Ambiguity and [Un]healthy Sexuality in the World and in the Church [1]

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PART 1: SEXUALITY AND AMBIGUITY

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ambigram_Ambiguity.png

Our actual experience of sexuality is full of ambiguities. There are at least three major sources of ambiguity that I can discern:

  1. The gap between reproduction itself and the bodily and mental processes associated with reproduction. 
  2. The slippage inherent in language.
  3.  Differing world views and philosophies of sexuality.

There can be no serious claim that sexuality lacks ambiguity, because intelligent people and cultures interpret it so differently. I am not an anthropologist, but I know just enough to know that anthropology furnishes precious few universals across cultures within the realm of sexuality. The few that do exist, according to Wikipedia’s page on cultural universals, include a prohibition on incest, some form of cultural dress code (sexual modesty is described as a “cultural universal” here), and some form of marriage. Continue reading →

How Can Dunking A Body In Water Save A Soul?

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I recently wrote a three-part series of posts (Part One linked here) on the Atonement of Jesus Christ in which I used some alternate metaphors to attempt to render acceptable to reason what seems like an absurd doctrine at the core of Christianity: that Jesus saved mankind and satisfied justice by taking our sins on himself. I would now like to address what is perhaps the next strangest doctrine, situated immediately next to the core: that baptism (a ritual dunking of the body) is not only a useful and instructive rite but actually essential for full participation in Jesus’s sacrifice and a necessary precondition for entering God’s kingdom–that it is, in a word, a salvific ordinance. The call of Christianity can be summed up as follows: Jesus has atoned for our sins; therefore repent and be baptised. The only part of the call that makes intuitive sense to a contemporary mind is the “repent” portion. Of course we should stop doing bad things and do good things. But what does the suffering of God or a dunk in water have to do with it? Continue reading →

Is It Possible To Transition Genders?

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There are two competing claims in the debate on transgender issues. The first is the historical norm of Western culture: one’s gender should be considered the same as one’s objective biological sex. The second is the core assertion of the transgender movement: a person’s gender should be viewed by others and by the law as a matter of subjective identity. Both claims are defensible, but both cannot be right. I will refer to these two views as the objective and subjective views even though I admit these terms are problematic. My conclusion (spoiler alert) is that both views should be respected, since (among other reasons) there is no possibility of any public proof that either is right or wrong.

The clearest thinkers on both sides of the debate acknowledge a valid distinction between (1) the mere fact of biological differences between males and females and (2) the things that culture and psychology do with the concepts of “male” and “female.” This culturally and psychologically generated construct has come to be distinguished from biological sex and called “gender,” though the terms are still often used synonymously. Acknowledging this theoretical distinction, the practical issue of what to do about the possibility that an individual’s gender identity may differ from the individual’s biological sex remains entirely unresolved.

Continue reading →

What Is Needed To Heal Our Democracy Is Not Impeaching Trump But Fixing Our Rhetoric

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There is widespread acknowledgement that political acrimony and partisan polarization are at a record high within living memory. “Americans are more divided than ever,” proclaims the Associated Press. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton noted in her concession speech that “We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought.” And then the last four years happened, culminating in the Capitol Riot and the second impeachment of Trump.

I do not believe that our nation is about to die, but I do think that our democracy has been growing increasingly unhealthy. And in the long run – by the time my grandkids are old – I do believe that our democracy will have fallen apart at the seams unless current trends are reversed. Continue reading →

Amy Barrett’s Confirmation And The State Of The Union

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I am personally thrilled with Amy Barrett as the newest Supreme Court Justice, though far from thrilled by the process by which she became such (including the Republican-controlled Senate’s procedural hypocrisy in deferring Garland’s hearing but rushing Barrett’s). But amid the discouraging signs of the politicization of the Supreme Court confirmation process, the decline of political discourse in general, and the nation’s increasing polarization, I read one article that I found very encouraging: a self-proclaimed liberal writer who personally knew Justice Barrett back in her days as a clerk for Scalia and who, though anticipating that he will disagree with many of her opinions, is glad that the court is getting a brilliant legal thinker who is also a good person. The nation deeply needs this kind of capacity to recognize goodness and merit in people who are on “the other side,” and I want to recognize and honor that when I see it. Continue reading →

A Modified Theory of the Atonement: God’s Response To The Human Condition

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File:Edvard Munch - Golgotha (1900).jpg
Edvard Munch, “Golgotha”

Because we could not come to him or even be brought to him without horror, he came to us, in the form of Jesus Christ. There was never a time when God had not yet intervened in the human condition, so it is misleading to conceptualize the sending of his son as the beginning of God’s response. But Jesus Christ, from before the foundations of the earth, is the ultimate expression and the primary vehicle of God’s intervention. He is “the anointed one”–the “Christ” (in Greek) or “Messiah” (in Hebrew)–the one chosen to serve as this vehicle. As in all of the great hero stories, the hero comes prepared with the necessary assets for the monumental task that is set before him. Often the hero is told of some weakness of the enemy and given a predestined weapon, tempered for the conflict. The hero of God and man came armed, not with any sword of destiny, but with an intimate and unbreakable relationship with his Father. He spoke unceasingly of his Father–from his first recorded utterance (“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”) to his dying breath (“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”). Why did he have power to perform miracles? Because his Father showed him how and gave him power. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” (John 5:19). “All things are delivered unto me of my Father” (Matt 11:27). “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” (John 3:35).

Continue reading →