A Sound of Sheer Silence

Friend of the blog Liz Bruenig directed my attention to this article by Geoffrey Miller, discussing polyamory.   I've been thinking about this topic for a while, and this was the spur to put thoughts to electronic paper.  One thing about the article is, I think, inarguable--this topic is going to be with us for a long time to come, and is going to be more and more prominent in time.  Dr. Miller's article is a serious and thoughtful piece, and it deserves to be taking seriously and thoughtfully, which I hope to do here. Before getting into my views--and I know this is obnoxious, but please bear with me--I want to lay down a few markers.  First, my position is that marriage is fundamentally a human institution.  I recognize that this is a controversial position, especially among Christians of a moderate to conservative orientation (of which I consider myself, whether or not others would consider me so).  But I think that if you look at the concrete "facts o...

The former is a recent, largely white, evangelical, American phenomenon with a dose of fundamentalism & a lot of weird cultural stuff & marketing thrown in. — Tish Harrison Warren (@Tish_H_Warren) July 22, 2019 Of course, you can hate and reject both. That's cool. Just don't conflate them or write about them as the same thing. Or think they are theologically the same phenomena. — Tish Harrison Warren (@Tish_H_Warren) July 22, 2019 I have seen a couple of people make a variation of Rev. Harrison Warren's argument on the Interwebs in the last couple of days.  It is prompted, in large measure, by the announcement that Joshua Harris, author of the evangelical purity culture ur-text I Kissed Dating Goodbye , is getting a divorce from his wife.  This is seen, not unreasonably, as symbolic of the moral and conceptual failure of the purity culture project, at least in its late 90s/early 00s presentation--the whole point of going through all of this purity cultur...

In the last few days, a bombshell story has dropped that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, D.C., has been suspended from ministry as a result of a "credible allegation" of unwanted sexual contact with a minor when he was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.  Here are some unorganized reactions. 1.  Don't Take Your Eye Off the Ball.   I have a prediction--not based on any secret evidence, just a hunch--that the victim who made a "credible accusation of abuse" is male, and was a teenager at the time the event occurred.  Fifteen, sixteen, maybe even seventeen, something like that.  [Edit:  turns out I was right ]   When that comes to light, and it will, there will be a segment of people who will say "see, this is what gay men do," and others who will say "well, jeeze, I mean, it's not really a kid, right?" Both of those takes are wrong and beside the point.  The relevant mental category fo...

One of the core claims advanced by advocates of the Theology of the Body is that our biology, by which they mean our sexual biology, discloses God's moral and ethical vision for sexual activity.  In doing so, they are working out an application of "natural law"--facts about the natural world reflect the plan of God.  The job, on this reading, is to interpret facts about the natural world in order to discern God's purposes encoded in the design of the natural world and extrapolate that into our concrete circumstances. There are a number of directions from which one might object to this from a methodological point of view, and I understand and agree with those objections .  But, I think there is something valuable to be learned from the design of our sexual biology which can provide clues as to the proper way to think about developing norms and rules for our sexual activity.  My objections to the conclusions drawn from the Theology of the Body not just about method b...

The Liturgists released a podcast about a week ago entitled "The Ethics of F***ing."  It was a excellent episode, and wisely featured Rev. Bromleigh McCleneghan and her book Good Christian Sex , which I did a deep-dive into a while back .  But for me the most impactful interview, in a different sort of way, was the interview with Christopher West.  West, for those who are not familiar, is a kind of celebrity proponent of the Theology of the Body, the complex philosophical and hermaneutical program to explain traditional Catholic sexual teachings in a modern form.  Theology of the Body relies primarily on a reading of Genesis 1 through 3, and "Science Mike" of the Liturgist honed in on a core problem that resides at the heart of the Theology of the Body.  Listening to West has inspired me to circle back to looking more closely at the problems inherent in the Theology of the Body (a project I worked on in a somewhat scattershot form a number of years ago), becaus...

Two stories came through the pipeline in the last couple of days that caught my attention.  The first was a piece by Ross Douthat arguing for some sort of extensive ban on pornography .  The other had to do with Shane Claiborne, one of the organizers of an anti-Trump revival in Lynchburg, Virginia , who received very strong push back due to his non-affirming stance on LGBT questions ( example here , see also Bill Lindsey here ), as well as the corresponding backlash to the backlash.  The backlash to the backlash primarily took the form of "how can you shun or criticize Claiborne and claim to be a classical liberal?," an example of which can be found here .  The link between these two stories is a discussion of classical liberalism, and so it is worthwhile talking about that for a bit. We can think about classical liberalism as having two dimensions.  The first is political--a particular area of human life will not be regulated or otherwise coerced by the stat...

One way you know that you are on-to something useful and significant is that you see it pop up all over the place.  You'll be minding your own business, doing whatever it is you do normally, and all of the sudden something will happen and you will think "wow, that's yet another example of The Thing, popping up in an unexpected place."  That's been my experience with the ideas of Rene Girard.  Every few months or so, something will come up in popular culture that is controversial or ambiguous, and my first thought is "oh, that's an example of scapegoating," or "I know exactly what Girard would say about this." That was exactly the experience I had this weekend reading a New York Times  op-ed piece by Mayim Bialik , which is a perfect example of the Girardian concept of "The Sacred."  Bialik is an actress who came into prominence as the star of the 90s TV show Blossom .  As she states in the piece, she left acting after Blossom to...

I know a guy who would consider himself an evangelical Christian.  At the end of the day, he is a good guy.  While conservative, he's not a flame-thrower. But, here's the thing about this guy, this evangelical Christian.  He lives his life on the basis of the principle that the goal of this life is to make as much money as one possibly can.  He has said so on numerous occasions, in both private and quasi-public settings.  Sure, he cares about his family and about his religion, but the primary,day-to-day objective of his life is maximizing his personal wealth.  He spends a great deal of time thinking and strategizing about how to make the most money in his current situation. More specifically, he recognizes that the best way to make money is to put yourself in the same environment as other people that have money and/or are in a position to make money come your way.  So, he makes a point of being around those people, openly sucking up to them and try...

Rev. Jordan Haynie Ware's twitter feed directed my attention to  this excellent article , written by Jem Bloomfield.  Mr. Bloomfield is a British academic, and he makes three points that I think are critical in thinking and talking about the interaction between Christianity, the broader "secular" culture, and in particular the younger slice of that culture.  But it also interacts in a way with people who are searching for some sort of "third way" on the contested issues of sexuality, most recently in the form of Fr. Jim Martin's book Building a Bridge , which was based on a talk he gave last fall and which I talked about here . Before turning to the article, it's worthwhile to get the "whatabout"-ist objections out the way (some of which can be seen in the comments section of the post).  Yes, "secular culture" is not a monolithic entity, and neither are Millennials/young people.  There are quite a number of young people who are very...