When I was a kid, there was a game show called Family Feud in which Richard Dawson, or Newkirk from Hogan’s Heroes suffering a sad fate (I am not sure whom), would kiss the contestants and host the happenings. A big part of his job was to announce in ponderous tones: “Survey says . . .” and if the contestant did not agree with the results of the survey, he was a loser.
Whatever the merits of the gameshow, which has continued a different host, agreeing with a survey has no merit in real life. Most people can be wrong and on some topics most people often are. Surveys might tell us what some people think at the moment, but they cannot tell us what is right or wrong.
Values endure, but fashions change. Recent surveys showing growing numbers of Americans are not that into marriage tell us something interesting about us, but nothing about love and marriage.
Survey says: we are becoming decadent. Morality says: it will not endure. Moral facts are no more fragile than physical facts. It is any given civilization that is fragile. Americans may reject romance, but love will endure, because Americans can no more harm marriage than they can loot Heaven. We can damn ourselves, but future humanity likely will shake their heads at our folly and use us as a moral lesson.
Marriage will endure, because it is the only worthy response to real romantic love. Romantic love is spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical. It is what happens when a woman or man discovers that there are other humans, equally people, but different from self. This other “side” of humanity seems designed to complement our souls.
It is the deepest form of sexism to believe that women or men could be replaced in such a relationship. Whatever the survey says at the moment, men and women complete each other in a unique way. Call a social contract or any other kind of love “marriage” and the romantics amongst us will simply invent a new word to describe this particular and powerful union.
This kind of union is necessary to our biological survival so nobody thinks we can dispense with it. More important, the union of man and woman is necessary for the spiritual and emotional survival of the vast majority of humankind. Learning to love the deepest differences between people changes our souls in ways in which they must be changed.
Some human men can love the Church as a bride and a few women can find in Christ a husband. These folk are not an exception, but proof of the rule. These men and women have found the other “half” of humanity at a level even more profound than the rest of us. They too are married to the Other, but to a greater Female and a greater Male. This must always be, like marriage, itself a profound mystery, not in the sense that it makes no sense, but instead resonating with the deeper reasoning of the human heart.
Marriage is the explosive result of two utterly different sorts of humans, the man and the woman, meeting and deciding to combine the differences. At its best it is based on rational choices driven by passion, but not consumed by it.
Modern America understandably becomes cynical about this divine romance, having first secularised the divine passion and then turned eros into a commodity. Whether in a romance novel or Internet porno, you cannot buy love, control it, or sterilize it. It is a commitment that can never be bought or sold, because someone making it has turned his back on value for value. The lover who seeks marriage longs for a chance to love for “richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” He or she makes no demands, but receives the gift of love from the other with wonder.
You cannot have a romantic Pride and Prejudice life with a base soul or with protection. Burning romance demands absolute commitment and trust with the result that it can never be safe sex. It is never for sale. A cupid you can buy is no god at all and married love is divine if it is anything. When we meet the other sex we sense the possibility of a union like that known only to gods.
There is no real marriage outside the Church of Jesus Christ for this reason: God is the end of marriage, for only an eternal and infinite God can contain the explosive fecundity that can come when the two halves of the Image of God are united and made one. A great reason to become a Christian is that only in Christ’s Church can the male and the female find completion in each other.
Whatever the moral status of other forms of love may be (God alone knows for sure), nothing but a man and a woman can make a marriage, because only a man and a woman are so different and yet so human. This is not just a matter of biology, but of the spirit. Women and men have different voices and the blending of these differences creates a harmony that is like nothing else. Even when biological reproduction is impossible, there is a spiritual production that comes from joining two complementary goods in union that is so powerful it must be fecund or destructive.
The only survey that counts in marriage is between one man and one woman. In the beginning it was so and it will be until the end.
As I survey my own marriage, my limitations are obvious. I am only a man and cannot see the whole by surveying only my particular part. There I see my own failures of love, my own decadence, my own loss of passion. I cannot rest content with this, because when surveying her, she is too wonderful for me. I want more love, a different love than any man could demand or give me. The survey of us two says that too often her needs are not met and I have failed to appreciate her gifts and acknowledge her pain. She is not like me and I have tried to make her in my own image.
May she and my God forgive me.
Survey says: “I have failed.” God says, “Try again.” Romance drives me to say, “Yes, Lord. Help me to have an absolute romance with my wife and blend my voice with the different voice of her femininity.”
December 10th, 2010 | 3:08 pm | #1
The Last Romantic?
