A Sound of Sheer Silence

After going through five previous ideas ( "Experiental Priority, " "Contextual Theology," "Rejecting the Salvation Industrial Complex," "Franciscan Hermaneutics," and "Christ versus Empire" ) we come to the last one, "Christian Realism."  "Christian Realism" is, to the best of my knowledge, a term that I made up.  But it reflects an idea that is fundamental, if often unspoken, to the way you approach everything you might encounter when talking about religion, and in particular the way that theology interacts with the rest of the world (which, basically, is everything).  In its simplest terms, makes the claim that the physical world is (1) intelligible; (2) real [as opposed to the product of our imaginations]; and (3) ultimately the creation of God.  The theological touchstone for Christian Realism is a well-known quote by the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas--"all that is true, by whomsoever it has be...

Chapters 3 and 4 of Good Christian Sex  are, at a 10,000 foot level, a critique of the traditional Christian superstructure and presuppositions regarding marriage and sex.  McCleneghan expresses that superstructure accurately, if snarkily, as follows: The Church Universal, as I hope is becoming clear, can be so entirely goofy on the topics of sex, love, and relationships.  Sex is a critical part of identity (but only if you are straight, and fit traditional gender roles, and are married).  Singleness is great and easy to bear and a virtue, and celibacy is expected; but, whoa, man, does God want you to get married and enjoy the marital bed (which is both a joy and an obligation!) and start cranking out those Christian babies who will complete your life and give you purpose.  God will bless you with all of these things (unless He chooses not to, in which case you are to submit to His will, too bad, so sad). Let's talk first about the marriage piece, which hove...

The Supreme Court of the United States, a few minutes ago, said that same sex couples have the right to be married in all 50 states . The Te Deum was traditionally sung in celebration of some event, an expression of thankfulness for a source of great joy.   Today is a day for celebration!  I know this will be really stick in the craw of lots of Catholics, but I don't care. Special congratulations to my friends Neil and Mike .  I could not be any happier for you. I would also like to say something to those out there who are in the process of putting on sackcloth as we speak.  In particular, I would like to direct your attention to what Richard Beck calls "Orthodox alexithymia."  Beck, from the perspective of a psychologist, makes a simple but profound claim--rationality without an emotional component is not a pure form of reason; it is sociopathy.

Previous two posts: Part 1 Part 2 *************** In Unclean , Richard Beck explores the psychological basis behind purity and exclusion, and looks at texts in the New Testament in which Jesus and Paul look to transcend these mechanisms.  What then does this mean for the Eucharist? First off, Matthew 9 and 1 Corinthians 11 (and other, similar texts) should always prompt us to ask the question--who are the marginalized, the tax collectors and sinners, of our day?  Who are the people that our instincts tell us that we should be keeping out?  Because the psychological research Beck references alerts us to the fact that all of us have an in-born tendency to look to police boundaries and practice exclusion on that basis--what theologian Miroslav Volf calls the "will to purity."  We are all under the influence of this gravitational pull, and Jesus and Paul make it clear that we have to try to fight that pull and undertake a "will to embrace."  These two notion...

Richard Beck had an excellent post from Monday about a self-cannibalizing tendency with the Left.  Beck points out that the exclusion tendencies stemming from purity psychology  are not somehow limited to conservative people--liberal folks engage in the exact same purity psychology.  In particular, Beck points out that allies--people that agree with parts of a particular progressive agenda--tend to be a focus of attacks, sometimes even above and beyond those who oppose the agenda in total. It strikes me that Jesus has a parable that is relevant here. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again...

The lynchpin of Unclean , in many ways, is Beck's analysis of Matthew 9:9-13.  Here it is: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him "Follow me."  And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go learn what this means 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'  For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." In a podcast I was listening to, Beck and Rob Bell make the observation that Jesus spends a lot of time eating dinner in the Gospels.  There are a number incidents of the same type.   Peter's encounter with Cornelius the centurion is basically the ...

It seems pretty clear that divorced people are going to be the defining issue of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in October.   Five hundred British priests signed a letter encouraging the Synod to "stand firm" on the questio n.   The Germans seem to be willing to walk over the question .  It's a big deal. But here's the thing.  While the motivating force behind these issues is sexuality, the locus of these issues--the place where the abstract doctrines become concrete--is the Communion line.  If you are divorced and remarried without a proper annulment, (in principle) you are forbidden to walk up into that line and receive the Eucharist.  Likewise, if you are in a non-celibate same-sex relationship, or any one of a host of delineated situations (sexual or non-sexual), the official doctrine of the Catholic Church is that you are forbidden from joining that line.  The base-line Eucharistic theology of the Catholic Church is that some people, those who me...

Since I recently said that dudes should stop talking about sex and let the ladies have their say , I'm going to end this series now.  But I think there is another level to this discussion that I wanted to end on, one that Rowan Williams touches on in his essay "The Body's Grace," and one which I haven't discussed yet.  Williams frames this question in terms of a series of novels that I haven't read, but I think the thrust of what he is getting at can be seen in a beautiful, short reflection from Richard Beck, entitled "Refuse to Blow the Candles Out." Here it is in full: I think that life is hard. I think that life is sad and painful. I think that love is rare and fragile. I think that life is full of loneliness and loss and heartbreak and that we're all desperately grateful for even the smallest scraps of human warmth, kindness and intimacy.  So if I see even the smallest flicker of love, grace or tenderness I want to protect it. I want to ...

One of the things that I have noticed since starting this blog is that I am conscious of whether or not I am producing "content."  On some level, this is stupid--I have no obligation to write anything, no one is paying me to do any of this, so there is really no reason to feel that I have to write something.  Still, enough people read this blog that I want to give them something.  As a result, sometimes I sit around and try to come up with things to write about. Sometimes, however, the content comes to you.  Witness this interview with Cardinal Burke, which was brought to my attention reading Deacon Greg Kandra's blog .  Hoo boy, it's a doozy-- the full text is here , on a blog entitled the "New Emangelization" ("Get it?  It's like the New Evangelization, except for men!").  If I could summarize Cardinal Burke's position in one sentence, it would be that the Catholic Church has become pussified and needs to recover its "manliness....

Update:  After posting this article, I found a great article from Richard Beck that is well worth reading. The most erotic part of the Bible, and it is not really close, is the Song of Songs.  Let's start from the beginning, where the woman says (Song of Songs 1:6): My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept! It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to figure out what "my own vineyard" refers to (hint: it has nothing to do with grapes).  Keeping with the theme of the nether-regions, the woman goes on to say (1:12): While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. Once again, you have to work really hard to come up an interpretation of "my nard" which "gave forth its fragrance" that doesn't involve a vagina.  Song of Songs continues on and on in this fashion, describing two people who are really, really attracted to one another having sex in a va...