Civil Commotion

A thoughtful piece at Religion Dispatches speculates that the Supreme Court’s widely-expected affirmation of same-sex marriage rights may setup decades of contention similar to Roe v. Wade.

If Greenhouse and Siegel are correct that it was “ordinary politics” that produced the long-running conflict over abortion, and the concomitant political polarization, there’s no reason to believe that same-sex marriage won’t become similarly entangled. That’s because even though the contours of the battle may be different, it’s the same fight over the meaning of family, the authority of traditional (usually religious) leaders, the meaning and limits of sexual expression and autonomy.

The author is undoubtedly correct to understand that evangelical leaders have a lot of vanity invested in the outcome, but overlooks some things that make same-sex marriage much more likely to deal a huge blow to their influence.

• They have grievously discredited themselves with hysterical, shrill, inflammatory language, and their influence diminishes every day.

• Demographics are trending against the Evangelical Right, a fact that surely contributes to their hysteria. They know there isn’t going to be a do-over.

• Abortion is susceptible of meddling, of disingenuous reasoning about ‘personhood,’ necessary levels of available care, and indeterminate speculations about fetal pain; there are 9-months worth of roadblocks on as many grounds as the imagination can dream-up.

  As a legal arrangement, a marriage is or is not; there is no gestation, no gradations.

The expectation that the Court will uphold same-sex marriage is nearly universal, and with good reason; that is the clear implication of recent decisions. If that in fact happens, instead of some narrow, weirdly-qualified compromise, it would be a devastating, Waterloo-like defeat for the Evangelical Right and probably settle the dispute as definitively.

Michael Hamar points toward a synopsis of the deranged things taught by the pastor celebrated in Marco Rubio’s campaign biography.

An investigation of Rubio’s Miami Baptist megachurch reveals, notably, an anti-homosexual hiring policy, the promotion of demonology and exorcism, Young Earth creationism, and denial of evolution.

Rubio should be a figure of ridicule, and instead he’s one of the Republican Party’s stars. How on earth can any educated adult be identified with the Republicans nowadays?

Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
II: Criticism of Morality

§275   Very few succeed in discovering a problem behind all that which constitutes our daily life, that to which we have become accustomed throughout the ages, our eye does not seem capable of seeing such things: at least, this seems to me to be the case in so far as our morality is concerned.

“Every man should be the preoccupation of his fellows”; he who thinks in this way deserves honour: no one ought to think of himself.

“Thou shalt”: an impulse which, like the sexual drive, cannot explain itself, is set apart and is not condemned as all the other instincts are — on the contrary, it is made to be their standard and their judge!

The problem of “equality”, in the face of the fact that we all thirst for distinction: here, on the contrary, we should demand of ourselves what we demand of others. That is so tasteless and obviously insane; but it is felt to be holy and of a higher order. The fact that it is opposed to common sense is not even noticed.

Self-sacrifice and self-abnegation are considered distinguishing, as are also the attempt to obey morality implicitly and the belief that one should be every one’s equal in its presence.

The neglect and the surrender of Life and of well-being is held to be distinguished, as are also the complete renunciation of individual valuations and the severe exaction from every one of the same sacrifice, “The value of an action is once and for all fixed; every individual must submit to this valuation”.

We see: an authority speaks — who speaks? We must condone it in human pride, if man tried to make this authority as high as possible, for he wanted to feel as humble as he possibly could by the side of it. Thus God speaks!

God was necessary as an unconditional sanction which has no superior, as a “Categorical Imperator”: or, in so far as people believed in the authority of reason, what was needed was a “Unitarian metaphysics” by means of which this view could be made logical.

Now, admitting that faith in God is dead: the question arises once more: “who speaks”? My answer, which I take from biology and not from metaphysics, is: “the herd instinct speaks”. This is what desires to be master: hence its “thou shalt”! It will allow the individual to exist only as a part of a whole, only in favour of the whole, it hates those who detach themselves from everything it turns the hatred of all individuals against him.

What happens when a church tries you for apostasy, anyhow? A guy who was fed up with the lunacy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses surreptitiously filmed it.

Wartburg Watch publishes today a sad, first-person account of how a woman’s misguided loyalty to a church tore her family apart.

By summer, the boys and I were driving to every service, and I remember standing in the parking lot of the Post Office telling my husband that I wanted three things:

1. To join Calvary Temple Church

2. for the boys to attend Calvary Temple School

3. and to move to Sterling, VA.

By that October, all three things had come true.

[ … ]

As the years progressed, in my eyes everything seemed fine. However, it was evident that my husband was growing unhappy. I didn’t know what to do about it. To me, serving Jesus was a choice that I was not going to abandon, and I truly believed that Calvary Temple was the best place to do that. I did realize that Dale did not like the church, but he never told me that he no longer wanted the boys or me to go there.

[ … ]

Another blow to our marriage and family was when our oldest son graduated from Calvary Temple School June of 2006. Calvary Temple leadership had sent down an edict that Dale (my husband) could not attend the graduation. Why? They said it was because he did not attend church. God forgive me, I relayed the news to my husband. This man who was such a good father…had attended everything that involved our children; had driven to Tennessee, staying awake all night, several years in a row, just to attend NACA basketball tournaments…this good man could not attend his oldest son’s graduation…and I allowed it…

Read the whole thing.

Recall, now, Albert Mohler, head of the SBC’s Southern Seminary, with responsiblity for training the pastors who are going to be counseling distressed couples, and couples who are about to wed:

(1)   In 2 Corinthians 6:14, the Apostle Paul commands that Christians must “not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This command reaches far beyond marriage, but it certainly includes the covenant of marriage within its span. Paul’s principle is clear: The Christian’s commitment to Christ is determinative of his or her other commitments. A believer must not marry an unbeliever, for this violates the very logic of the Gospel and the believer’s union with Christ.

The believer in Christ acknowledges him as Savior and Lord, with an allegiance that exceeds any earthly commitment. When two believers are married, they share this mutual commitment and are commonly dedicated to the Lordship of Christ.

And:

(2)   The third theological fact about the family is the continued affirmation of the family within the redeemed people of God – the church. As the Gospels make clear, loyalty to Christ exceeds that of any family commitment, even as the church becomes the family of faith, embracing within its life all who come to faith in Christ and into the life of the church. And yet, Christians are explicitly instructed to honor marriage, to raise their children in the faith, and to order their family according to the Scriptures.

Let’s not forget, either, Dave Miller’s view:

Jesus was demanding that he be the first choice in our lives always. Pleasing and obeying him must be my highest priority, more than pleasing my wife or children or anyone else. Jesus comes first.

You can dismiss this woman’s church as a cult — but if so, that is only because it takes seriously the teachings that are a commonplace throughout Christianity, and especially in the Southern Baptist Convention. It is what Christianity teaches that is wrong.

As I have said about a bazillion times: Most people have too much sense and decency to be good Christians; it’s the ones who don’t that you have to watch.