No, but you could be termed a fundamentalist according to some folks.
You wrote: “Survey says: we are becoming decadent. Morality says: it will not endure.”
Here’s one liberal’s definition of fundamentalist: “The term “fundamentalist,” as currently used, is often used to describe a person who is marked by an ideological refusal to make concessions regarding developments in thought and culture.”
JMR, you’re marked by your ideological refusal to make concessions regarding developments in thought and culture about marriage.
Hence, you’re a Fundamentalist, and consequently, to be appropriately grouped with Islamic Fundamentalists.
December 10th, 2010 | 5:12 pm | #2
Very stirring and beautiful words. I enjoy this far more then more fearful talk of some political types.
December 10th, 2010 | 7:16 pm | #3
To JMR:
“We can damn ourselves, but future humanity likely will shake their heads at our folly and use us as a moral lesson.”
I don’t think anyone can put it better. So true.
To TUAD:
“Hence, you’re a Fundamentalist, and consequently, to be appropriately grouped with Islamic Fundamentalists.”
I hope you’re being sarcastic about that, because its seems as if you are. But if you’re not being sarcastic, I’d like to say this. (Even if you aren’t being sarcastic, this still needs to be said about people who would buy this horrible argument) There’s something wrong with this syllogism:
1. A fundamentalist is “a person who is marked by an ideological refusal to make concessions regarding developments in thought and culture.”
2. JMR refuses to redefine how marriage is based on the moral and spiritual principles of his belief in Christianity.
3. John Mark Reynolds is a fundamentalist.
4. All fundamentalism is the same.
5. Therefore, JMR is the same as an Islamic fundamentalist.
If premise #4 doesn’t jump out at you as horribly wrong the second you read it, then one clearly doesn’t know the difference between Christianity and Islam.
Culture doesn’t define Christ’s principles; Christ defines Christ’s principles. There’s no Biblical or moral reason why we should “concede” marriage, an institution ordained by God at the beginning of time.
December 11th, 2010 | 9:03 am | #4
Hi Nikolai,
You caught me. Yes, I was being humorously sarcastic.
December 11th, 2010 | 9:29 am | #5
The origins of “romance” in the western tradition lie in the ancient myth of the emasculation of Ouranos (“heaven”) by his son Cronos. When Cronos flings his father’s testicles on the sea, the foam that collects around them becomes Aphrodite, and the blood becomes the Erinyes, the furies, the goddesses of raging revenge. The flip side of sexual passion is rage.
Then there is the nature of Aphrodite herself: raw incarnate sexual passion. Take Sappho’s first hymn, to Aphrodite, describing her arrival to Sappho’s prayers: “Quickly they arrived; and thou blessed one with immortal countenance smiling didst ask: What now is befallen me and why now I call and what I in my heart’s madness, most desire. What fair one now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee Sappho? For even if she flies she shall soon follow and if she rejects gifts, shall soon offer them and if she loves not shall soon love, however reluctant. Come I pray thee now and release me from cruel cares, and let my heart accomplish all that it desires, and be thou my ally (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sappho/sappho0.htm ).
Sappho begs Aphrodite to help her make another conquest, and Aphrodite assures her that even though the object of her lust may spurn her advances, eventually the pursued will become the pursuer.
This pagan understanding is confirmed in popular magic with the use of “curse tablets” used compel “love” from an unwilling object (“sexual harassment” by demons!). The existence of these tablets explains Paul’s inclusion of “idolatry, sorcery” in the “works of the flesh, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING “lustfulness.” Sorcery was used to gain one’s lusts, at the expense of those who were to gratify those lusts.
Then there is the very origin of “romance”: in the “romantic” novels of medieval France (thus written in a “romantic” language), novels of unrequited love, and adulterous amour. I have been amused to read Christian defenses of “courtship,” as distinct from a supposedly modern corruption of “dating.” (I see there’s even a Wikipedia article on “Biblical courtship.” LOL.) But courtly love was simply the adulterous love of a knight errant for his (usually) unattainable lady.
If this is the best Christians can do to respond to the moral corruptions of our age, then we are in serious trouble.
December 11th, 2010 | 1:27 pm | #6
David,
You might review C.S. Lewis on romance in his Discarded Image. Christians as always have taken what is good, true, and beautiful in many old ideas and purified them.
Read Jane Eyre for a Christian culmination of absolute romance.
December 11th, 2010 | 2:15 pm | #7
The question is, can we STILL do it? C. S. Lewis wrote at what we now know to be the end of Christendom.
