On Second Thought . . .

Gay Marriage and the Puritan Legacy on a Collision Course

I correspond regularly with a young single gay man about the ongoing legal and cultural battles over gay marriage in Minnesota, in California, and most recently in New York. My correspondent was understandably elated by the New York assembly’s legalization of gay marriage, but was at once dumbfounded and exasperated by the seemingly limitless energy (and money) that opponents of the bill—who style themselves as “defending marriage”—pour into the fight to make marriage impossible for some of their neighbors. Gay marriage “has nothing to do with them,” this young man protests; and I think I detect in his complaint the implicit question, why can’t they leave the rest of us alone?

Because I share his consternation, my first response to that question (and the variations that I’ve heard from others) is to want to be facetious. —It’s the same reaction that Rapture enthusiasts bring out in me. Every time some self-styled prophet announces that they’ve calculated the precise date of Christ’s return and we’d all better be ready, for Christ’s sake, I want to ask them: What makes you so sure the Rapture hasn’t already happened, years ago, and that you’re not one of those “left behind”? In the same way, when a conservative Christian declares that acceptance of homosexuality is an “attack” on marriage, I want to ask, with as much respect as I can muster: Just how far gone is your own marriage, and is there any hope it can be saved?

But the issue is too serious to be handled with a wisecrack. What those of us who support gay marriages (some of us, because we also live them) need to understand is that conservative Christians do experience a genuine sort of pain. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think their marriages are actually imperiled: to listen to the loudest of them, one would think they had discovered the secret to marital bliss somewhere in the pages of their Bibles. No, the pain I am talking about is relative. It’s the loss of a feeling of superiority that is very close to the heart of their faith.

Historians of American religion describe the “Puritan legacy” that has deep and pervasive roots in American culture. The Puritans brought to the North American continent a powerful Calvinist spirituality that set the individual in a precarious spiritual posture. Believing that God’s predestination of the elect (and, necessarily, of the damned) was final and irresistible, the Puritans were compelled to ward off absolute despair by conjuring undisputable evidence that they were among the elect, in both the austerity of their piety and the comforts of their (God-given) prosperity.

But the peculiar logic of Puritanism requires more than my own happiness: it requires that I appear evidently to be happier, and thus holier, than thou. The legacy of Puritanism requires its adherents to seek out ways in which they are superior to others, proving (at least to themselves) that they enjoy God’s final blessing. Here is, I think, the cultural root of much that is poisonous and vicious in American conservatism, from the sort of fiscal extremism that seeks to reward the rich and punish the poor to the social policies that similarly seek to brand whole classes of people as unworthy of respect and care. Much of the language of “merit” is, at bottom, the desire—the need—to identify and punish others who are unworthy.

(Listen for example to U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann explain to a television interviewer that she and her husband deserved federal subsidies—something she’s made a political career out of decrying when it involves actual poor people—because “I can be successful without government help.” That epitomizes the Puritan creed: God helps those who don’t need it, and the needy be damned.)

Gay and lesbian people are not the only targets of this punitive self-righteousness. The platform and rhetoric of the Republican Party is often rather explicit: the rich deserve what they have; the poor are by definition undeserving: why not structure society in such a way as to institutionalize the disparity as a permanent, earthly sign of God’s providential care for the “haves”? (The Democratic Party has not made this logic a matter of principle, but rarely dares to challenge it publicly any more. Alas.) Gays and lesbians just happen to be particularly attractive targets because, to the extent they make their flagrant offense against supposed biblical standards public—for example by seeking to have their marriages recognized publicly and officially—they are so easily ostracized and penalized, with the stroke of a pen or the clap of a gavel.

The Episcopal Church in the United States is vexed by the question of gay marriage, not just (or even primarily) because of debates over “biblical authority.” (With every new “study document” or “report” that agonizes over the proper exegesis of Romans 1 or Acts 10, I suspect that “we,” the Church, signal to our gay and lesbian members that “we” just don’t know what to do with “them” until “we” get our Bible passages lined up right. How demeaning that must sound in their ears!)

