the last line of this quote):

The New York city of Ithaca also weighed in on the gay marriage issue on Tuesday. Officials there said they have received seven marriage applications from same-sex couples and will forward them to state officials — a move that could open the way for gays to sue if denied marriage licenses.

OK, all you conservatives who think that the New York Supreme Court (which, let’s face it, would ultimately hear any case resulting from a marriage-license denial) is likely to deny the right of same-sex couples to marry, raise your hands. Remember, New York is one of those states which did not pass a “Defense of Marriage” act.

And need I even mention that the US Supreme Court probably wouldn’t even hear this matter without some sort of relevant federal question at stake?

That’s why I say, ultimately, the right of same-sex couples to marry in civil ceremonies will be made official. Maybe not everywhere, and maybe not instantly, but like I’ve said before, the ultimate outcome of this debate is not really in doubt. And, while I respect the opinion and perspective of one of this blog’s first readers, the majority of Americans who are unsure about this turn of events are the same majority of Americans who keep re-electing the same judges and local politicians, year after year, because those same Americans can’t be bothered to turn off “Survivor” long enough to educate themselves about what’s happening amongst the judiciary or down at City Hall.

OK, you all got that? I think gay civil marriage is inevitable. I’ve tried to point out the social reasons why, and the theological/historical reasons why the church has last the ability to speak on the issue. I’ve even mentioned that the church is probably wasting its time trying to fight the battle to prevent gays and lesbians from gaining the right to legal recognition of their relationships. If you want, I can even give you a case why it could be considered immoral to oppose that recognition.

Do you notice anything I haven’t said?
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RIPPLES OF THE REFORMATION

I promised in the comments on this post that I would eventually get around to writing the article I originally intended to write about the church and gay marriage.

I have a thesis: The separation of civil and religious understandings of marriage was a necessary consequence of the Reformation.

One of the most profound effects of the Protestant Reformation was the severing of the tie between secular and religious authority. When Frederick elected to give the Lutherans safe harbor, he in effect told the Pope that Rome had no right to sovereignty in his region. This profound challenge to Roman authority had far-reaching effects, if only because the Vatican was not in a position to wage wars–even ideological ones–on all the fronts where such wars were breaking out.
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IT’S A MATTER OF HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, I GUESS

The gay marriage thing is really burning up the blogosphere these days, so I figure it’s time I weigh in on it a little more. Donald Sensing has said a lot which I agree with on the matter; you can get to his thoughts here.

The gay marriage debate is another skirmish in the culture war, and in case my Christian siblings haven’t noticed, we’ve pretty much lost that war already. If you click on Sensing’s first link, you get a very good argument for his thesis that the rise of gay marriage doesn’t represent a threat to traditional marriages; rather, he contends, it’s an inevitable consequence of how traditional marriage has already broken down. Sensing credits the introduction of the Pill as the turning point in the sexual revolution. He says that the Pill allowed women to act out sexually without the fear that they would wind up having to raise a child alone. This, in turn, made women more willing to engage in sex, and made men less willing to submit to marriage, since sex was more readily available.

All of that somewhat presupposes that the only reason a woman gets married is in order to have a father for her babies, and the only reason a man gets married is to have ready access to sex. I’m not so sure about that, so I’m not entirely willing to say that better birth control is the reason why permarital cohabitation has become the norm in our culture. Birth control technology has only gotten better since the early 1960s, but lots of women in our culture still wind up having to raise children alone. Likewise, I’m sure there are plenty of men who would argue the claim that marriage necessarily leads to more sex. Most of them, however, probably don’t really remember what it’s like to be single.

Still, Sensing is right that we as a society have largely forfeited the right to decide if heterosexual activity between two unmarried people is legitimate or not. That particular genie is out of the bottle, and it isn’t going back in. It is, therefore, largely inevitable that society will eventually lose interest in assessing the moral probity of homosexual activity as well. We no longer see (heterosexual) marriage and reproduction as inherently linked. We recognize that people don’t just marry to “start a family” (i.e., have children) these days; indeed, many couples remain childless by choice or by biology. Yet no one really questions the legitimacy of those marriages.
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BLAME WHERE BLAME IS DUE

Just when I thought I was done talking and thinking about a certain event which occurred this past Sunday, I find an article by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Beliefnet which brings up an angle I hadn’t previously considered:

Justin Timberlake, a man distinguished neither for his dance nor his music, decided to open Janet Jackson’s blouse and expose her breast. I’m not making this up. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had been planned, even though Janet gave this “shocked” look of surprise. Timberlake, who is locked in a permanent game of one-upsmanship with his former girlfriend, the vulgar Britney Spears, was looking to upstage the Britney-Madonna kiss. That’s what happens in a popular culture that has deteriorated to being almost entirely about empty sensationalism.