In Lewis’ time and work, the Christian culture of Europe and Merry Old England still had some residual power. Before the battle of Britain, Churchill said: “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.” (http://www.americandiplomacy.org/item/2009/0406/spch/spch_churchill.html )
That civilization is now gone forever. On that, read the archives of David Goldman aka “Spengler” on the crisis of Western civilization: http://dunedain.net/spengler/viewtopic.php?p=5906&sid=9e1ab133d958c778c597990390305f8d#5906 . (I especially recommend http://www.atimes.com/atimes/front_page/ED08Aa01.html .)
Neither Plato, nor Aristotle, nor the ancient myths, nor the synthesis of Christendom can guide us in the creation of a new civilization.
December 11th, 2010 | 9:59 pm | #8
Two questions.
The way you elevate marriage seems almost at odds with the idea that there will be no marriage in heaven. Any thoughts about that–about why marriage is only temporarily appropriate?
You claim that marriage is a joining of two complementary opposites, emphasizing (I take it) that you don’t just have in mind physiological differences between the sexes (e.g., that males and females have complementary sex organs). I’d love to your candid thoughts regarding the contrasting spiritual aspects of the sexes.
December 11th, 2010 | 10:37 pm | #9
Two more questions.
You write that “the union of man and woman is necessary for the spiritual and emotional survival of the vast majority of humankind.” I’m curious about the unfortunate few remaining. Are you at all open to the possibility that there some for whom a same-sex is “necessary for spiritual and emotional survival”? Or, if not for spiritual survival, how about just for emotional survival?
Second, I sometimes wonder if the elevation of marriage in evangelical thought isn’t in some way related to the high rates of divorce among evangelicals. Higher ideals sometimes set us up for deeper disappointments. Maybe St. Paul was on to something in speaking of marriage as a sort of less-than-ideal concession to the weaknesses of the flesh (“better to marry than to sin”).
December 12th, 2010 | 11:15 am | #10
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Craig L. Adams, Christopher Krycho. Christopher Krycho said: The Last Romantic? Why Marriage Will Endure http://bit.ly/h4Mvvo [...]
December 12th, 2010 | 10:22 pm | #11
C.Erhlich: there’s no logical reason why all of the spiritual and emotional benefits, that heterosexuals derive from marriage, cannot also be derived from homosexual couples. In fact, there are many examples of this.
This whole debate on gay marriage, is not only based on the notion that a Christian doctrine should be forced on nonbelievers (although, amusingly, nonbeleivers, such as atheists, geta pass, as long as they’re heterosexual), but also this almost “mystical” view that the definition of marriage is set in stone, like a platonic form. but if that’s, true, let gays get “married”, whether it won’t be a “real marrage” anyway, because if marriage is that set in stone, nothing we do could change it, anyway! So, have your so called “marriages”, the ones against gay marriage should say, it won’t be real anyway. One then wonders what all the fuss is about.
Romance, emotional intamacy, will be just as strong, with straight marriages, if gays are allowed to marry. My suggestion to the conservatives, is, get used to it, as California is showing, gay marraiges will soon be the law of the land.
December 13th, 2010 | 9:50 am | #12
Bret Lythgoe,
Good points. I’m inclined to agree with everything you’ve written here. There’s a burden of proof upon someone who endorses any of these claims:
Although the ideal and the tradition of marriage is secure, we must protect marriage from the “gay agenda.”
or,
Because “real marriage” only happens between two mixed-sex Christians, we should try to ban gay marriage (though we shouldn’t try to prohibit marriage between non-believers).
or,
While “the union of man and woman is necessary for the spiritual and emotional survival of the vast majority of humankind,” gay or lesbian unions lack any comparable spiritual or emotional significance.
December 13th, 2010 | 11:42 am | #13
First, I argued only for difference between marriage and other forms of relationship. Men and women have a different voice…even in ethics.
Second, one can think a thing immune to attack in general, but not in a culture. The existence of maths does not depend on our culture knowing it. One might want to protect one’s own culture from rejecting reality.
Third, the argument that change is inevitable is a bad one. Right? The US and Western Europe are not exactly demographic boom spots, but morality should not be decided by demographic polls even if the aging parts of the globe are wrong.
December 13th, 2010 | 11:45 am | #14
One final obvious comment: traditional society made the reasonable decision they could not tell if a couple were real Christians but could tell if the possibility of marriage existed based on the gender requirements.
December 13th, 2010 | 11:49 am | #15
This post was not about sex sins or alternate lifestyles. It was about romance so I will not comment further on gay sex. No relationship thread is safe from being hijacked by such a discussion.
