Our Human Voice

On Christmas Eve, we had an unusual service in my church, in which a sequence of songs alternated with scripture readings replaced much of the liturgy of the word, in unconscious reflection of the Easter Vigil. Having just led a three week adult session on the Psalms, I was particularly attuned to the role of song in this service, and was struck by how naturally it flowed, and I wondered about that.

In the Psalms, we sing praises and laments. Most secular songs, or so it seems without having done a formal analysis, are songs of love and loss, the same themes, intended for one another's ears instead of the ears of the divine. But songs draw us, naturally and powerfully. As Steve Jobs said famously of music more generally, "It's in our DNA."

So the thesis emerged that our speaking voice is an evolutionary development of growling. Our words, our sentences, are mere growls, chewed into shape. Our speaking voice is our animal voice, with which we convey our lesser emotions. Steve Jobs' effort to express the depth of our attachment to music was rightly intended, but wrongly formed: our attachment to song goes deeper into our humanity than our DNA. Our singing voice is God's gift to us, which we return to him in praise and lament, and which we share with one another. A voice that can convey our highest emotions, through which the Spirit itself intercedes, praying with “sighs too deep for words¹.” Our human voice.

Peace

¹Romans 8:26.

The Drums Beat More Quickly

What is happening to time? I used to be able to think, to consider, to dream. The beat of my own drummer paced me, graced me. Now I am driven by outside drums. They drown that inner beat, Ever louder, ever more insistent, ever quicker. Oh, for the grace of a quiet place, Where I can hear my own drum, And think, and consider, and dream.

Peace

Who is our neighbor?

Kirby, in reaction one of my comments on his blog, wrote a post in his usual incendiary style, WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR. At the center of our disagreement is a limited notion of neighborness on Kirby's part, vs. an unlimited notion on mine. Kirby thinks this is important, as do I.

Anyway, I wrote a long two-part comment in response to a challenge from Brett, who felt that I was resting too much of my argument on the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think he had a good point, but ultimately, my reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan reflected a much more broadly scripturally-based understanding of key concepts that occur in that parable, and in our discussion of it.

I'm taking this opportunity to correct some infelicities in formatting and language in that extended comment, and to develop my thoughts a bit further.

There is a serious philosophical problem here, and it should not be glossed over. How do we interpret scripture, and especially, the stories, teachings, and parables of Jesus. Does each story refer to a limited set of circumstances, or is it Jesus's (i.e., God's—we're trinitarians here) intent to illustrate the general through the specific? Clearly, I believe the latter. It cannot be, e.g., that the right definition of “neighbor” for Kirby consists of all of the people he feels positively disposed to, plus a Samaritan who lived and died two millennia ago. That would have robbed the parable of it's purpose.

I know that some will object, but I think Ockham's Razor applies here. We should seek the simplest theory that is consistent with scriptural evidence. My theory is that Jesus's intent is that everyone is our neighbor; that it is not God's will that we harden our heart to anyone.

Indeed, that is the classical language, to harden one's heart against someone, which means no more than to define someone as not being a neighbor, someone whose pain and suffering is immaterial to us, indeed, which we might even wish to cause.

In the NSRV, there are only four passages where the word “harden” and “heart” co-occur; three in Exodus, referring to God hardening Pharaoh's heart within the Exodus story, and the following, a major dissertation waiting to happen—

Isaiah 63:17 Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.

Forgiveness

In interpreting the story of the Good Samaritan, especially as regards the priest and robbers, I look to passages in the New Testament that deal with forgiveness:

Matthew 18:20–22 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Admittedly, this refers only to members of the church—certainly an anachronistic claim in Matthew! But I think it is reasonable to assume that there is a legitimate Jesus pericope that underlies this, in which “church” would have been “neighbor.” Here is another:

Mark 11:25 “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

This does have universality. If we're to forgive anyone who we hold something against, how can we then say that that person is not our neighbor?

And then, there's this verse:

Luke 6:37–38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.”

Again, there is no limit w.r.t. whom we are to forgive. I assume that it means anyone who has given us offense. Everyone is our neighbor.

And to be perfectly honest, there is this:

John 20:22–23 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The problem for the Kirbys of the world is that we don't get to interpret this in isolation. There are those other verses. How can we retain the sins against any one that is God's?

Neighbor

The notion of neighbor has a nontrivial history in Old Testament and New Testament thought, along with the notion of God. During the monarchical period, YHWH was viewed as a national God of Israel and Judah, and a clear distinction was made between citizen/neighbor (i.e., fellow Jew) and alien. Yet even so, God required of Israel and Judah that no distinction in treatment be made between neighbor and alien.

Leviticus 19:33–34 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

and again,

Leviticus 24:22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the LORD your God.

and this,

Jeremiah 7:5–7 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

But in the exile, the Jewish people began to develop a new conception. YHWH was not just the God of Israel (their only God), but indeed, the only God, and so God of all the nations. This is sometimes called “strong monotheism,” and it is hard to remember after 2500 years that a weaker monotheism was once the norm. But a concomitant of a universal God is the notion that all people are God's people. The word “alien” hardly occurs post-Ezekiel.

Finally, consider this:

Matthew 5:43–48 “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It is not just one story, but a consistent, coherent message. Our God is one God, the only God, and God of all people. Every one who is God's is our neighbor.

Peace

The Rivers of Babylon

I'm going to be giving a three session class on the Psalms in December as a part of my congregation's adult education. It's a big topic, and not too soon for me to get started.

The Psalms are sometimes called “Israel's Hymnal,” which is surely an oversimplification. But having said so, the point behind today's essay is that the Psalms still inspire song writers, and not just hymn writers. By way of evidence, consider

Psalm 137. By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”   How could we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.   Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem's fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

This is a unique Psalm in many respects. Robert Alter, in the introduction to his commentary and translation “The Book of Psalms,” characterizes it as an “anti-Psalm.” Psalms of lament often follow an arc that ends with praise: this Psalm goes from lament, to curses, to fury. This Psalm seems in so many ways unpromising for a modern adaptation. Yet I could instantly name two songs from my iTunes collection that quote this Psalm:

• “Jerusalem,” by Matisyahu, and
• “City of Sorrows,” by Fernando Ortega.

And a couple minutes with Google revealed two more:

• “On the Willows,” from the musical Godspell, and
• “Babylon,” from Don McLean.

Look at that last one: Psalm 137 is quoted on the “American Pie” album. And yes, as I studied the lyrics for these songs in greater detail, it's clear that Ortega was relying more on Ezekiel for content than Psalm 137, but I still think the wording and rhythm relies on the Psalm.

Now, it seems to me that if this (initially unpromising) Psalm is so widely quoted, then the Book of Psalms must be quoted in thousands of contemporary songs, although I've not attempted a serious inventory. I would be glad for more examples of modern songs (as well as hymns) that rely on specific Psalms, and I'm more than a little surprised that Google didn't point me to a web page of thousands.

Peace

The Stars Know the Season

I. The solstice came. The days were cool, the nights were cold. But it was not fall. Can stars know the season?

II. Sun is set, white clouds float in air so clear, I see stars, in a sky not dark. The stars know the season, fall is near.

III. Night comes, wind comes. Trees bend, leaves blow. Stars are near, fall is here.

Peace

Giants

There's an odd passage in Genesis 6:

Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward— when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

I had the peculiar thought today that this might reflect an ancient oral tradition based on encounters (not necessarily sexual) between modern men and Neanderthals. A quick search of Google reveals my lack of originality in this, but I do wonder. One quick note is that the Hebrew word Nephilim (נְפִילִים — often translated "giants"), can also mean “monster” or “deformed.”

This can be compared to the Biblical flood, which is often associated with the filling of the Black Sea, c. ~5600 BCE. Archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals survived in the middle east until 40,000 years ago, and may have survived in western Europe until 24,000 years ago.

Peace

A Modern Creed

I've thought for a while that this might be a good time to write a new creed. The existing creeds were written at a times when there was active controversy over what they confessed, and were biased by those controversies. And all of the creeds say far too little about the Holy Spirit.

Anyway, at a Church retreat yesterday, we were all invited to write a creed. Unsurprisingly, an exercise that seemed impossible given just a summer was easily completed in the twenty minutes allotted. I don't claim that the following creed is any sort of final word, and I would welcome suggestions as to how to improve it.

