Someone pointed out to me that parents might love their adult children without accepting their lifestyle. Fair point, and that kind of idea was in my mind when I was writing the last post, it just never quite made it on to the page. Some of the parents in the film said exactly that. Perhaps this kind of thing would be an explanation for the 'separating father from son' type imagery?
My only additional thoughts would be that often, although by no means always, this idea of not accepting the 'gay' lifestyle works better if it is implicitly assumed that being gay is in fact a sort of choice, or at least can be changed. (And of course the idea that being in an active gay relationship is wrong, but I'm not trying to leap into that debate here.) I suspect, though, this idea that orientation is chosen, or is always the result of some kind of trauma, is going out of fashion, although perhaps not in the US Bible belt if the film is anything to go by. Which leaves us in the position of telling gay christians that they are not at fault for who they are, but that they must resign themselves to permanent celibacy. Not just that they have to stay single until they meet someone they can marry, but that (unless there is a change in their orientation), they will definitely be single, and therefore missing out on that form of intimacy, for the whole of their lives.
Well, you could say that that that's just how it is, and not exclusive to gay people, and I guess that's true. You could also point to problems with our society or culture that prioritise individual romantic/sexual relationships and devalue other forms of relationship or fulfilment, and I think that's also true. But I suspect this conclusion (permanent celibacy) is easier to come to if a) you prioritise rationality/reason/logic over experience and emotion (as modern conservative evangelicalism tends to do) and b) if it doesn't really affect you. If the conclusion is 'correct', on one level it doesn't matter who makes it. But on another level, it does feel as though it matters when heterosexual married christians are coming to these conclusions on behalf of gay christians.
Friday, 18 July 2008
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Bishop Gene Robinson and love
I read this in the bible last night (Matthew 10:34-39):
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— your enemies will be the members of your own household.'
"Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."
Or in a more up to date version:
"Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me.
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me."
It's written as if Jesus is being quoted, so we are supposed to assume these are the actual words of Jesus. What's he on about? These verses are familiar to me, because my church background has, at times, been big on sacrifice and taking up your cross. In other church contexts this kind of thing is rarely mentioned, but for me it's always been talked about and we've tried to work out how this would play out day to day. (At one point I designed a 'comfort-o-matic' cross for a friend, which came complete with padded arm rests and a red wine holder.) In some ways that suits me, because I'm a bit of an old testament kind of girl - and I've always been fascinated by the celtic saints who left everything to sail off into the sunset, and then did mad things like stand in the sea up to their necks all night praying (I think it was to keep them awake??). And in a couple of months I'm finally going on my own celtic adventure as I move to Durham.
But last night these verses struck me a bit differently. I'd just come home from the screening of a documentary called 'the Bible tells me so', which interviewed christian families who had a gay son or daughter, and was followed by a Q&A session with Bishop Gene Robinson and Ian McKellan. Gene Robinson is the only bishop in the Anglican Communion to be in an open gay partnership, and one of the families in the documentary was his family. The documentary was - naturally - offering a particular point of view, and so all the families had started out with conservative christian views on sexuality, and most had changed their views as a result of their experiences. All of them loved their children, but most had acted initially in really unloving ways. Shamefully, a lot of the unloving behaviour came about because of what they'd been taught by their churches - not just that homosexuality is "an abomination" (this was repeated frequently), but also that it's a choice and people can choose to chage their sexuality. Whatever someone's theology, it was clear, if it wasn't already abundantly obvious, that churches and christians have been responsible for inflicting huge amounts of pain, and even inciting people to violence. The bible has and is being used in superficial, ignorant and irresponsible ways to sanction pre-existing prejudice.
This made me think more about the second bit of the quotation. Because I'm single, I've probably not paid much attention to this before. But there are a couple of thoughts here. It's actually a really difficult saying to understand, although the 'son against father' bit is a quotation from the old testament so would have meant more to the jewish hearers. Firstly, at what point does my personal sacrifice start to be a sacrifice for other people? If I think I'm asked to prioritise God/faith, that's one thing, but what about when my decisions have an impact on other people? What happens when my choices mean that other people are also being asked to make a sacrifice. This must be more critical when children/partners are involved, but happens in smaller ways too. And it was v clear from the documentary that the parents' choice to - as they saw it - follow Christ had negative effects on their children.