My point: whatever other relationships exist there is nothing like the potential between two humans who are the same in humanity but deeply different in nature.
December 13th, 2010 | 11:58 am | #16
J. M. Reynolds,
An obvious rejoinder to your obvious comment: even if there are many cases in which society “could not tell if a couple were real Christians,” there are plenty of cases in which society could determine this–for example, any marriage involving an avowed non-believer.
Your meandering comments about marriage have obvious relevance to the closely related issues–issues which many evangelical Christians are determined to take such dogmatic political stances at the expense of minorities. Christians, yourself included, should be prepared to harmonize these dogmatic political stances about marriage with their thinking about marriage generally.
December 13th, 2010 | 2:24 pm | #17
C. Ehrlich,
I probably (almost certainly) will regret answering this, but when you ask: “the way you elevate marriage seems almost at odds with the idea that there will be no marriage in heaven. Any thoughts about that–about why marriage is only temporarily appropriate?”
I think perhaps you have missed a rather clear cut answer:
Throughout the Old Testament and into the New the relationship between God and humankind is described in several ways. One of the most prominent is that between married lovers. Israel is said to have gone “a whoring” after other gods. The Israelites are likened by the prophet Hosea to Gomer — an unfaithful prostitute of a wife. The Covenant relationship between God and Israel is repeatedly likened to marriage. And the same imagery is used in the New Covenant. The relationship of Christ to the Church is that of Bridegroom to Bride. The culminating vision of the Revelation is the “marriage feast of the Lamb”. Husbands are to love their wives as “Christ loves the Church” and so on.
Marriage then, however understood with respect to “romance”, is pictured in Scripture as one of the closest analogues in human terms to the relationship between God and God’s people. Thus, when the people of God are united with God in the perfect communion of heaven, there will no longer be any need for those close human analogues. When the “perfect comes the imperfect perishes”.
One of the animating principles behind the gift of marriage at creation is “it is not good for man to be alone”. Eternity in fellowship with the living God obviates that lack.
So, marriage on earth is a great gift from the Creator, a gateway for us into the complexities, challenges, trials, and beauty of intimate relationships — the kind of relationship(s) we are designed for — most particularly with God. Once that relationship is established in all its fullness, there’s no need for any other.
December 13th, 2010 | 6:56 pm | #18
C.E says, “Your meandering comments about marriage have obvious relevance to the closely related issues–issues which many evangelical Christians are determined to take such dogmatic political stances at the expense of minorities. Christians, yourself included, should be prepared to harmonize these dogmatic political stances about marriage with their thinking about marriage generally.”
I say, “Well, let me be free to meander about something else. We talk about this issue enough I think. The subject has become a bit of a bore.
December 13th, 2010 | 6:58 pm | #19
The overwhelming Christian majority was willing (in the past) to ignore secularists and allow them to marry, because . . . who knows someone’s heart after all? And who wants to give the state the power to decide a heart attitude?
Letting the poor secularist marry did (we thought) little harm and might do them some good.
The state can determine male and female without any great loss of liberty or any keen insight into the human heart.
A belief is (after all) harder to discern than a sex.
December 13th, 2010 | 7:45 pm | #20
“The subject has become a bit of a bore.”
I’m sure that the subject of racial segregation become quite a bore to segregationists. Generally speaking the oppressor usually isn’t much interested in the cause of the oppressed.
As for the other point, I’m surprised by your continued failure to perceive the obvious: while it may often be the case that we cannot say that a person is not a Christian, there are plenty of cases in which we can with a reasonable degree of certainty. for example, all cases of avowed non-belief.
December 13th, 2010 | 7:54 pm | #21
C. Ehrlich says: Generally speaking the oppressor usually isn’t much interested in the cause of the oppressed.
I say, “Yes. The whole point of this post was to allow me to move on to oppressing people.”
C. Ehrlich,
I agree that the tiny percentage of avowed atheists in American history could have been refused many, many things, but am arguing that most Americans thought an gains not worth empowering the government to make such distinctions . . . slippery slope and all.
They somehow (magically?) felt that restricting marriage to a man and a woman did not involve such ideological distinctions.
December 13th, 2010 | 8:57 pm | #22
JMR, you might want to distinguish between what you are doing and how you would like to think about what you are doing.