I believe in God the Father, source of all life, source of all love, creator of the Universe and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, fully human, fully divine, the only begotten son of the Father whose witness and sacrifice saves the Universe, and all that is in it, including me. I believe in the Holy Spirit, God acting in the world, the voice of the prophets, who animates the Universe and all that is in it, including me. These three are one God, the only God, my God. I believe in the communion of saints, the Church of the Father, Son, and Spirit, through which we are called to love one another as God loves us, to find identity and unity through baptism of water and spirit fellowship, remembrance, and forgiveness through Eucharist, and to seek the life eternal.

Peace

Circling the Well

It's been an uncommonly long time since my last posting. What I've had to say was better said in other venues.

Likewise, other concerns have distracted me from the wells of inspiration that I've relied upon for content in this blog. I've had little time for the study of Greek, or for reading the New Testament in the language in which it was written. Little time for free study. Little time for reflection.

And war, endless war, oppresses me. A few days before my daughter's wedding, her high-school boyfriend and his wife and daughter stopped by. He was visiting family during his pre-deployment leave; he's now in Iraq. And the politics of our country have long stopped to be about moving us forward as a nation in justice and prosperity. Our belief in "mission accomplished" on January 20th has proved to be as evanescent as that of earlier claim.

War, endless war, stands between us and peace and justice. War with bullets and explosive devices. War with words, both written and spoken. War with filibusters, votes, and vetoes. War fought for money. War fought for pride. War fought with ignorance. War fought with lies.

Yet the Peace of the Lord will overcome war. Endless war will give way to eternal peace. Truth will outlive lies, and knowledge of God will triumph over ignorance. God's love acting in and through us will vanquish pride. We will know war no more.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Peace

Martin and Teresa

Over on Kirby's blog, in the midst of a peculiar discussion of what Martin Luther believed, jh asked, “what would luther have said regarding mother theresa of calcutta.” I begged for more time, because I don't think this is an easy question, and I think it deserves a careful answer. And part of the complication, which I'll acknowledge, is that jh is himself a monk, and therefore imbedded in his question, intentionally or not, is a more than a little bit of “what would Luther think of me?” I'd like to give answers (to the former explicitly, to the later implicitly) that are both sensitive and accurate.

The big complication in the case of Mother Teresa, and a major part of the reason that I asked for time to research and think, has to do with revelations of the spiritual “emptiness” that silently dominated the last half-century of her life. This engages a major theological concern of Luther, albeit in an extraordinary way.

My approach to this question will be to view Mother Teresa of Calcutta from three different perspectives, each of which aligns with particular Lutheran concerns, and in order from greater certainty to lesser how I think Luther would have reacted to each.

Good Works

Mother Teresa is known for her work in Calcutta, attending to the sick and dying, and eventually to orphans as well. Teresa has received many honors from her work, from both temporal and religious authorities.

Luther surely would have applauded Teresa's good works. His concern about good works was that many of the people of the day felt that they needed to earn their way into heaven through good works, and that this was an impossible obligation. Indeed, he'd have vehemently rejected the possibility that even Teresa's good works were adequate in and of themselves to earn salvation. But Teresa never said they were. She didn't do good works to get into heaven, she did good works because she felt a very specific “call within the call,” and so her good works were a direct response to faith. Luther would have approved.

Teresa's calling as a Nun

The Augsburg confession is divided into two major parts. The first part consisted of a summary of basic theological commitments that the German princes thought were relatively non-controversial, the “Chief Articles of Faith.” They were wrong—the Catholics found plenty in that part to object to. The second part, “Disputed Articles, Listing the Abuses That Have Been Corrected” they knew would be controversial. Article XXVII, “Concerning Monastic Vows” belongs to the second part.

This article, in large part, sets up a distinction between monastic communities of Augustine's time (which were viewed favorably), with the monastic communities of Luther's day. It seems to me that many of the particular concerns he had regarding the monastic communities of his day have been dealt with by subsequent reformers within the monastic orders, and he would only have minor concerns about contemporary communities.

A principle distinction was that monasticism during the Augustinian era was seen as a voluntary association of adults, whereas the sixteenth century communities (at least in Germany) were not. Instead, pre-pubescent children were coerced into giving final vows of chastity, long before they could give informed consent. And once these vows were given, the church was able to use the full authority of the state to enforce them as contracts. Teresa took final vows in her mid-20's, and was certainly willing and able at that point to give informed consent. Moreover, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that coercion played any role in Teresa's call to be a nun, or to remain a nun. The evidence seems quite to the contrary. Luther never denied the possibility that a person might be able to make and sustain a commitment to monastic service, and I believe he would have seen Teresa's call as valid, and her accepting of that call as honorable and laudable.

The reformers were also concerned that monasticism was presented as something superior to baptism. Remember that part of the theoretical justification for indulgences was supererogation, the notion that the church possessed a reserve of excess merit created by the monastic orders which it could dispense to those it chose. I don't see that this kind of consideration was relevant to Teresa, or indeed to the contemporary Catholic church more generally. Teresa was inspired by missionaries, and sought to emulate them as the most fulfilling kind of life for her. Again, I think Luther would have approved.

Indeed, Luther would have been greatly reassured by the temptations that Teresa experienced early in her special ministry to the dying to give up, and return to the monastery, and with Teresa's ability to withstand that temptation. Luther expected the virtuous to be tempted, and to have to struggle, but that through Christ's grace, they would persevere.

“Emptiness and Darkness”

No account of Mother Teresa's life can be complete without acknowledging the despair she felt for the last half-century of her life. The sense of the presence of God, which figured so prominently in her “call within a call” departed. And she felt a huge spiritual emptiness: no sense of the presence of God at all, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”

Luther felt that the works emphasis of the Catholicism of his day lead to despair. But while Teresa had the symptoms, she didn't have the disease. Her despair was not based on a fear that she wasn't doing enough, it was on the exceptional circumstance that the sense of the presence of God, once so powerful and life directing, was gone, leaving an unfillable void behind. I don't believe that Luther ever conceived of this possibility.

Certainly, he believed that the cure to existential crises over salvation was to embrace Christ's promises fervently and with confidence. Critics of Luther sometimes say that he's replaced the question of “have I done enough?,” with an even more problematic “have I believed fervently enough?,” not without justification. Teresa's experience would not have been easy for Luther to explain, or to handle within his system. I believe that Luther's own existential crises would have given him tremendous sympathy for Teresa. But I do not know how he would have judged her, and I cannot rule out the possibility that he'd have viewed her as condemned for her own lack of faith. I hope that someone who knows Luther's work more fully than I do can point to something that would rule this out.

A Concluding Thought

1 Kings 19:11-12 Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

Teresa's experience is not unique among contemplatives. We're all familiar with St. John of the Cross's phrase, “the dark night of the soul.” This is what Teresa experienced. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been, yet she never departed from her “call within a call.” And although it would not have eased her pain to hear it, I believe that the LORD was in that sound of sheer silence in her soul.

Peace

Even When Steeples are Falling...

As many of you know, the ELCA Assembly recently passed a social statement on human sexuality which condones monogamous same-sex relationships, and a separate measure that permits congregations to call pastors who are in monogamous same-sex relationships. It goes without saying that this has been a difficult time for my synod, and we face significant challenges.

The day this happened, a tornado blew the cross down at Central Minneapolis Lutheran, which is across the street from the main assembly, and in which some sessions had been held. Needless to say, this struck many who hold more conservative views on the matter as God having his say on the matter. Perhaps it is. But I was reminded of something else:

Built on the Rock the church doth stand, Even when steeples are falling; Crumbled have spires in e’ry land, Bells still are chiming and calling; Calling the young and old to rest, Calling the souls of men distressed, Longing for life everlasting. Not in our temples made with hands God, the almighty, is dwelling; High in the heav’ns his temple stands, All earthly temples excelling; Yet he who dwells in heav’n above Deigns to abide with us in love, Making our bodies his temple. We are God’s house of living stones, Built for his own habitations; He fills our hearts, his humble thrones, Granting us life and salvation; Were two or three to seek his face, He in their midst would show his grace, Blessings upon them bestowing. Amen.

We believe we are going where God is calling us. I hope you are where God is calling you to be, too.

Peace

The Beauty of Yellow Jackets

So, I'm walking home from the train, my mind lost in thought, when all of a sudden, I get this electric pain in the back of my left calf. My legs and hands know what it is before my brain does. "Yow!!!" I find myself about 15 feet further down the sidewalk, looking back at a half-dozen or so yellow jackets flying in and out of a nest near where I was struck.

I suppose it's human nature to be angry at the yellow jackets, and certainly I don't appreciate the sting. But they are handsome insects, and the pain is nothing in comparison to value of the message: Be humble, you're not all that there is.

