SCHOOLED

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | Uncategorized

Dr. Ephraim Radner bitchslaps John Chane:

The Washington Post’s On Faith weblog recently published “A Christian Case for Same-Sex Marriage,” a column by Bishop John Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The occasion for the piece is a debate about a law that would legalize same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. But Bishop Chane’s main goal, as he tells us, is to “offer a short history of changing Christian understandings of the institution of marriage” that will counter traditional Christian arguments against same-sex partnerships.

Chane wishes that journalists would stop listening to those stupid fundies and start listening to him.  Unfortunately, says Radner, Chane has nothing particularly worthwhile to tell them about the Christian religion or anything else.

Journalists, he worries, think that traditionalists speak for the church and for the Christian tradition. They speak for neither, according to the bishop. Given the high profile of the Post, and Bishop Chane’s standing as a bishop of a prominent (if recently beleaguered) Christian body, one should probably take his remarks seriously. Alas, as a short history his remarks cannot be taken seriously at all, but amount to a tissue of popular myths, used to promote a tired and unfounded historical perspective whose application now has a track record of political intolerance.

Dr. Radner really hopes Chane isn’t dumb enough to run the “inconsistency” smack seeing as the Episcopal stance on divorce, say, has helped contribute to our current social turmoil.

Bishop Chane first argues that traditionalists are inconsistent — maybe even hypocritical? — because Jesus was against divorce and traditionalists are not “demanding that the city council make divorce illegal.” Of course, Jesus did not proclaim all divorce wrong (cf. Matt. 9:9).More important, by begging his own question here—just what is the status of divorce, then?—Bishop Chane undercuts his case: the state’s accommodation of divorce has indeed encouraged and even created turmoil in social relations. If anything the failures of church and wider culture in this area are actually a good argument for restraint on further social confusion.

Probably not a good idea to bring up Paul either, John.

Second, Bishop Chane says that traditionalists are inconsistent in their defense of the centrality of heterosexual marriage because, after all, Paul thought marriage inferior to the celibate life. But, of course, the apostle Paul’s teaching does not claim that marriage is an inferior state, but rather that it is often an impractical one in comparison with celibacy. Bishop Chane’s disingenuous assumption that traditionalists ought to apply Paul’s teaching to all of human life was certainly not shared by other writers in the New Testament (or by Jesus), and such an attitude made only partial inroads into the Church’s practical life some centuries later. Most Christians, including Christian priests even in the Middle Ages, understood Paul’s teaching within a larger theological reading of the Scriptures that included a created sexual difference, the blessing of procreation, and the social responsibilities of church and state to nurture families. Within this reading, celibacy is a great gift, and an evangelical vocation for some, and it remains so.

And that late sacrament notion?  Meaningless.

Third, Bishop Chane claims that “the church did not bless marriages until the third century, or define marriage as a sacrament until 1215.”While technically accurate in a way, the statement is wholly misleading: the “sacramental” nature of marriage, in a large sense, was already defined theologically (though not canonically) in the early 5th century by none other than Augustine, building on longstanding traditions, and the Church was deeply engaged in the formation, blessing, and ordering of married life long before this, regardless of whether standard liturgies had been formulated and enforced. The canonical standing of marriage is a red herring.

John?  Dr. Radner lines his bird cage with those “patriarchy” bumper stickers of yours.

Bishop Chane’s odd denigration of the material and economic world as theologically insignificant here is astonishing, as is his whole-cloth reduction of family life before recent Western modernity to patriarchally controlled property. Bishop Chane’s claim is in fact historically false on a technical basis, given the range of economic and legal orderings of property within the Middle Ages (many of which placed legal possession in the hands of women), especially among the vast majority of the population living in agrarian contexts. It is also supremely ignorant of the actual dynamics of family life in such contexts of poverty, where common and mutual support is actually presupposed, necessary, and relied upon. Social historians like Martine Segalan have provided sophisticated analyses that have uncovered the differentiated egalitarian and mutual support among married couples that underlay rural existence in Europe over the centuries. The place of procreation in such contexts was indeed central, but for that reason hardly disposable with today’s new (and limited) economic conditions.

Put simply, all of Chane’s presuppositions are lies.

Bishop Chane’s logic, in making all his (largely unfounded) points, is that “our evolving understanding of what marriage is leads, of necessity, to a re-examination of who it is for.” That is, we now believe marriage is about mutual love, but we didn’t before; we now believe it has spiritual, not just economic, potential, but we didn’t before; and therefore, if we can change in this direction, we can apply these insights to same-sex partnerships. Bishop Chane’s rhetoric of “continual change” masks his argument’s many weaknesses: the purported changes never really took place as described, and never moved logically or closely in the direction of same-sex marriage. His argument and conclusion are false.

Intolerant lies specifically designed to advance a viciously intolerant political agenda.

Finally, it is important to point out that the errors in this picture are not merely the mistakes of the misinformed. They serve a political purpose within Bishop Chane’s church whose malice cannot be overlooked. Bishop Chane writes that “the proposed legislation would not force any congregation to change its religious teachings or bless any couple.” Perhaps. But Bishop Chane’s own church sees the matter very differently in many instances when it comes to ecclesiastical authority. Episcopal dioceses and Anglican dioceses elsewhere in North America now routinely refuse to ordain candidates who oppose church blessings of same-sex marriage. Bishop Chane’s own former diocesan communications officer routinely called for the removal from church councils of Anglicans opposed to same-sex blessings. “For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:21): Chane’s assurances of “freedom” in the civil sphere ring hollow given his own stunning lack of support for theological and pastoral equality in the Episcopal Church.

Seriously, John.  You’re not fooling any of us anymore.  Intelligent people knew you were a joke a long time ago.

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