Whether or not a tiny percentage of avowed atheists could have been refused many things is beside the point, isn’t it? Or, are you still not quite following the dialectic? If the latter, and your ignorance isn’t intentional, I’d encourage you to think about your comments #13 and #18, which were apparently intended as replies to the observations made by Bret and myself (#10, #11). In piecing it all together, it’ll help if you try to interpret your replies in a way that renders them relevant to the prior discussion.
December 13th, 2010 | 10:36 pm | #23
C. Ehrlich, I think you’re right, that the burden of proof is clearly on those, who assert that gay marriage is impermissible. From what I’ve seen, and i’ve seen a lot of arguments, provided by the anti-gay marriage crowd, they’re embarassingly bad. It seems to hinge, on who decides how to define a word. When the argument becomes reduced to semantics, one would think it would be clear, to the anti gay marriage crowd, that they’re in trouble.
December 13th, 2010 | 10:57 pm | #24
Bret?
The burden of proof is on those with the sexism and hubris to think you can replace a man with a woman or a woman with a man and have the same relationship.
Gay marriage is impermissible because there is no right to vice and gay sex is vice, but that is my last response to you since this thread was about something else.
Some people on this topic remind me of Star Trek fans discussing the merits of different captains: the same humorless ability to let anything go.
Btw: Kirk was the best captain and I am letting it go.
December 14th, 2010 | 6:44 am | #25
JMR still fails to appreciate the inappropriateness of his manner of dismissal. We can, however, certainly understand why the racist would want to compare a debate about segregation to a debate about a fictitious universe. We can certainly understand why he’d prefer to dismiss the whole topic with a bit of humor.
JMR is apparently unable to take up the viewpoint of anyone who must bear the fallout of his irresponsible opinions–opinions which he apparently doesn’t even care to harmonize internally.
December 14th, 2010 | 3:21 pm | #26
“JMR still fails to appreciate the inappropriateness of his manner of dismissal. … JMR is apparently unable to take up the viewpoint of anyone who must bear the fallout of his irresponsible opinions–opinions which he apparently doesn’t even care to harmonize internally.”
C. Ehrlich, I appreciate the mild manner in which you have expressed your disagreement with JMR’s behavior on this thread. The love, respect, admiration and kindness that you have for JMR as a person exudes through and through in your comment whilst also simultaneously differing with him! It is quite the model of charity and civility.
Thus, it would not surprise me if JMR, upon reading the gentleness of your loving observation of him, burst into anguished tears in front of his keyboard and monitor, his conscience stung on so many levels from your comment above, would then prayerfully seek on how best to publicly flagellate himself on this blog thread for being such a hideous worm.
You have done well C. Ehrlich, and are to be commended for restoring such a fallen fundamentalist as Professor J. Mark Reynolds.
December 14th, 2010 | 5:54 pm | #27
“JMR still fails to appreciate the inappropriateness of his manner of dismissal. We can, however, certainly understand why the racist would want to compare a debate about segregation to a debate about a fictitious universe. We can certainly understand why he’d prefer to dismiss the whole topic with a bit of humor.”
You know what offends me? Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, your side of the debate. Let’s assume that homosexuals are a hugely oppressed minority and that we’re all being awful by not debating gay marriage in every concievable blog post. What offends me is how you equate racial segregation to the issue of “gay rights,” a term that I feel is a misnomer in many ways. Assuming that homosexuals have the right to get married under the state (which I disagree with, but I also don’t think straight couples have that right either–I believe marriage should be federally deregulated), that’s the one right they’re being deprived of. Marriage. I’d like to know what other rights homosexuals are being deprived of.
The injustices suffered by African-Americans over the centuries have been immense; lynchings, slavery, segregation, etc. And racism still isn’t dead today, although many like to think that because Obama is president (which is truly a monumental achievement given the fact that fifty years ago he wouldn’t be served in certain restaurants) racism has been eradicated. Racism has been a centuries-long struggle, one that far outweighs the struggle of homosexuals in magnitude and in lives lost.
Which is not to say that homosexuals have not struggled. I’m not saying they haven’t. The recent teen gay suicides are deeply tragic and show us that this is an important issue that needs to be addressed. So is the abuse of homosexuals going on in schools. However, homosexuals aren’t segregated in restaurants. They aren’t disenfranchised. They aren’t viewed as 3/5ths of a human being. They haven’t been bought and sold as property. Keep in mind homosexuals can hide their homosexuality; African Americans can’t hide their race. It is offensive to act like these two struggles are the exact same thing.