Peace

Heaven and Earth

My pastor teaches the occasional adult study following a plan that he calls, “I've read this book, so you don't have to.” I usually read them anyway, surprising no-one. His current book is “Simply Christian,” by N. T. Wright. “Simply Christian” is a modern apologetic—a book whose primary purpose to make the case for Christianity to a non-Christian audience, but it's also enjoyable for any Christians who care to read it.

Wright defines heaven as the place where God lives, and earth as the place where man lives. Within the book, he describes three distinct options for explaining the relationship between heaven and earth. Let me outline his options:

Option 1: Pantheism

Pantheism identifies heaven and earth. Everything that is, is of God. This was a common belief in the pagan societies which Judaism encountered, and in some ways is a more fundamental commitment than the polytheism which often flows from it. The problem with pantheism is that it leaves you with the proposition that evil is of God too.

Wright also identifies a slightly less extreme version of this, which he calls panentheism—which holds that that God is present in everything. This weakening does not solve the fundamental problem of the relationship between God and evil.

Option 2: Deism

In deism, heaven and earth are entirely separate. God lives in God's place, and does not encounter, or even think very much, about humans. And we're in our place. We live, we die. The divine lives, but our paths do not cross. Deism was a common response to the enlightenment amongst the educated, even pre-Darwin. Many of the American forefathers were deists.

Option 3: Intersecting Heaven and Earth

The third option, which Wright identifies as the Jewish (and Christian) alternative in which heaven and earth are distinct, but overlapping. He points to the ancient Jewish understanding of the temple as a place where God lived, a specific location where heaven and earth were in contact; and to the Christian belief that our very bodies are temples of God.

My Reactions

There are certainly bits of option 1 present in Christianity, too. When we speak of God as omnipresent, what do we mean, if not option 1? And when we are in an especially receptive spiritual state, we actively perceive God in everything, sharing the experience that inspired our pagan ancestors. So it seems to me that Wright goes a bit too far when he labels option 3 as characteristic of Christianity.

But a couple of nights ago, I saw something that helped me in visualizing option 3 in a different way. Our congregation had an outing to the ballgame—White Sox against the Royals, Buehrle pitching for the good guys. But there was rain predicted for much of the day of the game. It was clear when we got together, and for the drive up to Comiskey (a.k.a., “The Cell”). But the rain came, delaying the start. When we got into the stands, the tarp was covering the infield.

A few minutes before the game started, the ground crew came out (to great applause) and began to roll up the tarp. As they folded the tarp in half, water and air together separated the top and bottom halves. As the ground crew walked across the tarp, the bubbles of air and water were displaced, and points of contact between the upper and lower halves were created, broken, and moved.

It seems to me that heaven and earth are like this. In a state of repose, heaven and earth are in contact everywhere. But sin has roiled our world—metaphorically injecting air and water between the layers, and breaking most points of contact between heaven and earth. God can chose to be in any place, just as the ground-crew can step anywhere and drive the air and water to other places. But he can't be everywhere at once without eliminating sin and its consequences.

I'd also like to emphasize that there is much more to “Simply Christian” than this. If this summarized argument holds any attraction, the book will draw you in.

Peace

So That's That...

The wedding went off on Saturday with hardly a hitch. These are two young people who really belong together, and it was just a heck of a lot of fun.

We were privileged to have the use of the sanctuary at Ascension Lutheran Church (LCMS) of East Lansing, Michigan. Everyone at Ascension was amazingly welcoming and kind, and their church is both beautiful and filled with beautiful art.

The wedding was very traditional, presided over by our former Pastor who is now retired and living in Michigan. This Pastor confirmed our notoriously verbal, honest, and inquisitive daughter, so it was only fair that he had an opportunity to get in an uninterrupted last few words. We celebrated communion, which is unusual but not rare for weddings in the Lutheran Church.

The reception was likewise quite traditional, but did not feel stale. This was due in part to the venue, in part to the DJ, and more than anything else to tone set by the bride and the groom, their maid of honor and best man, and all the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Yes, we did the daddy-daughter dance to “Teach Your Children” by CSN&Y. Thanks again to GM for the suggestion!

There's an old joke in my family, about how in a wedding, you do not lose a daughter, you gain a bathroom. We feel as though we've gained a son, and a new set of wonderful relations from his side.

A curiosity of the Greek language is that there is not a separate word for ‘wedding’ and ‘marriage,’ as the word γάμος does duty for both. If the author wants to emphasize the celebration that marks the official beginning of a marriage, he'll include a form of the word γίνομαι, which has a tremendously long lexical entry which might be summarized by “comes into being by a natural process,” or more simply “be born,” as in the following familiar verse:

John 2:1 Καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ γάμος ἐγένετο ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, καὶ ἦν ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐκεῖ·

John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

γάμος ἐγένετο· ἁλληλουϊά.

Peace

Chaos in Life

Our daughter—the bride—lives in Colorado. We live in Illinois. Therefore, naturally, the wedding is in Michigan, three and half hours away. One wedding, three states, three time zones. The groom's family is from Michigan, albeit a mere two and half hours further down the road.

On Tuesday, my wife and the maid of honor drove to the groom's parents for their shower, leaving me with a long list of paraphernalia to bring, everything from the bread she baked for communion at the wedding, to bubbles to chase the bride and groom from the church, to place labels and table favors for the reception. On Wednesday, I drove up the hotel with our son for the wedding, carefully making sure that everything on her list got packed. Check. Leaving my checkbook on my desk at home. Check. Not her fault—I should have had my own list.

So I'm thinking, can I do this without a checkbook? The credit card will get me pretty far, and they do have ATMs in Michigan. I should be o.k., assuming I haven't forgotten any bills that I can't cover on the charge card. My wife suggests that I call my folks, ask if they can bring a couple of checks just in case, and provide an emergency line of credit. I do, getting my Mom, who is well aware of the forgetful streak in our family, and with great good humor, she agrees to provide a backstop. What a relief! [One of her standard lines: Alzheimer's isn't detectable in my family—“they were always like that.”]

This morning, we took off after breakfast to pick up the tuxes. The groom is there with his best man, who's decided to surprise the groom by hijacking him for the day (Tiger's game, casino, etc.). Chaos in his life too. We run a few errands, including checking with the florist, getting the key for the church, etc. While we're at the church, I notice that they only have a few purificators (linen cloths used to wipe the edge of the chalices during communion), and we don't want to short the host congregation. This starts a minor quest for purificators (not something you find at Meijer's), which ends when the nice woman at the Potter's Vessel (a Catholic Church Supply company—they're out) points us to a local fabric store, where we pick up the appropriate raw materials.

While we're at the fabric store, I get a call from Mom. They were delayed flying out of Cincinnati (fuel problems on the connecting flight), and ended up on another flight. Unlike their luggage. So they're at the airport (an hour and half away, naturally), hoping the luggage will be on the next flight in. Maybe they'll be in for dinner, maybe not. Not the first time the luggage has gone AWOL, they know the drill. They'll be o.k.

We get back to our hotel room, to find the bride and her maid of honor crashed out. So my wife is now in the lobby, putting seams in the purificators, and talking to her mother and sister. I'm here quietly blogging, hoping to amuse friends I've never met, while waiting to hear from my folks, and wondering where the next curveball is coming from.

But life is good, and people I love are gathering here to celebrate a new union.

Peace

Update: Their luggage arrived, mysteriously, on the carousel with luggage from a flight from Salt Lake City, and they made it up in time for a (slightly delayed) dinner. The wedding party is off at the bar, and my wife and I spent much of the rest of the evening with my folks, and one of my wife's friends, carefully creasing the place holders along the perforations, and tearing them apart. Good times.

Unity

GM asked for more translation posts. JA thinks I'm in over my head. Perfect! Let's try another.

Today's lectionary readings included Ephesians 4:1-16, which contains the familiar:

Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

We looked at this in adult education before service. My pastor commented on the repetition of “one,” and how powerfully this repetition drives home the unity of the Church. This alliteration, by the way, goes back at least as far as Tyndale's “Let ther be but one lorde one fayth one baptim.” So I took a quick look in Nestle-Aland, and here's the Greek:

Ephesians 4:4-6 Ἓν σῶμα καὶ ἓν πνεῦμα, καθὼς καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν μιᾷ ἐλπίδι τῆς κλήσεως ὑμῶν· εἷς κύριος, μία πίστις, ἓν βάπτισμα, εἷς θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ πάντων, ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων καὶ διὰ πάντων καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν.