The rebbe is on to something. I hadn’t considered the possibility that this whole sordid mess was cooked up as the latest battle in this lover’s spat which is only compelling to the TRL crowd. But it makes sense. Ever since their split, Timberlake’s had to live with the fact that his ex-girlfriend is a huge star (though why she is, is a mystery to me) while he’s just a pop-culture footnote.

Or, at least, he was. But no longer.

Boteach, who is certainly no prude, continues:
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MARRIAGE IN POST-LAWRENCE v. TEXAS AMERICA

I love it when my favorite bloggers play right into my hands. Dean Esmay, one of my many Blogfathers, is commenting on changing definitions of marriage and notes:

Bill Kristol recently suggested that within a few years, in America, it’s quite possible that the legal idea of “marriage” will become nothing but a contractual one, with only the private sphere (church and family) defining anything else about it. Would that be a bad thing? I think not, and I imagine it’s where the Brits are probably headed too.

A story: Way back a long time ago (like about six years), whilst I was a mere seminary student, a church I worked at faced a dilemma. We had two active, faithful Christians who had fallen in love with each other. One was afflicted with a chronic disabling disease, the exact name of which I cannot remember, but it isn’t important anyway. The couple, being good Christians, wanted to marry, but the ill partner was dependent upon Medicaid. If they were legally married, the partner (I can’t even remember if it was the man or the woman) would have lost Medicaid eligibility, and there was no way the couple could afford to pay for the necessary care out of pocket.

My boss, the pastor of that church, put it to them plainly: “No problem. You can get married, and we just won’t tell anyone.” (This was taking place in a state which did not recognize common-law marriage, in case you’re wondering.) He asked me if I would be willing to participate in the ceremony.
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FINISHING WHAT I START

Apologies for the lack of posting today–I had to deal with the sudden death of a young man in the parish. Yesterday I springboarded (sprungboard?) off of James Joyner with regards to the ever-increasing duration of adolescence. I noted in this post about how we Christians teach kids abstinence at about 12 or 13, but then apply societal pressure to keep them unmarried until they’re at least in their late twenties.

I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but I can tell you that many of us clergy have our doubts about the efficacy of abstinence education. We by no means fully expect that telling kids “Be abstinent!” when they’re 12 will prevent them from having sex until they’re 27 or so. I mean, it will work with a few; for others, it might hold them off until they’re 19 or 20, and some won’t listen at all. (Indeed, 12’s too late for a number of them–you would not believe how many 12-year-old girls have told me their boyfriends have pressured them for sex. 12-year-olds!)

Now, maybe you haven’t noticed this, but our culture is putting ever-increasing pressure on ever-younger kids (girls, for the most part) to be sexier and sexier. I mean, they make thongs for 10-year-olds, for cryin’ out loud. So it isn’t just a case of parents’ educational expectations delaying the age of marriage; there’s a squeeze from the other direction as well, with sexual activity becoming more common (and more expected) among ever-younger children. 52% of 17-year-old girls and 59% of boys say they’ve had sexual intercourse; one source claims an average age of 15.8 for first sexual intercourse among American teens. And, so far as I can tell, nobody’s tracking the average age for the onset of non-intercourse sexual activity. So Christian teens today are pulled in three directions simultaneously: as part of the church, they hear that their sexuality is reserved for marriage; as students, they’re told that their education is the most important thing that will ever happen in their lives (so don’t screw it up by getting pregnant or even–shudder–married); as teenagers in America, they’re told that everybody’s having sex, and so should they.

Notice that I haven’t even mentioned the Internet yet. Just like nobody’s tracking when kids begin non-intercourse sexual activity, nobody’s tracking how many kids have seen Internet porn, participated in cybersex with another teen or adult, been pressured to take nude pictures of themselves, etc., etc.

Pull something in that many directions at once and, unless it’s aeolotropic, it’s probably going to break, at its weakest point.

We Christians can tell you exactly where that is.