I think “we Episcopalians” continue to wrangle over the question—instead of deciding, simply and with a clear conscience, as other denominations have, that of course we recognize gay marriage, and then moving on to actually difficult questions like, say, how to challenge the austerity policies of the International Monetary Fund, to name the other pressing concern raised more than two decades ago at Lambeth 1988—because, like other Americans, we want to be able to look down on someone. We Episcopalians are genteel in our smugness, of course, and so we imagine that what sets us apart from other Christians is our refusal to descend into the sort of factionalism that tears lesser denominations apart. Of course, those denominational rifts often produce vital and committed new denominations with the freedom and vigor to get on with the work of mission. But never mind; that’s not for us: our pretense of unity in a fractious, abusive house is, we imagine, the symbol of our superiority.

None of these reflections will help my young gay correspondent feel encouraged. But perhaps they will shed light, for him and all of us, on just what we are facing in the months and years ahead, across the country and within the Episcopal Church as well. So long as we remain driven by the Puritanical need to look down on our neighbors for some perceived inferiority, gays and lesbians—but not only them—remain at risk.

 

Paul Wasn't Talking about Homosexuality in Romans 1

(Or: What Rob Gagnon Doesn't Know Might Hurt You)

Years ago I presented, in my book Liberating Paul,[1] the argument that what Paul says in Romans 1:24-27 should not be read as a theological indictment of homosexuals or as a theological analysis of “the homosexual condition.” The argument didn’t get much attention from other scholars (in fact, I’ve never seen any discussion of that part of the book). I’ve now repeated much the same argument, with greater detail, in The Arrogance of Nations,[2] and have received enthusiastic words of approval from three different scholars (to quote them: “I think you’re right”; “you convinced everyone in my graduate seminar on Romans”; “you blew my socks off”). But no one has given sustained attention to the argument in either book.

Which means that Robert Gagnon’s online critique of my argument—or at least of the condensed, more popular version of the argument that I posted several years ago at The Witness online—remains the most attention my argument has received. That also means that anyone wanting to find out what my argument is (for example, if they’d seen it referred to in Newsweek) and Googling my name would reach Gagnon’s critique before they struck on my original argument.

That is, I think, unfortunate, mainly because Rob misrepresents my argument in several important ways. I don’t know whether that’s because he simply doesn’t understand it (which I doubt—Rob is a bright enough guy) or because given his own assumptions, my argument just doesn’t make sense to him (a possibility I explore below). I think his assumptions are wrong. Or, put another way, we disagree because I don’t know as much as Rob thinks he knows. But then, I don't think he does, either.

In what follows I won't repeat my larger argument; it's available in fuller form in the two books mentioned above (and summarized in the Witness piece). I do want to address Rob's criticisms, however, as fairly as I can.

Off to a Bad Start 

Rob begins by summarizing my argument--badly. He sees it as my attempt at reductionism: that I read what Paul says as applying "only" to Roman emperors. (He repeats this allegation in a number of rhetorical questions throughout his essay, but because he's misrepresented my argument, they're all off the mark.) So, he alleges, I contend that "Paul in Rom 1:18-32 was thinking only of the emperor Nero and a predecessor, Gaius 'Caligula' . . ." But I never wrote "only." My argument is that Nero and Caligula are splendid examples, "Exhibit A and B," of the arrogance, immorality, and injustice that Paul excoriates, but the whole point--I argue--is that they are examples of a larger immorality especially exemplified in the Roman imperial house. This has nothing to do with individuals, it has everything to do with the morally corrosive effect of power.

So I don't for a minute think that this is a question of just how extensive emperor worship was, or whether Caligula might have settled down and been acceptable to Paul if he'd just met the right guy. For their surface cleverness, those really are rather dumb objections that have nothing to do with my argument but do show that Rob is obsessed with this text being about homosexuality. 

Rob continues, "Elliott believes that his new reading makes sense of Paul’s argument [in Romans 1--3]—an argument that otherwise 'disintegrates' into the 'incoherence' of 'prejudiced exaggeration,' 'stereotype,' and 'caricature.'" That's right, I do contend that, but it's worth noting that I'm not making up those characterizations. Scholars wiser than me have pointed to the rhetorical and logical problems in Romans 1--3: E. P. Sanders, Ernst Käsemann, Heikki Räisänen, among others (full footnotes in my books). Rob may not want to deal with the problems they've identified--they are, after all, remarkably inconvenient to traditional Reformed theology's appropriation of Romans--but ignoring the problems doesn't make them go away, and it certainly doesn't make them figments of my imagination. For Rob to ignore the problems just reflects Rob's prior commitments.  

Rob believes he already knows something that I don't know. As he writes, "Neil creates a problem of his own making and then attempts to solve it with a proposal that does not speak to the concerns of Scripture." Well, as I've just suggested, the "problem" isn't of my own making; this is a set of problems widely recognized by Romans scholars--the sort of problem that theologically minded interpreters actually have to work hard to get around, as Rob ought to know if he's done his homework. But the larger point here is that Rob writes as though he already knows what "the concerns of Scripture" are, so mere details like the troublesome text of Romans needn't bother him.  

What I Don't Know about the Bible (and Rob Doesn't, Either)

What Rob thinks he knows, specifically (and this is the part that can hurt you if you happen to be the sort of person who loves another person of your own gender), is that "the critique of same-sex intercourse is not limited to Paul but extends to the whole canon of Scripture, to say nothing of the univocal perspective against all same-sex intercourse that existed in the Judaisms of the Second Temple and rabbinic periods."

Wow. That's a lot of ground to cover. It's the sort of sweeping generalization you might make if you believed that the Bible was a single, theologically coherent fabric, coming in effect from a single author, so that what appears in one place (say, Leviticus 19) applies to every other writing and to the "whole canon," whether other parts of the Bible (say, the Gospels) mention it or (as a matter of fact) don't.

That's a lot to know. Or rather, it's a lot to believe: it's a theological assumption Rob makes about the Bible. Fundamentalists (and I use the term to describe a way of interpreting the Bible, whether or not Rob chooses to use the term for himself) like to imagine that they're just recognizing "what the Bible says" about itself (in places like 2 Tim. 3:16) when they make this sort of claim. But the Bible is not a self-explaining text. The historical record is clear that this collection of books (ta biblia in Greek, plural) was assembled over time. Of course some people (like Rob) read it as if it all spoke with the single voice of God, and of course some people have read it that way for centuries, although I note that the effort requires a lot more hermeneutical acrobatics (allegorical method in the early church; nowadays, doctrines of verbal inspiration "in the original autographs," etc., etc.) than is required, for example, for Muslims to read the Qur'an as the voice of God (after all, the Qur'an has the prima facie advantages of having been written in a single language, over the course of a few decades, and wholly in the first-person voice of God).

But that's not the only way to read the Bible. It's not the most reasonable way to read the Bible. And it's not the only Christian way to read the Bible.

If it were, we'd have to work really hard (and I concede that Rob does work really, really hard, in his big book) to explain, for example, why all those biblical passages telling slaves to keep a stiff upper lip don't really represent the single authoritative voice of God justifying slavery for all time. I'm just astonished that people like Rob don't see the fundamental methodological inconsistency here. Some of them will actually admit that yes, okay, whatever the Bible says about slavery was culturally conditioned, but go on to insist that that's not the case with sex. What God said about sex (not the parts about stoning women to death or having sex with your slave, of course, you know, the other stuff about how Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage, just like Joseph and Mary did) is absolute, transcendent, eternally valid. So--it follows naturally, at least for them--the hard work other scholars do to pay close attention to cultural contexts and what words actually meant in those contexts is a lot of unnecessary bother.

What I Don't Know (and Rob Doesn't, Either) about Romans

Rob also knows what Romans 1--3 is there for. Again, I quote him:

The whole point of the discussion in 1:18-3:20 is to “charge” that “both Jews and Greeks—all—are under sin” (3:9), that “no one is righteous, not even one” (3:10 . . .), and that “the whole world” is “under God’s judgment” (3:19), “for all have sinned and are lacking in the glory of God” (3:23). A critique limited to a couple of emperors would not establish this point.

The last line is correct, though irrelevant, since I don't see Paul's critique as "limited to a couple of emperors." But "the whole point" of Romans 1:18--3:20 is not what Rob says it is. Sure, I know, he sure sounds authoritative (after all, he's quoting the text). And sure, what he says sure sounds familiar (after all, most commentaries on our shelves repeat this argument over and over again). But the problems I mentioned before inhere right here. This supposed "argument" doesn't work as advertised; it wouldn't have moved anyone to accept Paul's conclusion if they weren't already convinced of it. That's why scholars like Sanders describe Paul's argument as working "backward."

Even Rob admits Paul is writing to convinced Christians. He also thinks that "later in Romans 6:15-23, Paul looks back on the discussion in 1:18-32" and "reminds [the Roman Christians] about their own behavior at the time that they were unbelievers." I note, first, that Paul says no such thing. He doesn't refer back to chap. 1 in chap. 6, nor does anything in chap. 6 "remind" the Romans that they used to commit murder and rob temples (crimes mentioned in chap. 1).

To be fair, this isn't just Rob's problem. How we get from the indictment in chap. 1 of people against whom the wrath of God is "being revealed," people worthy of death, to the assurance in chap. 6 that Paul's readers have been justified in Christ though they used to serve sin, is one of the chief puzzles of the letter. It's important to bear in mind that there really is a puzzle here. The conventional answer--the stuff of all the evangelistic sermons we've ever heard and all the "four spiritual laws" tracts we've ever picked up on the bus seat--is that Paul is simply explaining just how lost everyone is before Christ comes along to save them. The puzzle at the heart of the letter is why Paul spends time rehearsing that argument in a letter to people who have already accepted Christ. The leading answer, still printed in commentaries in the twenty-first century, is that Paul is trying to gain respect and support from the Roman church by showing a sample of the kind of initial preaching he would normally present to other people. 

I find that answer maddeningly unsatisfying. Sure, it's comfortable and familiar for Evangelical Christians because it reassures them of what they already know--Jesus died for our sins, we're saved, hallelujah. But this answer implies that the Roman church was made up of people like modern Evangelical readers: that is, people who already know Paul's gospel so the first chapters aren't really meant to impress them, just to reassure them of their status. I think that's a gigantic misreading of Romans.

I've argued, at length, in two books now, for a different reading of Romans, based on the sort of rhetorical criticism that other scholars have found useful (I name Nils Dahl, Ben Witherington, and Stanley Stowers, from all of whom I've learned a great deal, though I don't want to imply that they would agree with me on all of my conclusions!). I think my reading of Romans 1 makes sense within the larger argument of those books; at least, it's meant to.

I wouldn't mind if Rob didn't find those arguments convincing; but he doesn't address them. He misrepresents, and then rejects one part of my reading of Romans--the part that really annoys him because it's opposed to his reading of Romans 1 and, more largely, of "the concerns of Scripture" regarding homosexuality--by insisting that I just don't understand what Romans is about.

It's more accurate to say that I don't accept the conventional reading of Romans that he assumes. That doesn't mean, automatically, that he's right and I'm wrong (or vice versa). It means, I suggest, that Romans still presents a puzzle (or set of puzzles) to be explored. I've tried to explore them in my work; that exploration has led me to a different understanding of Romans 1. Rob hasn't engaged those puzzles or that exploration because his concern has been to demonstrate that the whole Bible has just one view of homosexuality, from beginning to end. And that, again, is more than I know.

Notes

[1] Neil Elliott, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994; Fortress Press edition, 2006), pp. 192-94.

[2] Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 75-83.

 

 

On Getting Over It (Gay Love and Marriage)

As the culture war over same-sex love and marriage intensifies, I marvel at the crowd who insist on “defending” one kind of marriage by legislating any other kind out of existence. What must their own marriages be like? Do self-righteousness and an obsession with finding fault with others make for sound and happy marriages?

Or is the point to enforce a rigid conformity to strict rules in order to please a punitive God? Somehow that doesn’t sound attractive. Wouldn’t they make better headway “defending marriage” by illegalizing divorce, requiring ten-year courtships supervised by parents and grandparents, and forbidding anyone in the 90210 zip code from going near a justice of the peace? If enforced righteousness is so important to them, why do they fret so (well, Newt Gingrich does) about the imminent imposition of “shariah law” in the United States? I mean, wouldn’t these folks be happier under a homegrown, “Christian” version of shariah?

I’m reposting here a column I wrote in 2004 because I think it still speaks to the issue of “defending marriage”; the Minneapolis Star Tribune published the column on January 2, 2004.

 

For Couples Like Stephen and Michael, Blessing and Hope

 My first official act after being ordained to the Episcopal clergy two years ago was to serve as deacon at what is customarily called a “same-sex blessing ceremony.”

Nothing particularly surprising there. Such ceremonies have been conducted in Minnesota for years—quietly at first, but at their 1999 convention the people of the diocese declared their resolve to “include, welcome, and embrace [their] gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members” and “to continue to make available to them all of the blessings of Christ’s beloved church.”

I’d seen Michael and Stephen in church for weeks preceding the ceremony. They were obviously experienced in the complexities of Episcopal worship, standing and sitting at the  appropriate places and joining in the prayers without having to look at their prayer books. They also stood side by side with the ease and comfort that comes from an established affection.

Now as they stood before the priest, I had the opportunity to catch their eyes. Michael seemed about to burst into laughter or tears, or both, trembling slightly with a powerful blend of joy, solemn awe, and nerves. Outwardly more serene, Stephen beamed at his partner with a loving solicitude, as if to radiate calm with his gaze.

I scanned the congregation’s faces and found the usual mix of radiant smiles and joyful tears. I also saw one or two people looking rather apprehensive, as if they weren’t sure what would come next.

What came next was pretty familiar stuff, following the general outlines of a traditional church wedding. We listened to scripture, to specially chosen music, and to the priest’s homily exhorting and encouraging the couple to be gentle with each other. Then they pledged their lives to each other in love and mutual respect. We joined in prayer that their life together would be a source of blessing to them and to others.

Like a lot of people, I get choked up whenever I hear two people make outlandish public promises to love and honor each other. This day was different, however. I didn’t know what challenges either man had had to face to bring him to this moment, but it was safe to presume that neither had been able simply to coast with the cultural current, even in Minnesota. It took courage for each to stand before an assembly of the people who knew him best and declare undying love for another man.

Amid the controversy swirling in my own church and elsewhere, we hear cries of alarm that accepting homosexual relationships will somehow endanger “traditional” marriage. For the life of me, I don’t know what that means.

How could the example of committed love between two men cause me to defect emotionally from my wife, unless I were secretly gay myself? In that case, wouldn’t my marriage rest on a very fragile foundation already? Wouldn’t dissolving a marriage based on a false premise free two people for new, more fulfilling, emotionally secure, and lasting relationships, including, perhaps, a much stronger heterosexual marriage?

Perhaps the alarmists fear that if all of us were free to follow our own hearts, marriage as we know it would come to an end. But doesn’t that anxiety presume already that our hearts aren’t in our marriages?

Stephen and Michael’s vows did stir up strong feelings within me. I was inspired to return to my own marriage with renewed commitment, a clearer sense of what mattered most in my life. But that’s just what we ask of every wedding ceremony: “Grant that all married persons who have witnessed these vows may find their lives strengthened and their loyalties confirmed,” as the Book of Common Prayer puts it.

In our consumerist society, the commodification of sex and the infinite interchangeability of relationships are pervasive values. Any two people preparing to commit themselves to a shared life need all the support and encouragement a community can provide. In my own search for such a community, courageous lovers like Stephen and Michael have been important and powerful examples. I’d rather have them as allies and models than shut them out in fear, circling the emotional wagons around only the people who I presume think and feel just as I do.

I think the Episcopal Church is trying to build that kind of supportive community. When, this past August [2003], we approved the election of an openly gay priest as bishop, we were saying, first, that we recognized the gifts and calling that our New Hampshire neighbors had seen in this holy and gracious man. We were also saying that we recognize the beauty and godly worth of caring, self-denying love, and that we seek to bless, support, and defend it wherever we find it. Since our General Convention in 2000, that’s been the official teaching of our church. I pray we have the grace and good sense to practice what we preach.