There are a couple of things to notice here. The first is that Nestle-Aland (the Greek Text) sets this as poetry—fair enough. But the second is that the alliteration that is so powerful in the English isn't present in the Greek, because Greek is a declined language, and the form of the irregular adjective εἷς (heis) changes radically depending on the gender of the noun it modifies. In the critical, tight, confessional verse 5, it is εἷς—μία—ἓν, the masculine, feminine, and neuter singular forms respectively of the adjective “one.”

So here is my thought, and I'll grant that it's a stretch. While the alliteration of one—one—one isn't in the Greek, the sequence εἷς—μία—ἓν seems constructed too. And while it is certainly the case that humans love to impose imagined structure on top of randomness, I'm taking the position here that there are no accidents in poetry. Putting each of the genders of Greek in turn, as happens in verse 5, might be an allusion to a deeper union. Three-in-one.

So at this point, the mathematician in me takes over. What is the probability that a passage of three consecutive Greek nouns will hit all three genders? If we assume that each gender is equally likely, it's

3!/3³ = 2/9 ≈ 22%.

If we put in the actual distribution of masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns (243, 271, 111 resp.) in Ephesians, the probability estimate drops to 18%. Not compelling, not compelling at all. But suggestive.

My wife argued that the εἷς at the beginning of the 6th verse destroys the argument. Maybe. But I can easily accommodate this, as it looks to me as though the εἷς “closes the circle”: εἷς—μία—ἓν—εἷς. Hmm.

So, would a Greek ear hear this? Here I'll fully grant the justice of JA's disputing of my abilities and pretensions. I have no idea. But I like the thought, nevertheless.

Peace

An Anecdote

OK, guys. On Friday nights, my wife and I often go out to the local Brewpub with friends. No big deal. Today, my daughter and her fiancé come in, earlier than I expect, and join us. No big deal. Another couple joins us too. No big deal. At the end of a pleasant meal, we divide the check, and I'm caught a bit short, because I hadn't expected the kids to come, and of course, daddy covers. No big deal. I apologize to my friends, collect the cash, and put the credit card in the holder. The waitress comes, and I pass the holder back to her. No card. Big deal!

My friends had seen me put the card in the holder, so its a mystery. We look under the table, around on the floor. I tear my wallet apart. My wife tears my wallet apart. No card. Now ordinarily, this is a problem, but something you work through. But this is also the card that I've used to guarantee the caterer at the reception for my daughter's wedding, a mere eight days (and 198 guests) hence. And I'm computing in my head, is there enough time to cancel the card, and get a new one. To explain to the caterer what the deal is, and to get everything sorted out. My chest is a bit tight at this point, as you can imagine!

About five minutes pass, as we lift the table, and generally make a scene of ourselves, figuring out trajectories, etc. Another waiter stops by, and suggests that sometimes the holders wear out, and the card falls through the pocket, into the holder itself. I check. Hallelujah! It's there. I am amazed, breathless, and thankful. What an evening!

Peace

The Goals of Debate

Why do people participate in venues like this? Why do I write? Why do you read? Why do we enter into conversations through comments?

It seems to me to be too cynical to view blogs as interactive art: seductive, but ephemeral. No, I think we participate because we hope to learn, but even more to teach. We hope to be entertained, but even more to entertain. We seek community, but perhaps even more to establish our individuality. But we can become destructive when we get frustrated. Then we seek to sow confusion rather than knowledge, anger rather than entertainment, and to tear down others when we cannot build up ourselves. If I can't get what I want, then at least I can keep you from getting what you want!

Incivility is a consequence of frustration. Where does this frustration come from? I doubt there is a single cause, but it seems to me that a sense of powerlessness to meet our particular goals in debate is often a primary cause.

For example, we might enter a discussion hoping to convince the other participants of the rightness of a position we are strongly committed to. But the other participants come with their own experiences, their own prior beliefs, their own bound commitments. It may be the case that no matter how well informed our arguments are, or how artfully we've constructed them, no matter how passionately, how eloquently we argue, the other guy is not going to be budged. It is often at this point that we get frustrated. We realize that our goal—convincing the other guy—is not achievable, even in principle. What happens next is often not pretty. But does it need to be inevitable?

Tolerance matters. It is perfectly reasonable and appropriate to hope that our arguments will prevail; it is unreasonable to assume that when they don't, it is due to some character flaw in our opponents. It is often suggested by members of the left that intolerance is a characteristic of the right, and vice versa. Let me suggest instead that tolerance is a characteristic of maturity, and that immaturity correlates with both extremism and youth. The passing of youth is inevitable, but the passing from immaturity to maturity is not. Good examples, from both allies and opponents can help form maturity. We should aspire to be good examples.

I think we need to learn to accept secondary goals. If we cannot convince, then perhaps we can inform. Understanding isn't the same as agreement, but achieving understanding is rare enough and valuable enough to be a worthy goal in its own right. But there is a two way obligation here—if you want to be understood, you should be willing to understand the other guy's position too. You can understand without agreement, and there is nothing wrong with saying so. I understand your position, but I do not agree with it. Let us be at peace.

And I think that while we do well to understand differences, we do better when we acknowledge those things that hold in common: our humanity, our integrity, and our willingness to engage constructively with one another.

Peace

Civility

I know that I'm a new kid on this block, but I've been around a few others. The truth is, public proclamation coupled with anonymity has been with us since the first graffiti (likely the equivalent of "Ogg smells!") appeared on a cave wall, and set the standard form and content of this sort of discourse.

When I was about ten years old, I saw a bit of doggerel in an outhouse:

Those who write on shithouse walls, roll their shit in little balls. Those who read these words of wit, eat those little balls of shit.

I had no problem finding this again via Google, exactly as I remembered it. It must have been all the rage in the mid-60s. It does speak a truth, though, that still applies. And what is the internet, but the world's most visible outhouse wall? As the preacher said:

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us.

Are we doomed? Must the rising tide of incivility drown us in moronic invective, bad speling, and ALL CAPS? Yeah, probably so. But there are things we can do to encourage civility, to reclaim our little corner of the world for passionate discourse with civility. It's not easy, but I do have a few concrete recommendations.

• You can't advance the cause of civility by incivility. It seems obvious enough, but how many times have you seen someone try to shut up an obnoxious antagonist by insulting them? Usually their antagonist reciprocates, sometimes they just go away. But either way, the venue is brutalized.
• The hair-trigger on Alexander Hamilton's dueling pistols didn't work out so well for him. Having a hair-trigger isn't going to work out any better for you. Be slow to take insult. If things are getting heated, slow down. Delay your next post, and let everyone cool down a bit. Be explicit in giving your opponent time to reconsider, and perhaps amend or withdraw his words.
• Admit it when you're wrong. It won't kill you, and it won't diminish your authority in debate. We all know folks who believe themselves to be always right on every question. Think about them for a bit. Yeah. Do you want to be that person?
• Be eager to support today's opponent. Treat him with consideration and respect. Surprise him with consideration and respect. You must might find that he's tomorrow's friend.

I'd be happy to consider any additional suggestions to this little list. I suspect that there will be occasion to return to this topic from time to time, even in a venue whose very name is “peace.”

Peace

Metanoia

Over on Kirby's blog, in response to a question by Emmy Bea, I noted Luther's dissatisfaction with Jerome's translation of the Greek word μετάνοια as penance, and to my surprise (but great pleasure), these remarks met with jh's approbation. Moreover, his note contained some additional remarks on the meaning of μετάνοια, and as I'd had some similar thoughts, I'd like to develop this a bit further, to three distinct ends:

1. I believe the question of how to properly understand the concept of μετάνοια, as Paul intended, is important.
2. The issue of how best to translate μετάνοια is illustrative of the difficulties translators face, and why the hope for a “perfect” translation is misguided.
3. I see in this a good opportunity to develop the faith/works discussion, in a way that I hope is less bound by a priori stereotypes, and which I hope will make the Lutheran position more comprehensible to people with a Catholic mindset. Please note that I'm merely hoping to explain, not to win any arguments.

Μετάνοια

So let's recall the starting point. In Romans 2:1ff, Paul is talking about divine judgment, the consequences of sin, and he touches on the transformative effect of God's love. Let me mash up a bit of English NRSV and Greek:

Romans 2:4b Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to μετάνοια?

Jerome's choice of translating μετάνοια as penance was unfortunate, and Luther's choice of repentance was better, but it does not feel perfect. I believe that the imperfection is in that both Jerome and Luther translated μετάνοια in terms of the consequences of the transformation, rather than in terms of the nature of the transformation, and I believe Paul was talking more about the nature of the transformation.

