A Sound of Sheer Silence

I've talked before about the idea of "Christian Realism."  The premise here is that Christianity, properly understood, describes the world as it actually is.  As a result, if there is some empirical claim made on behalf of Christianity, and that claim proves to be wrong, then our understanding of Christianity is flawed.  The solution is not to reject Christianity, nor to put our fingers in our ears and pretend that we don't hear the fact that is inconsistent with our empirical claim; the solution is to go back to the drawing board and rethink our empirical presuppositions.  After all, as Aquinas said,“[a]ll that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit.” Christian Realism is a real problem with regard to Catholicism and sexual issues.   A good example of the problem can be seen in this piece by Lisa Duffy.  Here's the key quote: When sex is experienced outside of marriage, there is no freedom or innocence; it’s all about re...

I said I wasn't going to do anymore on this topic, and when I said it I had every intention of following through.  But a couple of days ago I stumbled onto something that is directly relevant to the themes and issues I was working on in the series, so I decided to break my self-imposed ban and direct your attention to a piece written by Thomas Bushnell .  It is relatively short, and utterly worth your time. As a bit of context, Bushnell's piece is written in response to an essay by Father Craig Uffman  of the the Diocese of Rochester (New York) in the Episcopal Church.  The overall topic is a proposal before the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to amend its canons (basically church law) in several ways to facilitate blessing of same-sex unions by clergy in the Episcopal Church.  As you might expect, these proposals are controversial--some are opposed to the Church recognizing same-sex marriage altogether, others frustrated by what they perceive ...

The word in Hebrew is "qedesha."  It comes from the root "q-d-sh," which has to do with things that are "holy" or "set apart," both in Hebrew and in Hebrew's cousin languages from around the Middle East.  Despite the positive connotations of the word, the Torah makes clear that one should not be a "qedesha," or its male form a "qedesh."  Indeed, Deuteronomy specifically forbids it. Temple of Bacchus, Jupiter, and Venus.  Baalbek, Lebanon Modern English Biblical translations render "qedesha" as "temple prostitute."   See Deuteronomy 23:17 .  Such people were "set apart" for religious rituals by the cultures that surrounded the People of Israel, rituals which involved some form of sexual activity.  It appears that there is scholarly debate as to the nature of these rituals, and surely they varied from place to place within the ancient Near East and beyond.  As an example, the Greek histori...

I was introduced to The Body's Grace by Frank from Letters to the Catholic Right in this post , where he quotes Williams saying: It puts the question which is also raised for some kinds of moralist by the existence of the clitoris in women; something whose function is joy. If the creator were quite so instrumentalist in ‘his’ attitude to sexuality, these hints of prodigality and redundancy in the way the whole thing works might cause us to worry about whether he was, after all, in full rational control of it. But if God made us for joy…? I want to talk about the first part of that quote here, regarding the clitoris.  I am not aware of any theology that has been done on the clitoris, but there should be.  As Williams alludes to, the existence and nature of the clitoris is a theological "problem," especially if you want to hold on to traditional Christian sexual morality.  It is especially problematic if you want to hold that sexuality needs to be understood through the...

For a long time, the "Third Rail" of American politics was Social Security.  It was called a "third rail," because politicians were afraid to touch this electrified rail, for fear of receiving a (political) shock.  No one could say anything about amending or modifying Social Security, for fear of sacrificing their political career.  Other topics may be on the table, but not this one. Catholicism's Third Rail is its opposition to artificial birth control.  The American Catholic Church has hired Jones Day, one of the largest (and most expensive, though the Church is probably getting a break on fees) law firms in the country to defend the proposition that it won't pay for birth control and it can't be made to.  Jones Day and the Catholic Church is filing suit after suit all around the country in defense of this position.  No effort is being spared. But it is not just the American church.  This morning, the Vatican released the preparatory document for...

Ever since I read Frank of "Letters to the Catholic Right"'s brilliant walkthrough of J. Budziszewski's On the Meaning of Sex , I've been itching to try my hand at an extended book review.  The key to making something like that work is that you need the right book.  I kicked around the idea of doing George Weigel's Evangelical Catholicism, but I thought that spending that much time in Weigel-land would be bad for my health.  So, I was on the look out for something good. Like many good things, inspiration came from an unexpected place.  I was wasting time looking through Amazon a couple of days ago, and I saw a link to a book entitled Holy Sex!  by Dr. Gregory K. Popcak, Ph.D .  The subtitle of the book is, and I quote, "A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving."  It took me about ten nanoseconds to hammer the "purchase now" button--an impulse buy, but an impulse buy of the best possible kind.  Obviously, this was t...