Guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan, Ross Douthat laments the cultural status of religious America:
America has a lowbrow culture that's still pretty religious, but whose religiosity tends to be, well, lowbrow - a lowest-common-denominator mix of self-help spirituality and New Age mush. And the highbrow culture, meanwhile, isn't religious at all: it's not anti-religion, exactly, but it definitely considers religious belief an oddity and an anachronism, and orthodox Christian belief dangerously close to fanaticism. Which is one of the reasons that most religiosity in America is so lowbrow - because the highly intelligent people who might elevate the level of religious discourse have their faith leeched out of them by their immersion in the highbrow, in its assumptions and its prejudices. And the people who complain about this - about how we don't have any more Reinhold Niebuhrs, and isn't it a tragedy? - tend to be exactly the people who in an earlier era would have been the Niebuhrs, but who now partake of what Richard John Neuhaus once called "the pleasures of regretful unbelief."
What we need, then - and by "we" I mean Christians, though I obviously think there would be benefits to non-Christians as well - is a more highbrow Christianity, and one that doesn't prostrate itself on the altar of political correctness, as token highbrow Catholics like Garry Wills are wont to do. Perhaps "culture war" is the wrong word to use in this context, since we don't necessarily need more Christians making the case against same-sex marriage, or pushing all their chips into the battle over courthouse displays in Alabama. We need more Christians writing good novels and essays and doctoral theses, and television shows and movies and music - all of which might inter alia make the case for a Christian understanding of, say, sexuality, but which would be primarily works of art and intellect and not polemics, creating a cultural space rather than just a political movement.
We can't expect any favors: The doors of highbrow American culture have been closed against that sort of thing for decades now, and you can't expect the New Yorker or the New York Times to just throw them open - why should they? They're content with the world they've made, in which Philip Pullman is a hero, C.S. Lewis is a sad "prisoner" of his religious belief, science is always under assault from fundamentalism and monotheism is an easy whipping boy for all of history's ills. Christians keep insisting that this world has it all wrong, of course, but it's not enough to say it - we need to show them.
Richard John Neuhaus responds:
Douthat is right, of course, but there is more to be said on this. (When isn’t there?) Lowbrow, anti-intellectual, and downright vulgar Christianity in the public square is an embarrassment. But, in defending the constitutional rights of religion in public, one has no choice but to defend what shows up to be defended. In coming to the aid of those suffering from anti-religious discrimination, I have often wished for a better quality of victim. You don’t always get to choose your battles, or your allies.
I confess to having little patience with Christians of fastidious taste who don’t want to be associated with “them.” So much do they want to distinguish themselves from “them” that they usually end up on the other side. The deeper cultural, historical, and theological reality is that “they” are us. Not all their causes are ours. But their cause (if not always their way) of witnessing to the lordship of Christ in the face of a sub-pagan highbrow culture is ours.
Rob
Monday, December 26, 2005
I appreciate the posts by Rick and Amy about the Kitzmiller intelligent design ruling, and I simply want to underscore how remarkable I found Judge Jones' statement that:
Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general.
I know many folks for whom evolutionary theory is antithetical to their religious beliefs. At a minimum, evolutionary theory requires a certain substantive interpretation of divine revelation. This does not mean that the case should have come out differently, but it does make me wary of an effort to erase by judicial fiat a tension that is very real. Imagine if the Court in Dale v. Boy Scouts had written, "The Boy Scouts falsely assume that allowing openly homosexual leaders is antithetical to their objective of developing morally straight young men." Now I agree that such a statement is accurate, but it strikes me as a contested extralegal normative claim that is no business of the judiciary to be making. To probe this area more deeply, be sure to read Rick's thoughtful article, Assimilation, Tolerance, and the State's Interest in the Development of Religious Doctrine.
Rob
Friday, December 23, 2005
A New York priest (who asked me to withhold his name) emailed me the following in response to Mike Foley's explanation (see here and here) of the importance of "priests' heterosexually oriented eros":
I suppose one way of describing my difficulty with the Foley line (popular I think among some bishops) is that it assumes that the object of erotic desire is the only important factor of a person's sexual makeup, or perhaps it presumes something worse. That is, I gather that Foley would concede that a person who is gay is capable of orgasm--so that's something they share with heterosexuals. I presume he would say they are suceptible of lust, another thing they share with heterosexuals. The question is whether any of the "higher" aspects of human sexuality are shared by homosexuals and heterosexuals alike--that is, those features of our sexual makeup that we would call characterological--the desire for family, for self-sacrificing love, and so forth.
One way of reading the argument (though I think Foley tries to avoid it) is that the homosexual personality is so distorted by the same sex attraction that nothing of value remains in their sexual makeup. This strikes me as odd in light of the Church's traditional view that the mistake of the "gay subculture" was viewing the person primarily in terms of the object of their erotic desire. I've always thought that was an important part of the Church's teaching, and not one that has been easy for me to preach in working with gays and lesbians. It is getting harder now when at least some (applying more of their own version of psychology than of theology) in the Church, purporting to represent orthodoxy, seem to be adopting precisely the vision of "orientation as definitive of the person" that then-Cardinal Ratzinger's 1986 letter so persuasively rejected.