According to BDAG, the base meaning is “primarily a change of mind,” and suggested translational phrases are “repentance, turning about, conversion.” It is worth noting that the roots are μετά + νοῦς. “Meta” is a proposition, the translation of which is always tricky and beset with language specific idioms, whereas “nous” refers to “mind, intellect, understanding, way of thinking, attitude” etc.

jh raised up phrases like, “turning toward,” “seeking understanding and love,” and even the analogy of lovers making up after a spat. I think these truly are at the heart of the matter.

The classic Lutheran understanding of sin is separation from God. What does God want? He wants relationship. He wants his love for us to be mirrored in our love for him and one another. To place this in terms of jh's suggestions, in sin, we have turned away from God. His kindness is meant to turn us back. This is indeed the making up of lovers after a spat, where the lovers are God and us.

Is this really all there is? Does God really require nothing more of us when we fail than that we return to him? In a word, yes. But to stop with that one word is immature.

It is in understanding the steps that a mature Christian makes after turning back towards God that Luther's word choice and Jerome's come into play.

A mature Christian will acknowledge the reality of their actions, that they were in fact the actor, and that God did not intend for them to act this way. They will acknowledge the consequences of their actions. They will feel regret. This is where Luther's choice of repentance hits the nail on the head. Maybe not quite the nail that Paul intended, but on the head, nevertheless.

The second thing a mature Christian will do is to take responsibility for their actions, and this means that they will do what they can to repair the brokenness that they have brought into God's creation. Often, our actions have injured others, and an appropriate step is to make restitution to that person—to make them whole. This is where Jerome not only swung at the wrong nail, he missed it. The focus on penance is a focus on punishment, not restoration of either the sinner or the injured. And as this came to be interpreted, it had the effect of transferred the restitution from the injured party to the church, so that the consequences of sinful acts remained uncorrected, the brokenness unrepaired.

Translation

It simply isn't possible to fit a discussion like that above into a single word choice, yet translators do not have the luxury of interposing explanatory paragraphs into the midst of their translations. Even the standard mechanism of footnotes is inadequate for even a brief discussion along the lines that I've given above. Such discussions are necessarily relegated to commentaries, or perhaps to translator's notes. Translators have to pick a word, or at most a short phrase, recognizing that their choices will tend to miss some of the nuances of the original, perhaps emphasizing this part a bit more, and that part a bit less. They have to trust that their work will not stand alone, but will be supported by others.

It is worth reflecting here on the specific kind of choice involved. Will a translator try for a translation in which there is a tight correspondence between the words in their original, and the words in their translation? If so, simply using the word “change” would have been an excellent choice.

Or does the translator allow themselves word choices that draw the reader further down the theological path that they believed that the author intended? This is the kind of choice that both Luther and Jerome made in wrestling with Romans 2:4. It is a reasonable thing to do.

Or does the translator allow themselves greater freedom, and forsake a word-for-word translation in favor of a freer translation, which they hope will nevertheless come closer to the author's original intent? Here, “change of heart,” rather than a more literal “change” or “change of mind” might have been suitable. The Message is a good exemplar of a translation that is made in this style.

I practice, no translation is going to follow a pure strategy. All translations will make choices that favor literal readings in some places, and sense readings in other. I believe it is important to understand the translation philosophy of whatever English-language bible you have, and very useful to look at multiple translations which follow different strategies in doing deeper Bible studies.

But I think that it is both wrong and unhelpful to say that one strategy is right and another is wrong. All of these strategies are trying to convey the original, they just do so with different priorities regarding the tradeoffs that must be met. If you want a book that fully conveys all the nuances of the original, you have to read the original.

Faith vs. Works

The debate over faith vs. works has resulted in much oversimplification of the Lutheran side, and perhaps of the Catholic side as well. The Lutheran side is often reduced to "salvation by grace through faith," or "sola fides, sola gratia, solus Christus." [Lutherans, by the way, do not affirm "sola scriptura," although some Protestants do, and this leads to confusion.] Often, the Lutherans themselves have done the reduction. But the notion that Lutherans don't value or understand works is incorrect, they've simply transferred the point in their theology to which works are attached, and thereby transposed the Catholic understanding of the causative relationship between works and salvation.

In the Lutheran view, our works don't save us, and can't save us. Only God working on and through us can save us.

But once are saved, how then do we live? What is the nature of Christian life? What are its obligations? How do we respond to this great gift that God has given us?

The gift that we are given is the gift we must return: love. And the remarkable thing about this is that giving love does not diminish our store of love, it increases it. It is only by hoarding this treasure that we risk losing it. It is in living a Christian life that we should find good works, not as a means of salvation, but as a joyful response to salvation. And mature Lutherans can read James with appreciation, nod our heads, and agree: if you claim you have faith, but you're not moved to share God's love for all of us with your fellow man, and you're not moved to ease the pain and suffering of the world, then what sort of faith do you have? We are not saved by knowledge of doctrine, as even the devil has a knowledge of history and of the nature of God. We are saved by grace through faith, and in particular by a faith that transforms us.

And I think in this, there is actually very little difference between the Lutheran and Catholic positions as regards the sort of life that Christians should lead. The disagreement is really just this: are we saved because of our good works, or do we do good works because we're saved? Either way, we have both salvation and good works. I believe that much would be gained by consciously embracing our agreements, instead of just obsessing over our disagreements.

Peace

What Song?

A text message from my daughter, who will be married in 2 1/2 weeks, “What song for the daddy daughter dance?”

I don't know.

I've spent a good part of the afternoon looking. Most love-ish songs are inappropriate: let's jump in the sack, or I'm going to pine away now that you're gone. I like almost everything, except country. She likes almost everything, especially country. And I don't do maudlin, although that's the best way to describe my feelings during this afternoon's exercise.

Here are my current thoughts:

• Turn! Turn! Turn!, The Byrds.
• La Chanson de Claudine, Mason Williams.
• Walk Away Renée, The Four Seasons.

I like the songs, none of them seem quite right. I've looked at a few websites, and was a bit surprised to find “Landslide.” I love the song, but doubt the appropriateness. My daughter told me a few days ago that “Butterfly Kisses” is popular, which to me is an argument against. And it violates the maudlin stipulation.

It's enough to make me think that writing the checks is going to be the easy part.

Anyway, serious suggestions would be gratefully received.

Peace

Fifty-five

There are two kinds of drivers in this country: people who admit that they speed, and liars. This is a perfect model for a fallen humanity:

• When we learn to drive, we're taught that we should "drive the limit," as if the boundary between legality and illegality, the very nexus of temptation, is the safest place to be.
• We all know that we're safest, and will get to where we're going the quickest, if we're all going the same speed, so the traffic flows. We all know that the intended purpose of the speed limit sign is to establish a common and sensible convention for what that speed should be. Yet unless limited by traffic, it is a rare road where the average speed is less than five over. The temptation to go just a bit faster than the people around you is always present, as is shame at the thought that we might be the slowest person on the road.
• The moment we see a police car, we all engage in the quiet hypocrisy of slowing down, and trying to look innocent. The police aren't fooled, they're just looking for even bolder (or younger, or blacker) sinners. We're ashamed if we don't sin, and even more ashamed if we get caught! And, of course, when the policeman tires of the hunt and decides to go home, he does so at a speed that would instantly earn him a ticket from himself, if he was anyone else.

For my part, I'd prefer to just set the cruise control at the speed limit, and not worry about whether or not there's a policeman three tickets behind this month's quota waiting around the turn. On four lane roads in the country, this is actually a feasible strategy. And when I do it, almost invariably, I pick up a tail of followers, all happy enough to be "legal," so long as they're not in the lead.

Try this on westbound I-80/94, heading into the city on a Friday evening, though, and you'll get killed. And this isn't hyperbole for "some nasty truckers are going to honk their horn at you." It's a euphemism—your death is going to inconvenience the local fire department.

So we make laws for our own protection, knowing that we are going to break them. We see crosses along side of the road, and know that there are parents or spouses who grieve over the lost, but we can't read the names because we're going by too fast. And we think we can save ourselves.

Peace

City Life, Country Life

One of the deepest divisions in contemporary America is that between urban and rural society. There is really no getting around this: the typical life experiences associated with these two subcultures are quite different, and people from one subculture often look at people from the other with incomprehension, or even hostility.

It is not my purpose here to summarize the differences between the two, but I do want to set out a minor prescription for improving understanding, and to explore one particular issue where these two subcultures are at odds with one another.

My prescription is simple: people should spend a significant amount of time living the life of the other subculture. Here I do not mean playing the tourist, but instead trying to find a way to truly live within the other community long enough to understand and be influenced by its values. I recognize that this is not an easy prescription, and I don't have any great ideas how to implement it generally, I just know that my life has provided me this opportunity, and with it a valuable perspective.