The implications for our ministry are clear. Firstly, we need to reinforce the message that premarital sexual activity is risky behavior. I’ve had great success pointing out to kids that it’s best not to have sex with somebody if you wouldn’t want to use their toothbrush–it’s amazing how real sexual intimacy becomes when you put it in those terms. Secondly, we need to get out Paul’s message in 1st Corinthians: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” But we don’t need to get that message out to kids. We need to get it out to parents, teachers, counselors, and the like, so they won’t find themselves in the ridiculous position of thinking that a 23-year-old is “throwing their life away” by getting married instead of getting a master’s degree.

We know that there’s no 100% effective abstinence program. It is fundamentally unfair of the church to present abstinence as our only solution to the problem of teenage sexuality without simultaneously addressing the problem of prolonged adolescence. Otherwise, we’re just setting kids up to fail, and to feel like they don’t belong in the church because we don’t understand what it’s like to be them.

HOW 25-YEAR-OLDS BECAME ADOLESCENTS

The always-dependable James Joyner is riffing on a number of topics closely related to sex and marriage. He happens to have hit on a disconnect which I started noticing early in my career, in this post commenting on the age of consent:

What strikes me as odd about the list is the wide divergence among the US states, with Iowa allowing 12-year-olds to give consent if they are married (an amazing concept in and of itself) and several states requiring people to reach 18, which is rather absurd in today’s society.

Of course, I’d also note how rapidly our mores have change with respect to these issues. There was a time, not that long ago, when it was perfectly normal for 13-year-old girls to be married and having babies. We’ve clearly prolonged adolescence–indeed, created the very idea–to the point where what was once normal is now practically bizarre.

First off, I’m amazed that my home state even countenances the idea of married 12-year-olds. It would have made 7th grade very interesting, to say the least. But James correctly notes that societal change has created a whole new category of people we don’t know what to do with.

Time was (and time was not that long ago) that 18 was considered “fully adult.” It wasn’t at all unusual for 18-year-olds to marry, because (hold on, there’s a shocking concept coming up) it wasn’t all that unusual for 18-year-olds to be finished with their educations and therefore available to assume adult responsibilities. There was one a time when it wasn’t expected that every high-school graduate would head off to college the following fall.

But let’s face it; in the long run, the American Dream is a pyramid scheme. If the chidren were supposed to live “better” than their parents, more education simply had to be part of the formula. So an ever-increasing number of kids were packed off to the ivy-covered walls of old Siwash U. Just between 1979 and 1997, the percentage of high-school bound college grads increased from 49% to 67%. (Source.) That’s a prety signficant increase in just 18 years.

So, how do you classify a college student, demographically? They fall into a gray area in between “youth” and “adult.” Whie they’re living on their own, they’re still net consumers of Mommy and Daddy’s income. And college sets up at least some sort of safety net to keep students from being directly exposed to “the real world.” Trust me, the concept of in loco parentis is not nearly as dead as as you may think. College thus functions as a kind of extended, expensive form of adolescence, a gradual acclimation to the realities of life as a functioning adult.

OF course, college takes longer than it used to. Six- or seven-year undergraduate experiences are not that unusual these days, and the number of college grads bound for graduate studies is also on the increase. Thus adolescence, which once ended around 18, when your body was fully adult, is now extended into the mid-twenties.

This may not seem like much of a problem, unless you work in Christian ministry. We almost universally preach abstinence from premarital sex–to 12- and 13-year -olds. But a societal expectation of 8-10 years of post-high school education creates problems. We teach kids about the wonders of human sexuality when they’re in 7th grade, but then expect that they will do absolutely nothing with this information for almost a decade and a half–that particular time period encompassing their most hormonal period of life.

Think I’m kidding? In 1960, the average age for a man at first marriage was 23; for a woman, about 20.2. By 1996, those number had changed to 27 and 25 respectively. A couple years back, People magazine ran a cover story on the “epidemic” of young marriage among the Hollywood crowd Their cover girl for the article was Reese Witherspoon– 23 years and a little under 3 months at the time she wed Ryan Phillippe. The average age of a woman at first marriage was below that until about 1984. In the early 60s, Ms. Witherspoon would have been considered a late marrier. But it’s considered curiously young for marriage now.

So we enter into our most libidinous phase of life around 14-15 or so (earlier now than it used to be), but marriage doesn’t become “acceptable” until the mid- to late-twenties. And, if you’re raised a Christian, you’re taught to refrain from any sort of sexual activity until then. Ten years is a long time to stand in a cold shower, my friends.

I have more thoughts, but I’m fighting off Allergy Eyes. I’ll come back to this later, once I’ve gouged my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon.