Musings: Notes From My Daybook

The contexts of contemporary life provide many folk participating in heady promises of postmodernity. That is a big term to use and much could be said about it. However, for our purposes here, let me suggest that postmodernity has to do with a way of understanding the world. That way is characterized by the conviction that knowing something—really knowing—is impossible. Right and wrong have turned into what you like and what you don’t like.

Classic and time honored values such as goodness, justice, peace are no longer something that can be pursued, much less commonly held. What really is real is whatever you believe to be real. What you state as being good for you—is good for you.

Roger Lundin (The Pragmatics of Postmodernity) calls this worldview therapeutic. “A therapeutic culture is one in which questions of ultimate concern—about the nature of the good, the meaning of truth and the existence of God—are taken to be unanswerable and hence, in some fundamental sense, insignificant. Instead the therapeutic culture focuses upon the management of experience and environment in the interest” of whatever manipulation it takes to feel good about yourself.

What really matters in life is me.

And since that is what really matters, then I can and should restate and refocus and retell whatever story I need in order for me to feel good about me. By re-visioning what is important in life—to me—I can continue to hide the crisis that exists between finite and the free sides of my self.

But what if there is something outside of me that might have some bearing on the crisis within. What if I am really not left to my own choices. Is it possible, that there is some other way to respond to the “crisis” within the human besides reducing life to manipulation of what is in order minimize the pain of the human experience.

More later.

Where you begin depends on who you are talking to. Some people come already engaged with the reality of God and simply are asking questions about the whys and wherefores. Others are drawn to the truth of Christian witness through their experience and relationship with Christian peoples. Yet there are others--people who are not so sure that God is for real or that faith is worth risking or that even religion has ultimate bearing on life.

It is to those persons that I speak to today.

The Princeton ethicist Max Stackhouse once said about the human condition: "the classical Christian view offers a truth that is more conisistent and accurate to the human condition, one that can and should be persuasive to all people, and to which all people ought to submit equally. To present a normative standared for human behavior is no threat to humanity, nor is it inconsistent with natural or social influences or human freedom. Human beings are both finite--made, as Genesis puts it, from the dust of the ground, and free--made with the capacity to cultivate the earth, name the animals, relate to one another, and respond to God. We are, thus, both rooted in the concrete limitations of physicality, social location, and need, and always able, in some indeterminate degree, to transcend precisely these limitations. The essence of human nature is that we have a complex character. We are in turn material, relational, and spiritual; we are less than angels, but more than beasts; we are products of our societies, but makes of civilizations; we are driven by passions, but we also choose whom to love and how to enact that love; we make real choices, but we know that we ought to choose rightly and well."

Finite and free. This tension between the human's material, physical limitations on one hand and the capacity to dream, to imagine, and to create on the other creates, in reality, a crisis. We can not ever fully reach the dreams we dream. Nor can we ever fully transcend the physical limits of our mortal selves--even though we can envision, though our imagination, a world without limits.

We are caught on the horns of these two realities--finite and free. Our longings give rise to our pursuit of art, music, and our interest in myth. Such things are ways of transcendence; paths that take us where we are otherwise not fully able to go. And yet, when night falls, we still are left with an emptiness, an inability to find satisfaction or completeness. Caught in the tension of our basic make-up we are left hanging.

Obviously, we do a lot of things to cover up our longing. We engage in grand pursuits--careers, entertainments, addictions, and much more offer adequate places to hide the tension.

More later.

Earlier today I spoke to about two dozen Disciples of Christ pastors at a luncheon meeting. The topic: ministry to the gay and lesbian community. As the "outsider" I was asked to give some shape to the divisive and difficult landscape that comprises this topic for churches and Christians. I invited Victor McCracken, a Ph.D. student at Emory to join me. The primary intent was descriptive—to give a clearer picture of the vast differences and similarities between conservative and liberal perspectives.

Following the work of Larry Holben, I offered six responses—condemnation, restoration, costly discipleship, accommodation, affirmation, and liberation. The group of ministers had a lively time talking at their tables at varied ways in which, within their own congregations, different perspectives are held. Together with Victor, we offered some important themes to keep in mind as churches wrestle with a response.

Namely, we suggested the following:

1) Broader Sexual Ethic. Homosexuality needs to be addressed within the wider concerns of a biblically-based sexual ethic. Homosexuality is not the only problem that churches face in seeking to live faithful lives. The distortion of heterosexual faith as evidenced by pornography, promiscuity, broken marriages, and divorces are signs that we have much to learn about faithful sexual practices.
2) The Reality of Human Sin. Whether a person is gay or lesbian because they were born that way or whether it is a way of life that acquired through circumstance and social conditioning, there are some basic Christian affirmations that need to anchor our thinking. Quoting Max Stackhouse, Princeton ethicist, “Human beings are both finite—made, as Genesis puts it, from the dust of the ground, and free—made with the capacity to cultivate the earth, name the animals, related to one another, and respond to God. We are, thus, both rooted in the concrete limitations of physicality, social location, and need, and always able, in some indeterminate degreee, to transcend precisely these limitations. The essence of human nature is that we have a complex character. We are in turn material, relational, and spiritual; we are less than angels, but more than beasts; we are products of our societies, but makers of civilizations; we are driven by passions, but we also choose whom to love and how to enact that love; we make real choices, but we know that we ought to choose rightly and well.” Finite and free. The mixture of these two realities must be kept in tension.

Other trajectories are rooted in some of my comments in the Christian Chronicle in September. Click here.

Interestingly enough, the “costly discipleship” response—that is, to say, abstinence—which is held with Roman Catholic tradition took on added interest with today’s announcements from the Vatican regarding ordination and homosexuality.

In a nutshell, the Catholics continue to recognize the difference between homosexual orientation and homosexual practice. They also acknowledge that homosexual practice can reflect a deep "disordered" state in a person and hence such persons should not be considered for Christian ministry.

Here is a lengthy quote:

"Concerning profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, that one discovers in a certain number of men and women, these are also objectively disordered and often constitute a trial, even for these men and women. These people must be received with respect and delicacy; one will avoid every mark of unjust discrimination with respect to them. These are called to realize the will of God in their lives and to unite to the Sacrifice of the Lord the difficulties that they may encounter.

In light of this teaching, this department, in agreement with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, holds it necessary clearly to affirm that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, may not admit to the seminary and Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture."

A lot could obviously be said about this statement. We could comment about the politics or about abuse. But I would suggest that at the heart of the Vatican's statements is a deep seriousness about scripture that is joined with a seriousness about the human condition and the complex psychology that continues to emerge about homosexual practice.

Certainly, I am no Roman Catholic. But a church tradition that affirms the sanctity of life, opposes the death penalty, and is in the forefront of issues regarding poverty and ethics can not easily be said to be uncaring or uninformed about the human condition. So I guess I'm listening to their perspective and am interested to learn more.

Many thanks for those who responded last week to my comments about pursuing a way of articulating faith. The holidays, some church matters, and another writing project have gotten in the way but I want to acknowledge the varied comments and muse a little about the matter.

Some have suggested the strength of relationship as the testimony of truth. Others have pointed out the need for articulating faith in some reasoned way. I find it fascinating and certainly a warning to recognize that are a number of ways to the Christian faith.

Just reading this evening an article in the November 21 issue of the New Yorker on C. S. Lewis. The author, Adam Gopnik, takes a darker look at Lewis--at least darker than what you might get in Sunday School. But Gopnik does correctly point out that Lewis' conversion to Christianity was unconventional.

Lewis was drawn to the mythic qualities of life and literature. His hesitation to embracing Christianity was Lewis' conviction that we would have to leave behind myth to embrace faith. It took his buddy J.R.R. Tolkien to point out that all of life is mythic in quality and scope and that Christian faith particpates in myth as well. The turning point was Lewis embracing Christianity as myth that happens to be true.

Most folks, then and now, would likely have a problem trying to find their way to Christianity through such a literary approach. But it does point out that the Christian faith speaks in many different ways (Lewis would undoubtedly note that it is because of the mythic dimensions of the Christian faith).

So how do you articulate the faith to another person? Is it through steadfast relationships, reasoned arguement, historical verification, philosophical reflection, seeing God in nature? Or could it be that all of these things can be conduits by which the truth of the Eternal God makes its way into the need of the human heart?