I should be clear here, that although I identify more strongly with the urban side of this divide, I think it is more common for rural folks to have some experience of city ways than conversely.

The issue I want to address is guns.

From an urban perspective, guns bring death. The urban experience involves a fair amount of potential friction each day, but also help fairly close at hand. The problem is that potential friction can become real friction fairly quickly, and that guns act on much shorter time scales than police response.

From the rural perspective, guns are part of the culture. They can be a means to obtaining food, as well as a significant and satisfying challenge to master. Guns can be a basis for friendly competition (as is often witnessed by road markers). Also, in an area where family is often near, but other help is often far away, guns can be a significant contributor to both perceived and real security.

We tend to approach matters as if the law for one must be the law for all. In general, I agree with this precept, but misapplication of this principle in the case of guns is making life more difficult. We would all be better served with stronger gun control in urban areas, and more flexibility in rural areas. And indeed the law is still the same for all, for each can chose to live in one environment or the other. This is not a issue where we should be counting votes, but instead we should be showing proper consideration to one another, and to the real differences between city and country life, rather than trying to impose an artificial uniformity that serves neither well.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, III

In earlier postings, I've tried to understand how God wants us to use the gift of sexuality. I recognize that my particular position is conservative in some respects, and liberal in others, and probably doesn't suit anyone but myself. So it goes.

In this posting, I want to understand how we as Church deal with individuals who fail to use sexually according to God's wishes.

Promiscuity

This one is relatively easy, from a theoretical point of view:

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

There are, of course, practical problems. Although some fornicators (i.e., braggarts) self-report, this can't be relied on. Suspicions may form an adequate basis for proposing counseling, but they're inadequate to initiate church discipline. In particular, the biblical standard (cf., Num 35:30, Matt 18:16, 2 Cor 13:1) requires two or more witnesses, and as fornication is generally done in private with an equally guilty partner, any witnesses would be implicating themselves as well.

Thus, congregations who take this seriously have generally limited themselves to hounding out couples who are publicly “living together” without the benefit of marriage (or engagement, depending on interpretation). But this seems to misdirected. Couples who are living together are (it is to be hoped, at least) in the midst of forming a pair-bond/union. And this isn't what we ordinarily mean by a fornicator, which would be someone who has sexual relations outside of a relationship that could reasonably be expected to mature into long-term pair-bond/union, e.g., someone who has multiple partners within a relatively short period of time.

The imperative to forgive makes dealing with sinners in the church problematic, fornicators included. We want to believe that repentance is possible; we want to be receptive to God acting in the sinner to heal and reform them. When asked how often we should forgive, Jesus once said seventy-seven times. Undoubtedly there are fornicators who would exceed even this limit, but I don't believe that Jesus's intent was for us to keep score. It seems that about the best we can do is to throw notorious fornicators out, let a reasonable time (e.g.., a year, which is roughly equal to 1/77ths of a normal human lifespan) pass for reflection, and then let them petition for re-entry by providing evidence of repentance.

Divorce

It would seem the divorce is much like promiscuity in terms of church discipline, but it actually seems quite different. In my confession (ELCA) divorce/remarriage is discouraged, but not necessarily viewed as a disciplinary matter, although I suspect a pattern of divorce and remarriage would be. I suppose that the theory here is that the church should be present for all, and what matters is that people are making a good-faith effort in the relationships that they're in. A curious reality of confessions that do not excommunicate for divorce is that rarely do you see both members of a divorced couple remain in the same congregation. Almost invariably, one stays, and one goes.

In other confessions, e.g., the Catholic Church, the remarriage is illicit and grounds for automatic excommunication, and the only paths back into the church are annulment of the original marriage, or re-establishment of the original, broken marriage. To an outsider, the practice of annulment feels like selective justice—a remedy whose availability may depend as much on who you know, or how much you're willing to contribute, rather than any objective analysis of the original "marriage." It is important not to prejudge the Catholic Church for how it handles this situation, but I think also useful to be honest about how that process is sometimes perceived, even by people whose predilection is to give the Catholic Church every benefit of doubt.

Here again, I could imagine a church that handled divorce along the lines that I suggested for simple promiscuity: an appropriate period of separation for reflection and amendment, and then an opportunity to rejoin under the status quo. I am not aware of any church that handles the issue this way.

Clergy Sexual Misconduct

This is a difficult issue, which is often associated in the public mind with the Roman Catholic Church. This is grossly unfair, as every church has had to deal with this problem.

The way various church bodies have chosen to react depends a lot on the framing of the problem. I've heard of two extraordinarily different framings. I know that there are others.

Abuse of Power This framing holds that clergy sexual misconduct occurs through an abuse of power by the clergy member, who holds the office of the keys in some confessions, and is the personal representative of God in others. The model come-on line in such cases is "God wants us to be together," through which a clergy member leverages their spiritual role into an intimate role.

Enticement This framing holds that clergy become involved in sexual relationships because someone whom they are counseling exploits the clergy member's empathy.

I suppose we are all constrained by our experiences. I ended up on my local synod's advisory committee for women, and as such, was sent as a synodical representative to the original VOCAL conference (Victims of Clergy Abuse Link-up) in '92. While there, I heard a number of presentations by individuals who had been involved sexually with clergy, and felt abused by it. Surprisingly often, two such victims would discover with shock that they'd had the same clergy "partner." These stories had an authenticity, and as such a tremendous impact on all who heard them. I also heard Marie Fortune give a very powerful talk on power relations and sexual misconduct. This made a powerful impression on me, because it provided a strong theoretical way to understand issues of faculty/student sexual relationships, and what felt instinctively wrong to me about them, too.

So, obviously enough, I came to favor the first framing, and still do. True consent is only possible in a context in which there is not a strong asymmetry of power within the relationship. Obviously, clergy hold power over their flock, just as professors hold power over their students. True consent is not possible in either case. This often puts me at odds with some of my colleagues (who would structure University policies so as to provide licit means for faculty/student relationships). Moreover, what I've read, reinforced with the "victim's reunions" I observed at VOCAL, made it clear to me that the recidivism rate among clergy who have abused their flock is quite high, and that it is extraordinarily difficult even for leaders of good will and discernment to reliably determine who has been "rehabilitated," and who has not.

It seems to me that we should, in a spirit of Christian forgiveness, provide an opportunity for clergy who have so transgressed to return to the church, but there is no reason any confession should accept the risks associated with their continuance in ministry. I recognize that this creates a particular problems for confessions (such as the Catholics) which interpret ordination as sacramental, but this is how it must be for the safety of all, and for the integrity with which the gospel is preached and the sacraments offered.

This sort of consideration, by the way, is a good part of the reason why I would never choose to be a part of any "independent" congregation. It seems to me that clergy discipline can only be maintained in the presence of a synodical structure. And it is a matter of concern to me that the bishops (and here I mean in the Lutheran Church, as well as other confessions) are often expected to be administrators more than pastoral leaders in their own right. For it is the bishop's primary function to be a pastor to the clergy who serve under them.

Peace

Fruits of Ecumenism

The ELCA is in full pulpit and altar fellowship with the Episcopalian Church, i.e., a congregation of either confession can call a pastor/priest from the other. I've thought this was a hypothetical adjunct to the ecumenical process, but no longer—I have a concrete instance of this having been done, and the person so called is an long-time (I would not say "old"...) and dear friend.

He was called jointly to two congregations, an ELCA congregation and an Episcopalian congregation in the same town. It's an area of great natural beauty, and a sizable proportion of the people who live in the area do so only during the summer. A joint call represents a great solution to their joint challenges.

Ordinarily, the congregations worship separately, but my wife and I were privileged to attend the first service at which they worshipped together. The Episcopalian congregation had previously arranged to hold their picnic at a local park. They decided to have the worship service as a part of that picnic, and to invite the Lutherans to both. So we worshipped in the Episcopalian style in a beautiful park overlooking an inland sea, and later enjoyed a very lovely church picnic, with Episcopalian brats and hamburgers. A great time was had by all, and I've heard that the Lutherans have plans to reciprocate.

The challenges of such a situation are worth reflecting on, but I find it delightful that these two congregations can now see the essential unity that they have as Churches of Jesus Christ, while retaining the ability hold on to and enjoy their distinctive traditions. This may be even better than union.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, II

Marriage

At the center of Paul message (in the undisputed letters, anyway) is the radical equality of all who live in Christ. While there are good texts to this effect in 1st Corinthians (e.g., 1 Cor 12:14-26), the classic expression of this radical equality comes from Galatians:

Galatians 3:27-28 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 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.

I think it is important to really get this. Paul was not merely talking about a safe theoretical equality that doesn't require us to do anything differently—we're all the same before God—nor an equality that was limited to what happened within the congregation and its worship—slave, within these walls, you're my brother! He was creating a new society, a society in which everyone is equal, everyone is valued, and everyone is loved. As you read through 1st Corinthians, you'll see over and over again that Paul is battling the Corinthians' tendency to revert from his egalitarian vision to the norms of Roman society: divisions, food sacrificed to idols, sexual exploitation, the privileges of the rich, etc. And nowhere in the day-to-day life of a society are its norms more frequently encountered, or more rigorously enforced, than within marriage.

Roman society was built around the notion of power, the notion that some people had the right to do certain things to certain other people, or make those others do things for them. For the Roman, the law existed to define who had power, justice consisted of the unfettered application of the rights of power, and the legions existed to deal with anyone who resisted the perquisites of power. Within Roman marriage, men held power, and women did not. It was really that simple. The woman's role was to serve the man, and to be used by the man. Whatever power the woman had, e.g., over the domestic economy of the house, was delegated to her by the man, and the man could take that power away, or even cast her away entirely, if he chose. Women had no corresponding rights. In effect, women were property.

Christian society, as envisioned by Paul, is based on love, and radical equality. A Christian marriage is not built on power, nor even partnership, but union and love. Such high standards are difficult to obtain, especially when applied retroactively to marriages that formed under the old rules. Clearly the Corinthians struggled with this, at least this is the best explanation that I've heard for the following:

1 Corinthians 11:1-16 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.

The claim (and this comes from Borg & Crossan) is that married women were using their new freedom in Christ to practice celibacy, and shedding their veils amounted to a public proclamation of this choice. Understandably, both the choice of celibacy and even more so the advertising thereof would have been deeply shaming to their husbands. But there is nothing new here. How many times have we heard about the abuse of a new freedom? It takes time and experience to learn to use any freedom responsibly and well. It is no wonder that the Corinthians struggled.

I do not doubt that there were loving unions in ancient times, just as there are abusive marriages today. But societal norms change. Sadly, the sense of radical equality advanced by Paul was lost as church and empire compromised with one another. It seems to me that the church, contrary to Paul's teaching, took upon itself the role ensuring that a woman's place in marriage was one of subjugation. This has changed in some of our churches, but not all.

It seems hypocritical to me that some churches decry the damage that has been done to the institution of marriage by the sexual revolution, when they've done far greater damage themselves by preaching and defending an unhealthy (Roman) view of marriage against a healthy (Pauline) view. Indeed, I believe that the sexual revolution has resulted not in a decline of marriage, so much as a winnowing of marriage, with healthy marriages encouraged and deepened, and diseased marriages healed or euthanized.

Homosexuality

I know that my readers are eager to continue the discussion of homosexuality, and Paul's apparent condemnation thereof, which began in Can't Anyone Here Play This Game. I'm sure that you'll all remember the distinction between μαλακός and ἀρσενοκοίτης in 1 Cor 6:9, and the observation from BDAG that what is condemned here are catamite (man/boy) relationships.

I came across an amusing source a few months ago, “Orgy Planner Wanted” on the remainder shelf at Powell's. (For the cognoscenti, that would be the original Powell's, on 57th Street, next to the Metra station.) This book does a fairly broad survey of occupations and lifestyles in the Roman world. It's written in a generally light and humorous style, and therefore is the kind of book that one hesitates to bring up in serious conversation. But it was great train reading, and offered some fascinating information that I think gives tremendous insight into why Paul condemned this particular kind of relationship.

In the Roman (and Greek) world, male-on-male sexual activity occurred between relatively rich men, and vulnerable young boys. Sometimes, this was a simple money-for-sex transaction (i.e., male prostitution), and sometimes it grew out of ‘mentoring’ where an older man would “take an interest” in a young boy. I suspect you already knew this.

But here are some particulars that you might not have known.

These were inevitably temporary relationships, even in the ‘mentoring’ case: the emergence of facial hair changed the older man's feelings towards the younger from desire to disgust. So the boys we're talking about here would have been roughly between the ages of 9 and 15. We all know how Paul felt about intercourse: it created a life-long union through the merger of two into one flesh. Moreover, the older man would have himself already been married, and therefore this was not only a promiscuous union, it was also adulterous.

If it became known in these societies that a male was anal-receptive, then they would lose their citizenship (if they had it). Moreover, they would be taken, stripped, have a radish shoved up their anus with the leaves hanging out, and paraded through town so that everyone knew. There was no corresponding lost of stature for older, penetrating male: Hey, if you want to bonk boys, that's fine by us, just let us know when you find one who's willing, so that everyone can get in on the fun! Thus, a catamite relationship incurred great risks for the boy. If discovered, he was invariably reduced to male prostitution until puberty, and then slavery or death. There was no path to re-entry to society.

So these relationships, practically by definition, were temporary, promiscuous, adulterous, inequitable, and exposed the vulnerable partner to catastrophic risks. You hardly need to get into the ‘ick’ factor to understand why Paul would have opposed such relationships: our obligation as Christians is to support and lift up one another, not to exploit or degrade one another; moreover, we should recognize ourselves as the vessel of God that we are, and not consent to our own degradation.

Finally, I'd like you to consider the following—that other “proof text against homosexuality” from Paul, in light of this discussion:

Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

How many times have you read or hear this, and heard in the last line that the crime was the punishment? On one hand, this seems ludicrous, if homosexual sex is the punishment for homosexual sex, then I suspect that most gay guys would say, bring it on! What's the problem here? And why does the church insist on adding other punishments to those that God has already imposed? Perhaps it's a bit different if you imagine a young boy, sick with pain and humiliation as he is marched through the marketplace, naked, with a radish up his ass and its leaves trailing behind like a tail.

The Greek text, by the way, reads “ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν,” literally, “males in males,” which is a good deal more explicit than our squeamish English translations. But what I want to call your attention to is Paul's choice of ἄρσην (male) rather than ἀνήρ (man). Every modern English Bible I have except for HCSB translates ἄρσενες in Romans 1:27 as ‘men,’ which bends the underlying meaning so that it seems targeted against homosexuality as we understand it today, whereas Paul's particular word choice conveys maleness, without conveying adult. It seems particularly worth noting given that Paul uses ἀνήρ forty-three times in the consensus epistles, and ἄρσην only four times—three times in this very verse—so Paul's word choice is very much an intentional choice to convey a nuance that the standard English translations (I suspected equally intentionally) obscure.

So how should we regard modern homosexuality, which is very different from the catamite relationships Paul condemned? Note here that promiscuity is certainly sinful, and nothing that I've written should be taken as supportive of promiscuity, irrespective of sexual orientation. But we also know of dedicated same-sex partnerships that have essentially all of the attributes of healthy Pauline marriages (modulo plumbing): they represent true unions, in which two faithful partners chose to live lives together, sharing joys and sorrows for so long as both live. How should we react to these relationships? Shall judge them by the old taboos, even distorting scripture to do so? Or shall we consider how such relationships impact the people who enter into them?

Matthew 7:18-20 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

So here at last is the answer. If the fruit is good, so too is the tree that it came from. Lifestyles that support the life and health of the participants, which lift them up, should be supported. Lifestyles that cheapen life, or damage the health of people involved, should be opposed. So put down that cheeseburger, get some exercise, love and serve the people around you, and if you have a partner, give them a good squeeze so that they know that they are loved too.

Peace

A Zwischenzug—Paul

Paul. That's what this post is going to be about—Paul. I'd hoped to get into his radical reinterpretation of marriage, and a discussion of his comments (specifically in 1st Corinthians) regarding same-gender sexuality, but this preliminary discussion of Paul has proven to be quite lengthy, so we'll put those discussions off for tomorrow and beyond.

Although we know a lot about Paul from his letters, it would be helpful if we knew more, because what we don't know raises some interesting questions of interpretation. I'd like to start from a somewhat conservative stance regarding Paul—I will give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what he reveals about himself 1st Corinthians (and other consensus letters), and will consider evidence from other sources (disputed letters, Acts).

A key initial question regards Paul's own sexual history, because the more we know about this, the easier it is to evaluate what he has to say. We know that Paul was unmarried at the time he wrote 1st Corinthians [1 Cor 7:8]. He also wrote, “It is well for a man not to touch a woman [1 Cor 7:1].” He implies very strongly that he is a practicing celibate, but also that he views the ability to practice celibacy as a gift that not all are given [1 Cor 7:7]. Regarding Paul's celibacy, there are three theories that I am aware of:

1. Paul was a life-long celibate.
2. Paul was a widow, who chose not to remarry.
3. Paul was a non-practicing homosexual.

In favor of option 1 is both Paul's language of ‘gift,’ and the lack of reference to a wife in Paul's letters. This option is sometimes favored by those called to a life of celibacy themselves.

Option 3 is sometimes favored by gay theologians and their supporters. It provides an explanation for both Paul's celibacy (acting on homosexual urges would have been so contrary to his beliefs as to destroy him spiritually), and also a framework for discounting his remarks on homosexuality (“Methinks thou dost protest too much...”). Finally, consider this:

Romans 1:18-27 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

This is worth reading carefully. Paul presents “degrading passions” as God's punishment upon those who “by their wickedness suppress the truth” about God. Paul, as Saul, persecuted the early church, and perhaps he integrated his own desire for sexual contact with men by viewing it as punishment for this phase of his life. Likewise, Paul's description of male-on-male sexual activity seems a bit too explicit: who but gay people think that much about the mechanics of gay sex? It seems to me that these are attractive arguments, if less than compelling.

Finally, we come to option 2. I've heard the claim that Acts attributes a wife to Paul, but I haven't found an unambiguous proof text, and even if I did, I'd discount it without confirmation in Paul's own writing. But I do find some evidence for this proposition in 1st Corinthians. First we have this:

1 Corinthians 9:5 Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

Doesn't this sound like a widower who still mourns his wife, and feels aggrieved that she's been taken from him? And his complaint to the Corinthians on this topic seems a bit misplaced, as I can hardly imagine that they would have objected to him getting married. But what if his beloved (and believing) wife died while accompanying Paul on his missions? Then their gain would have been inextricably tied to his loss, and him addressing this complaint to them is a bit easier to understand.

Also curious is his discussion about entering into marriage:

1 Corinthians 7:8-9 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Note who can marry, if they cannot practice self-control: the unmarried and widows. Note a missing category? Widowers.

So, perhaps surprisingly, I tentatively favor a “romantic” theory of Paul's sexuality, which builds on option 2: He was married, and had a wife that he loved deeply. His marriage was unusually equitable for his time and place, and his radical views on equality were based on how his own marriage worked, and his esteem for the gifts and worth of women flowed from his esteem for his wife. His wife accompanied him on his early missionary journeys, but died before he started writing epistles. This may have even been causative: without a wife to talk to, maybe he turned to cathartic letter writing. Finally, I suspect that Paul did not believe in remarriage. This ties into slightly later Montanist beliefs that favored celibacy and denied remarriage (c.f. Tertullian). It is worth remembering that the Montanists were distinctly more Pauline than the Roman church of their era, and moreover were based in Asia Minor, where much of Paul's missionary activity took place.

This is perhaps easiest to understand if placed in contrast with one of the relatively few teachings on marriage that we find in the Gospels:

Mark 12:18-25 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.‘ There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

In this (and parallel passages in the other synoptics, plus Luke 20:34), Jesus says that marriages are part of our earthly existence, and will not be preserved into the afterlife. Contrast that with this:

1 Corinthians 6:15-17 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

In this, Paul stakes out a position that is about as far from Jesus's teaching as one can easily imagine. In it, Paul views sexual activity as equivalent to marriage, resulting in a union of flesh, and therefore of person. And indeed, the passage suggests that by a kind of transitivity, if we, who are spiritually united with Jesus, unite sexually with a prostitute, then we unite her with him to our own condemnation. Since Jesus is dead (although resurrected as first fruits of the afterlife) it seems that Paul believed that marriage survives death (and since the Gospels were unwritten, they could not have contradicted him in this view). Moreover, through his sexual contact with his wife, they had become one body, and so she would have continued to live on through him! So he still believed his marriage vows were binding.

As a bit of self-disclosure, I've been married for thirty-one years to a wife whom I love deeply, and with whom I live and have lived a shared life in the Pauline model. So perhaps my preference for the “romantic option” is no different from the celibate's preference for a celibate Paul, or the homosexuals preference for a homosexual Paul. Maybe there isn't enough information to know, and so we recreate Paul according to our own vision, whatever that vision might be. But this is the vision I have, and that vision will matter as I look more deeply into Paul's writings on sexuality in the following posts.

Peace

Sexual Ethics, I

The comments on Can't Anyone Here Play This Game? lead me to hope that a more extended discussion specifically on sexual ethics might be productive.

For the first of these postings, I'm going to set aside scriptural proof texts, along with issues of church discipline, divorce, and abortion, and lay out instead where I stand on some more basic issues, and ask any who want to participate to do likewise. Here is why:

• It is very easy to mine scripture for proof texts that support a priori beliefs, and I believe this constitutes a misuse of scripture. When we turn to scripture, we should be listening to its voice(s), and not trying to impose ours upon it. This is a lot easier if we grant ourselves the license to speak for ourselves first.
• When we do look to scripture, it will be important to distinguish between Paul's culture (e.g.), and our own. This adds a complication to the discussion, and it's better to get our a priori commitments out first.
• If we involve church discipline, we have to discuss forgiveness. This is important, but represents a kind of “exception handling” that greatly complicates analysis. Let's the common cases first, and then worry about exceptions. The same consideration applies to issues like divorce and abortion.

My commitments:

I am big into faithfulness. We should keep the vows we make, and we should expect society to support us in keeping those vows. If our vow is a vow of sexual fidelity to a partner, we need to honor that vow. If our vow is a vow of celibacy, we need to honor that vow. Of course, the usual caveats regarding contracts apply—contracts are valid only if the parties to them are sufficiently mature to understand what they're agreeing to, and if they were free from coercion in making them.

I believe that life presents us with a succession of choices, and we should make each choice based on love for God's creation, ourselves included. Many of the most important choices we make impose great limits on our future behavior, but we can gladly accept those limits because of the benefits we believe will follow from the choice we make. It is important to take the long view. A choice to form a partnership, or to forego forming partnerships at all, is one of the most important life choices we will make.

I believe that if we reserve sexuality for committed partnerships, we enrich them. To indulge in casual intercourse today, at the cost of cheapening a future committed partnership, is a life-damaging decision.

So...

I oppose promiscuity, which cheapens sexuality, and reduces its effectiveness in maintaining a lifelong partnership. That said, it is not a wedding ceremony per se that creates a lifelong partnership, it is the couple themselves. I believe that the conventional tendency to view the wedding as if it was the starting gun for coitus can damage a partnership: the distinction between καιρός and χρόνος applies to couple formation, and a wedding is a χρόνος event. The purpose of a wedding is to obtain public ratification and protection for a pre-existing private contract, which might or might not have already been sexually ratified, and might not be so ratified until long after the ceremony. When this occurs is none of anyone else's business, and sexual activity that might occurs before marriage as a natural part of the formation of a lifelong partnership should not be carelessly confused with promiscuity, nor should a mutual decision to wait be viewed as unnatural.

Nothing in the foregoing is specific to heterosexual partnerships. I believe that people have their sexual orientation hard-wired in, and most folks are AC, a few are DC, and there are fewer still who could “go either way.” As for the later, I believe that a commitment to a partner comes with a decision to set aside the possibility of exploring the “other side” of their sexuality. The choice to “cleave only to one” is the choice to cleave to no other, irrespective of gender. I believe that folks who invoke “natural law” to condemn homosexuality (or heterosexuality, and yes, I've heard this too, and not just in La Cage Aux Folles) as “unnatural” are making the mistake of believing that everyone is just like they are (or, at least, everyone should be just as they are), and that this is an all too common and uninteresting kind of petty hubris.

Heterosexual partnerships come with the additional complication that their sexual activity may produce children, which can be either a great blessing or a great curse. Heterosexual couples have a responsibility to manage the reproductive consequences of their sexuality, and the joys and challenges that come if they do have children.

I also believe that partnerships should support the health of both partners. This results in all but inevitable sexual tension within partnerships, since it is a rare partnership indeed in which the sexual desires of both partners remain in sync at all times. In a healthy partnership, this discrepancy gets negotiated out (not necessarily verbally), so that each partner feels reasonably satisfied, and neither partner feels abused. Similar tensions exist over money, space, time, etc. I don't believe that it is possible in a healthy marriage for one partner to be rich, and the other partner to be poor. There must be balance, and a deep sense of a shared life, with shared joys, and shared challenges: we're in this together, come sunshine or storms.

Peace