So I will finish by repeating or perhaps clarifying that at least one difficulty with adopting these arguments about the heterosexuality of the priesthood is discerning how one determines the properties of human sexuality (such as the inclination to generativity, desires for begetting, nourishing and defending) that homosexuals and heterosexuals alike share. There may be different answers for different people as well--it's not clear how one would begin to answer such questions (presumably the methods of psychology would be a likelier source of guidance than those of theology), but it is also not clear that if we cannot answer those questions we should presume answers that suggest the many gay priests who have served the Church over the years were doing so despite their inability to share in the same sort of self-sacrifice as heterosexuals, let alone answers that suggest they ought never to have been ordained at all.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
In an email exchange, another reader answered my question about the necessity of priests' "heterosexually oriented eros" by invoking the image of Christ's marriage to the Church and the self-giving nature of the bridegroom's role. This prompted me to ask:
Why is the self-giving involved in marriage inherently heterosexual, other than the fact that we define marriage as heterosexual? Why would a celibate homosexual priest be incapable of the self-giving called for? Even granting the premise that homosexuality is disordered, in what particular way does that disorder negate the capacity for the self-giving function?
Mike Foley follows up on his earlier post with the following explanation:
One can argue that the nature of heterosexuality is not mere attraction to someone of the opposite sex (the minimalist definition) but a resolve to contribute to the flourishing of the human race through begetting, defending, and nourishing the next generation (the "maximalist" definition). Seen in this light, the priest's supernatural vocation to contribute to the life of the Church by enrolling new members into the body of Christ, defending them from error and other spiritual maladies, and nourishing them with the Word and the sacraments may indeed be seen as a spiritual exercise, so to speak, of heterosexuality. I personally do not know whether a chaste homosexual male can perform this same exercise or not, but I am at least willing to say that either way the template for the exercise remains heterosexual.
Rob
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Baylor prof Mike Foley emailed me this response to my post asking about his reference to priests' heterosexual eros in his letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Rob Vischer is certainly right to want to hear more about my thoughts on the relevance of heterosexuality to the exercise of the priesthood, since the constraints of a letter to the editor did not allow me to elaborate. While I am still not sure I can do justice to this important topic, let me at least offer a few more grains for the mill:
Essentially I am contending that heterosexuality (or for that matter, homosexuality) is far more than a desire for sexual union of a particular kind; it is an orientation that affects one’s appropriation of interpersonal responsibilities. Specifically, male heterosexuality at its best seems to me to involve a custodial yet selfless desire to protect and serve those to whom one is naturally united in a family bond. In other words, it is not sexual intercourse but virtuous fathering that is the natural perfection or end of a man’s basic heterosexual impulses. As Aquinas notes, one of the most basic precepts of the natural law is not just the begetting but the providing for and education of offspring.
It seems to me that the Western tradition of a celibate priesthood shrewdly denies a priest a corporeal family so that the zeal he would have exercised on their behalf is devoted exclusively to his ecclesiastical family. This transfer of familial allegiance is more than just a horizontal act of “time management”; it is a vertical transformation of a man’s attention and effort from a family born of the flesh to one born of the spirit. (I hesitate to use the word “sublimation” here, for though what I am talking about does indeed make sublime a man’s basic orientation, the word has unfortunately been kidnapped by Freud and thus carries a number of connotations that I do not believe are generally true.)
I should add that my basic inspiration for my remarks here and in the WSJ letter is Fr. James McLucas’ provocative essay, “The Emasculation of the Priesthood,” presciently written before the sex abuse scandals in this country ever broke. Though Fr. McLucas is primarily critiquing the effects of contemporary liturgy on the manliness of priests, I believe his argument has broader implications that could be developed in any number of different directions.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Richard John Neuhaus quotes a letter to the Wall Street Journal written by Baylor prof Michael Foley in response to a column criticizing the recent instruction on homosexuality and the priesthood. An excerpt from the letter:
In characterizing the Vatican’s instruction on homosexual candidates for the priesthood as “shoot first and ask questions later” (”Ungracious Instruction,” editorial page, Dec. 2), Kenneth Woodward paints a misleading picture of an important and fair-minded directive. We will never know how many ordained priests today have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, but we do know that 82% of the recent sexual abuse cases were not acts of pedophilia involving small children of both sexes but acts of homoerotic ephebophilia by priests attracted to teenage boys. Put simply, the clerical scandals were predominantly perpetrated by gay men, not clinical pedophiles. . . .
Moreover, Mr. Woodward fails to see that the priesthood requires more than “affective maturity.” It demands that the protective and procreative zeal that a man would have had toward his wife and children is transposed to his spiritual family, his parish. As early as the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), which forbade the ordination of voluntary eunuchs, the church has very much relied on the spiritual exercise of its priests’ heterosexually oriented eros. For the priesthood is husbandry in the strict sense, not mere celibacy: it is spiritual fatherhood, not professional bachelorhood.
I've never heard the case for the instruction put in quite these terms; is it true that the Church has traditionally relied on priests' "heterosexually oriented eros?" I understand the focus on spiritual fatherhood, but I'd welcome additional explanation of the heterosexual dimension of the role.
Rob
The New Atlantis has an essay that uses Tom Wolfe's recent novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, as an entryway into a stinging critique of American universities:
I Am Charlotte Simmons is an indictment of the primary centers of higher education in America today. These institutions do not well serve the real longings and earnest ambitions of the young people who flock to them, at great cost and with great expectations, year after year. Instead of pointing students to a world that is higher than where they came from, the university reinforces and expands the nihilism and political correctness that they are taught in public schools, imbibe from popular culture, and bring with them as routine common sense when they arrive on campus. Of course, these two ideologies are largely incompatible: nihilism celebrates strength (or apathy) without illusion; political correctness promulgates illusions in the name of sensitivity. But both ideologies are the result of collapsing and rejecting any distinction between higher and lower, between nobility and ignobility, between the higher learning and the flight from reason.
Rob