And following on from that, I wondered whether loving God should ever make us act in non-loving ways to the people around us? My gut feeling is that the 2 things are incompatible, and that part of loving God is loving other people. Presumably part of the problem is defining what counts as loving, and that it's possible to love someone without being 'nice' to them. I find a particular problem here with the christian teaching (hopefully mostly in the past?) which said that gay people shouldn't be accepted as they are (because then they wouldn't have any incentive to change) - and surely christian 'love' includes acceptance. This is what we say about God's love, which we try to reflect - that s/he loves us unconditionally. So any behaviour based on non-acceptance can't, by definition, be loving?
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— your enemies will be the members of your own household.'
"Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."
Or in a more up to date version:
"Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me.
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me."
It's written as if Jesus is being quoted, so we are supposed to assume these are the actual words of Jesus. What's he on about? These verses are familiar to me, because my church background has, at times, been big on sacrifice and taking up your cross. In other church contexts this kind of thing is rarely mentioned, but for me it's always been talked about and we've tried to work out how this would play out day to day. (At one point I designed a 'comfort-o-matic' cross for a friend, which came complete with padded arm rests and a red wine holder.) In some ways that suits me, because I'm a bit of an old testament kind of girl - and I've always been fascinated by the celtic saints who left everything to sail off into the sunset, and then did mad things like stand in the sea up to their necks all night praying (I think it was to keep them awake??). And in a couple of months I'm finally going on my own celtic adventure as I move to Durham.
But last night these verses struck me a bit differently. I'd just come home from the screening of a documentary called 'the Bible tells me so', which interviewed christian families who had a gay son or daughter, and was followed by a Q&A session with Bishop Gene Robinson and Ian McKellan. Gene Robinson is the only bishop in the Anglican Communion to be in an open gay partnership, and one of the families in the documentary was his family. The documentary was - naturally - offering a particular point of view, and so all the families had started out with conservative christian views on sexuality, and most had changed their views as a result of their experiences. All of them loved their children, but most had acted initially in really unloving ways. Shamefully, a lot of the unloving behaviour came about because of what they'd been taught by their churches - not just that homosexuality is "an abomination" (this was repeated frequently), but also that it's a choice and people can choose to chage their sexuality. Whatever someone's theology, it was clear, if it wasn't already abundantly obvious, that churches and christians have been responsible for inflicting huge amounts of pain, and even inciting people to violence. The bible has and is being used in superficial, ignorant and irresponsible ways to sanction pre-existing prejudice.
This made me think more about the second bit of the quotation. Because I'm single, I've probably not paid much attention to this before. But there are a couple of thoughts here. It's actually a really difficult saying to understand, although the 'son against father' bit is a quotation from the old testament so would have meant more to the jewish hearers. Firstly, at what point does my personal sacrifice start to be a sacrifice for other people? If I think I'm asked to prioritise God/faith, that's one thing, but what about when my decisions have an impact on other people? What happens when my choices mean that other people are also being asked to make a sacrifice. This must be more critical when children/partners are involved, but happens in smaller ways too. And it was v clear from the documentary that the parents' choice to - as they saw it - follow Christ had negative effects on their children.
And following on from that, I wondered whether loving God should ever make us act in non-loving ways to the people around us? My gut feeling is that the 2 things are incompatible, and that part of loving God is loving other people. Presumably part of the problem is defining what counts as loving, and that it's possible to love someone without being 'nice' to them. I find a particular problem here with the christian teaching (hopefully mostly in the past?) which said that gay people shouldn't be accepted as they are (because then they wouldn't have any incentive to change) - and surely christian 'love' includes acceptance. This is what we say about God's love, which we try to reflect - that s/he loves us unconditionally. So any behaviour based on non-acceptance can't, by definition, be loving?
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Having a life...
My nan is in hospital. Despite this, she found the energy to be amusingly rude to my mum. We were both sitting by her bedside and my nan tearfully said "oh you should go home, you don't want to spend all your time sitting up here." We both protested (a little too successfully I think) as she perked up considerably and said cheerfully to my mum "well I don't suppose you do much in the evenings anyway" then indicated me and said "she's got a life, but you haven't!"
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