Guilt by Association

Eugene Volokh has sparked an interesting discussion (here, here and here) regarding Christians' obligation to condemn the inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric of figures like Jimmy Swaggart. (Swaggart essentially asserted that he would be justified in killing a homosexual.)

Volokh suggests that, as members of a movement built around a common set of beliefs, Christians should police their fellow members to ensure against public stances contradicting those beliefs, or at least to avoid leaving the impression that those stances are acceptable within the movement. I agree completely that Swaggart's statement is beyond the pale, and should be repeatedly and openly labeled as such by Christians. But the broader hesitation to condemn loose cannons like Swaggart, Falwell and Robertson may stem in part from the nature of the evangelical Christian movement. Evangelicals are defined in significant part by their insistence that biblical interpretation and application is properly undertaken by the individual believer within the context of her personal spiritual journey. Certainly some community standards will hold sway, to varying degrees, but their authority is secondary, especially when evangelicals are compared to other faith traditions. In this regard, many evangelicals don't voice their objections to outliers like Swaggart, not because they believe he speaks the truth, but because they defer to his individual interpretive prerogative. Disagreement among evangelicals is not generally a cause for discipline or condemnation; it's an inescapable dimension of the movement.

On an unrelated point, Swaggart may offer some insight, or at least cause for reflection, on the controversy over certain bishops' threats to deny communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians. If Swaggart were Catholic and persisted in espousing a belief that the murder of gays is justified, should he be denied communion? My tentative answer is no, but if we're concerned with sending a clear message that a Christian's willful denial of central tenets of the faith will not be ignored by the surrounding Christian community, isn't the denial of communion an effective and powerful way to communicate that disapproval? Or is it enough to voice the community's objections without calling into question the individual's standing within the community? Perhaps it's relevant that Swaggart is a minister of the faith, not a secular actor in the public sphere. But doesn't the Christian community have a pressing concern to communicate disapproval of any publicly visible Christian's open disregard of Christian beliefs? I don't pretend to have the answers to these questions, but if we expect the Christian community to take seriously its members' espousal of un-Christian positions, we can't presume to pick and choose the positions that warrant such treatment.

Rob