So, C. Ehrlich, if you want to have a discussion about this issue, I’d prefer it if you didn’t equate JMR, a man who, although I’ve never met, I know to be a phenomenal Christian man and thinker, to be a racial bigot. If you want to point out the problematic treatment of homosexuals, I’m fine with that. That issue should be discussed. Suicide and bullying are not a just response to homosexuality in any way. But creating a false analogy to make your opponents look like horrible human beings is not the way to do it at all. It’s worse than straw man; instead of making your opponent look weak, you make him look evil.
December 14th, 2010 | 8:32 pm | #28
Nikolai, if you’ve been offended, it’s apparently due to a misreading. Where do I “equate” the two issues? Where do I “equate JMR…to be a racial bigot” (whatever that means)? While JMR does appear to be behaving inappropriately here–and while his behavior does appear to reflects certain moral inadequacies on his part–this is no occasion to get indignant over some imagined insult to your “phenomenal Christian man and thinker.” Try reading the thread once again, paying close attention both to what is written and to what isn’t.
December 14th, 2010 | 8:49 pm | #29
“Nikolai, if you’ve been offended, it’s apparently due to a misreading.”
Nikolai, read #25. That will help with your misreading.
“While JMR does appear to be behaving inappropriately here–and while his behavior does appear to reflects certain moral inadequacies on his part–this is no occasion to get indignant over some imagined insult to your “phenomenal Christian man and thinker.”
Nikolai, misreading C. Ehrlich could cause you to become wrongfully indignant. However, reading C. Ehrlich correctly won’t. Please, take your time and read C. Ehrlich properly. Your gain in wisdom will be richly rewarded as a result.
December 14th, 2010 | 9:13 pm | #30
C. Ehrlich,
You say you don’t equate the two. Admittedly, you don’t say, “Racial struggle is the same as homosexual struggle” or “JMR is a bigot,” but nonetheless you do say something like this:
“JMR still fails to appreciate the inappropriateness of his manner of dismissal. We can, however, certainly understand why the racist would want to compare a debate about segregation to a debate about a fictitious universe. We can certainly understand why he’d prefer to dismiss the whole topic with a bit of humor.”
And prior to that:
“I’m sure that the subject of racial segregation become quite a bore to segregationists. Generally speaking the oppressor usually isn’t much interested in the cause of the oppressed.”
You may not be blatantly saying, “These cases are the same,” but the analogy you’re using implies, even if not a direct one-to-one match up, a strong similarity. You wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise, because certainly bringing in an irrelevant example would be fruitless as far as this discussion is concerned. Perhaps this is just the danger of analogies, but if I take what you say to be true then there is some similarity to JMR not discussing homosexual marriage and racial segregationists not discussing the issue of racism.
December 14th, 2010 | 9:53 pm | #31
Nikolai,
Since I neither assert nor imply the equations that offended you (assuming that one can be offended by the merely imagined), I’m not quite understanding your indignation here. Sure, there are informative analogies to be drawn between racism on the on hand and the contemporary anti-gay politics and ideologies of conservative Christians on the other. And sure, lessons can be learned from thinking about JMR’s behavior in comparison to how we might plausibly imagine the behavior of a segregationist (or some other oppressor of minorities) in days past. If you want to deny these points then go ahead. Provide your argument. Otherwise, perhaps you should at least entertain the possibility that your “phenomenal Christian man and thinker” has his faults.
Perhaps in some respects JMR is even something of a leader in the sins of his generation. Anyone with experience can tell you how otherwise godly men can be marked by very serious moral blemishes and blindspots. It’s not unlikely that this will be how JMR’s own grandchildren will try to charitably understand the views and attitudes of their grandfather. Reflect for a moment on how the moral blemishes of otherwise godly Christians from generations past can be so obvious to us today. We are appalled by their justifications of slavery, anti-semitism, political tyranny and opposition to science. If you’re young enough, just wait around a bit before taking your stand with the old guard. If you’re a young man, there’ll likely come a time when the moral deficiencies of JMR’s behavior and attitudes will become painfully obvious even to you.
December 14th, 2010 | 11:10 pm | #32
“Perhaps in some respects JMR is even something of a leader in the sins of his generation. … this will be how JMR’s own grandchildren will try to charitably understand the views and attitudes of their grandfather. … If you’re a young man, there’ll likely come a time when the moral deficiencies of JMR’s behavior and attitudes will become painfully obvious even to you.”
Yes. Yes. Yes!!!
There is no better model for expressing “truth-in-love” than what C. Ehrlich has shown us on this thread!
All must take note and pay homage to the great C. Ehrlich.
December 15th, 2010 | 1:23 pm | #33
To return to the question of “romantic love”
There are countries peopled by a large section of the human race in which men and women do not live or cohabit together upon these terms – countries in which this Institution and status are not known. In such parts, the men take to themselves several women, whom they jealously guard from the rest of the world, and whose number is limited only by considerations of material means.
Are we to dismiss their relationships as, somehow, impoverished?
December 15th, 2010 | 2:14 pm | #34
Nikolai Volk,
Like some of the other commenters, I see you as making an error, one commonly made by the anti-gay right.
First, you should appreciate the difference between analogy and equivalence. Read people’s arguments carefully and charitably. Don’t assume they are saying A is just like B unless they say A is just like B (and when one analogizes A to B, one is NOT necessarily saying A is just like B).
Second, your point about race not being a good analogy to sexual orientation would be apt, I think, ONLY if we lived in a world where analogies to race were off limits from ANY social group that complains of mistreatment. Whether it’s gender, religion (including YOUR religion) or any number of the numerous groups already protected under extant anti-discrimination codes.
Third, if you look at all of the history of oppression of those groups, none of the them including homosexuals may have got it as bad as blacks but gays got it pretty bad.
Slavery was over by 1967 when Loving was decided, but you listed the HISTORY of abuses against blacks. I understand that, likewise, most of the worst abuses against gays are over, but if we get to list the HISTORY of those abuses,… let see we have sodomy laws that could lead to at worst incarceration (there were actually capital levitical like punishments on the books in the US; but I don’t know of any gay executed for truly voluntary sodomy in the US, unlike in Sharia nations where this still occurs) bans from government jobs, involuntary institutionalization, therapies like electroshock and even castration. In short, if gays cannot make an analogy to blacks then NO social group can. And many, including conservative Christians when they are persecuted, commonly do without YOUR side complaining.
I don’t think religious conservatives with anti-gay convictions are necessarily anti-gay bigots (though some of them are) and I don’t want to fast and loose with the bigot card: So I offer the following compromise of civility. Pro-gay advocates don’t make analogies to race or interracial marriages (which after all is a behavior, couplings to couplings) and in turn anti-gay advocates never analogize or try to connect homosexuality to pedophilia, bestiality or relations with inanimate objects.
Those analogies insult homosexuals and their supporters.
I’ll allow other things like consensual adult incest and polygamy on the table for analogy purposes. But invoke those other three and pro-gay advocates have every moral and rational right to use interracial couplings as an viable analogy.
December 15th, 2010 | 4:42 pm | #35
Jon Rowe,
I see you making an error commonly made by the anti-Christian and anti-morality left.
December 15th, 2010 | 4:54 pm | #36
It might help your case if you explained yourself like I did in my comment. Otherwise you’ve just wasted your breath.
December 15th, 2010 | 5:04 pm | #37
“Like some of the other commenters, I see you as making an error, one commonly made by the anti-gay right.”
Jon Rowe, according to you, why is the Right “anti-gay”? Or what makes the Right “anti-gay”?
For example, Tom Gilson opposes gay marriage. Does that necessarily make him “anti-gay”? I don’t think so. But perhaps according to your labeling scheme it does.
Explain your label of “anti-gay” if you will.
December 15th, 2010 | 5:11 pm | #38
Honestly, I didn’t mean much of THAT part. I didn’t my label anti-gay right would be all that controversial. I might say “anti-homosexual right.” Question, do those folks out there who considering themselves part of the political right, and socially and religiously conservative and who oppose what they may term “the gay agenda” — and who think all voluntarily chosen homosexual acts between consenting adults are immoral have a problem with “anti-homosexual” or “anti-gay” “right.” And if so, why?
December 15th, 2010 | 5:13 pm | #39
“In short, if gays cannot make an analogy to blacks then NO social group can.”
I agree. No social or ethnic group can. No group has gone through the struggle that African-Americans have gone through. That is, again, not to say that other groups haven’t gone through struggles: Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals were killed by the millions in the Holocaust. Other genocides have of course occurred; Arminia comes to recent memory. Japanese Americans were unjustly taken captive during WWII. Ethnic cleansings have occurred to political groups in Africa. While different social groups have gone through struggle, no one social group has gone through the same injustices that the African American community has. I didn’t say homosexuals don’t have it bad; I merely said that to analogize the struggle of homosexuals with those of African Americans makes does not comport. Keep in mind although racism has taken substantial defeats over the past fifty years, it isn’t dead.
You note that:
“Don’t assume they are saying A is just like B unless they say A is just like B (and when one analogizes A to B, one is NOT necessarily saying A is just like B)”
I understand the difference between analogy and equivalence. But even though analogies do not make exactly equal, they nonetheless say, “X is is like Y.” There must be some likeness, otherwise the analogy doesn’t make sense. Obviously not equal, just alike. My point was to say that C. Ehrlich’s analogy of JMR to a racist segregationist was an offensive straw man. He, again, didn’t say “JMR is a racist segregationist,” but he did categorize JMR’s actions as such by making an analogy to a segregationist.
“Pro-gay advocates don’t make analogies to race or interracial marriages (which after all is a behavior, couplings to couplings) and in turn anti-gay advocates never analogize or try to connect homosexuality to pedophilia, bestiality or relations with inanimate objects.
First of all, I would agree that the three analogies you discuss are poor ways to analogize homosexuality as something immoral, but that is not how I take my line of argument against homosexuality. I would certainly hope other Christians do the same. I do see an analogy between adult incest and polygamy, which you note. Second, however, and much more problematically, I find this is a pretty awful way to respond to this issue. Those who are pro-gay (which, judging from you’re post I’m assuming you are), if attacked with poor/offensive analogies, should not just retort back with an equally bad analogy. That will only feed the other side in continual argument against yourself. If confronted with offensive analogies, one should respond to the other side fairly and judiciously and not respond in the exact same way. That makes the one responding fairly a better person, not the one making bad analogies. I’m sorry that Christians make bad analogies to you, but if using bad analogies is bad for us it’s equally bad for you too.
December 15th, 2010 | 5:29 pm | #40
Honestly, I didn’t think that asking Jon Rowe to explain and define his label of “anti-gay” would be so difficult for him. Any idea why?
December 15th, 2010 | 5:41 pm | #41
Why did you feel the need to question my, what I see as a straight forward label, “the anti-gay” or “anti-homosexual” right?
“Jon Rowe, according to you, why is the Right ‘anti-gay’? Or what makes the Right ‘anti-gay’?”
I never said “the Right” was anti-gay; that’s why I used the qualifier “anti-gay” before “the Right.” There is also a “pro-gay” Right.
December 15th, 2010 | 5:57 pm | #42
I am opposed to gay-rights aggression and to homosexual immorality, but I have gay friends who also consider me a friend. Where does that put me on the “anti-gay” spectrum?
Here’s my own answer: I’m in favor of treating one another as humans. Not as labels.
December 15th, 2010 | 6:09 pm | #43
Jon Rowe,
Why do you feel the need to question my request of asking you to define your label of “anti-gay”? Or if you prefer, your label of “anti-homosexual”?
Do you have a problem of defining your labels?
December 15th, 2010 | 6:15 pm | #44
In the Jon Rowe Dictionary what is the definition of “anti-gay” and “anti-homosexual”?
Knowing these definitions could help in answering Tom Gilson’s question from:
“I am opposed to gay-rights aggression and to homosexual immorality [and to gay marriage], but I have gay friends who also consider me a friend. Where does that put me on the “anti-gay” spectrum?”
December 15th, 2010 | 6:23 pm | #45
“Why did you feel the need to question my, what I see as a straight forward label, “the anti-gay” or “anti-homosexual” right?”
Could you imagine that the answer might be “clarity of and in communication”?
Define your labels because they’re not as straightforward as you claim. In fact, your evasiveness argues against your claim that it’s straightforward.
“I never said “the Right” was anti-gay; that’s why I used the qualifier “anti-gay” before “the Right.” There is also a “pro-gay” Right.”
Okay. According to your labeling schema, is there such a thing as the “anti-gay” Left?
December 15th, 2010 | 11:33 pm | #46
I would agree with you Tom, that we should treat each other as humans, and not as labels. I have no doubt, at all, that you, Tom, and others commenting here, are not anti-gay.
But I do think that John Rowe is right, that there is a portion of the right, that is antigay, and it’s possible that they’re exploiting Christianity, for their own purposes.
December 16th, 2010 | 1:39 pm | #47
“I have no doubt, at all, that you, Tom, and others commenting here, are not anti-gay.”
Thanks Bret. I appreciate that.
But perhaps Jon Rowe, should he ever define his label of “anti-gay”, might think that Tom Gilson (and others) are anti-gay by his own particular (and yet to be specified) definition.
“there is a portion of the right, that is antigay, and it’s possible that they’re exploiting Christianity, for their own purposes.”
Actually, I’ve always believed this: “there is a portion of the right, that is godless, and it’s possible that they’re exploiting Christianity, for their own purposes.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact