In any case, I don't really feel like being any more concise, so I'm pasting it here:
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I guess the answers to your questions would largely hinge on whether it is the vocation of any Christian--regardless of his station, be it teacher, politician, or garbageman--to "build Christendom." And that is why I can't get off this sticky widget: what Dickens is Christendom?!?!
Perhaps that whole debacle calls for its own post; I have a feeling it does and will be generating one once I collect my thoughts. For now, though, I'll give my quick takes, which I will try to keep relevant to Byrthnoth's post as well.
I agree with Byrthnoth: there is no purely civil libertarian argument against gay "marriage." For perhaps the best treatment of this issue, and one which examines it in the context of a much more widespread collapse of Western sexual ethics, read Christopher Oleson's piece "Phony Matrimony" in Touchstone magazine
I suppose the simplest argument against gay marriage when you're talking about building Christendom, regardless of how you define it, is that Christendom must be peopled! And, well...that demographic just ain't puttin' out. In all seriousness, though, I don't know if there's an argument to be made against civil unions for gays in our contemporary legal context. Natural law theory is dead. I mean, it shouldn't be. I'm sad that it is. But unless its corpus gets reanimated somehow, it's not much of a peg to hang anything on in the federal courts. Whether we (Christians) ought to try to find ways to "make them stop, Mommy!" is another question, the answer to which, I think must be "only through legal means." And if that can't be done, we accept what the magistrates say...unless they start telling us to engage in homosexual acts. See, that's a positive injunction to sin which we are bound to disobey.
I'm being cheeky and hyperbolic, but I'm also trying to illustrate a completely serious point. I mentioned this earlier in my comment on Brian's post on the Belgic Confession. Maybe we'd like to have more prohibitions in place, more specific curbs on man's sinfulness, in the civil government. There are means of bringing that about. James seems to think that the ballot measure isn't one of them. Maybe he's right. I haven't given it much thought. Regardless, absent a dramatic sea-change in government, however (like the US becoming a benevolent dictatorship overnight), we are bound to follow the laws. Likewise we are prohibited by God from engaging in vigilantism. It is not sinful to suffer the sinfulness of others (e.g., "Turn the other cheek"), unless it is your office, your vocation, to bind and to loose, to wield the keys whereby forgiveness is proclaimed or withheld. Unless you're a pastor of the Church, this isn't you. As Christian laymen we are constrained on a daily basis to tolerate the wickedness of the world and its denizens. Yes, tolerate them. Put up with them. Otherwise you're in an uncomfortable position of being compelled by conscience to disobey any government which is not completely legitimate, whose laws do not mandate perfect holiness. The problem is that no such government exists or can exist. You'd be honor bound to live as a rebel all your life. But you would be, sadly, "a rebel without a clue," in the immortal words of the philosopher Petty. Governments are flawed institutions administered by human beings; there is not a one of them whose founding is not steeped in blood. They're all illegitimate in one way or another. But they're still authoritative. The fact remains, though, that we would not need them were we not fallen. We would not need the negative which they have been given to wield--the administration of violence, the sword. It's been said that we'd still need traffic lights, stop signs and the like, but I don't think there would be cars in an unfallen world. Well, maybe there'd still be BMWs.
...but I digress.
I'm not sure what annoys me more: the fact that homosexuals are allowed to "marry," or that all the rubes from the Christian Coalition et al are out there on the steps of the nation's courthouses protesting in a high dudgeon like they own the place, incredulous that this could have happened in God's Country!
Why are they/we so surprised? Why are they protesting at a courthouse? This is a human problem at base, not a political one. I'm not saying that there are no political steps which must be taken as well, but they're already being taken -- at the ballot box. And for now, marriage amendments (which I am uneasy about to say the least) are passing by the slimmest of margins, and gay "marriage" is still illegal in most states. But that's not making anyone less gay, remember? So vote against them if they come up in your state. But if and when they pass, you are duty-bound to obey the law, and tolerate civil marriages between gays. You can move to a different state, or retreat to the country. But you have to honor the law--again, unless the terms of a particular law are telling you that YOU, sir, must marry a man, in which case, sure, protest. Disobey.
Not only is it a bad idea to build Christendom, I'm not sure we have the right to build it. But then there's that bugaboo again: WHAT IS THIS CHRISTENDOM THAT WE SHOULD/SHOULD NOT BUILD?? Suffice it to say that I remain dubious about the possibility of a political alliance of Christian states, dubious, even, of the notion of a "Christian state," as I've said before.
Thoughts? Byrthnoth, yours especially...
Point of note: I wouldn't vote no on a good law because I disagree with ballot proposals; it was a cheap swipe a Dr Gamble.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, there is the injunction in scripture that he that does not protect his own is less than in infidel. Since its not historical, I can bring up a very present happening in Lebanon where Christian neighborhoods (or importing the way Jefferson spoke of the country he governed, neighborhoods of Christians) form militias to monitor and defend themselves against muslims, specifically Hezbollah. And yes, I know that there are Christians in Hezbollah, but for the most part its a muslim organization....fine, an organization of muslims.
Anyway, these groups form a defense league for just that, defense, but they are bound together primarily by their faith. Was the Smalcaldic League not similar? One could not join simply for political reasons, England couldn't join but wanted too; no, a political body had to hold to a particular confession of faith to join a political organization. I suppose that was league of Christian states, or at least of Lutheran ones. Likewise, the case of the Christian militia groups (vocations as fathers?) could be abstracted up to the level of the state (like in Plato's Republic).
Point of note: the League was a pragmatic political body erected for particular, unique political circumstances. Much of its character can be attributed to this fact, not simply to the principles contained in the Lutheran symbolic writings. Notably, they didn't have anything like a "League Growth Movement"; they weren't proselytizing politically; proselytizing, i.e., preaching the Word to the unregenerate, went on separately, as the work of the Church in the kingdoms of the SL. Suffice it to say, however, that the League was a reactionary measure (in a good way); it was a pragmatic application of the theology of Augsburg to the imperial circumstances of the day. In the end, its history does not really ratify the point you are trying to make, I don't think. Had there not been a Holy Roman Empire (i.e.,Christendom), it is unlikely that the Lutherans would have felt the urge to construct a League. This of course begs the question of whether there'd even be Lutherans, at the very least, to say nothing of the other 300+ flavors of Protestant. Whatever. Do what you will with that pair of counterfactuals. I graduated, and therefore do not have to be serious historian. Not that I ever was one, nor am I at risk of becoming one.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but I suspect you're trying to find within Lutheranism -- whether in its history or theological writings -- a warrant for a more progressive, politically reform-oriented frame of mind than I think you are going to find among the orthodox. Search the writings of Luther, Chemnitz, and Gerhard (the three great ones; unfortunately Melanchthon gets axed from this lineup because of the Phillipist controversy; don't shoot the messenger, I like him, too) -- I don't think you'll find what you're looking for. The only strain of Lutheranism which is at all conducive to what you seem to be describing would be the eighteenth century Pietism out of Halle and Wurtemburg, especially the former. Phillip Jakob Spener and Hermann August Francke both dissented from the orthodox understanding of Two Kingdoms theology; both espoused views far more similar to the sixteenth-century Phillipists, who themselves held a Reformed view of the theological "first use" of the Law. A seemingly small difference in theory here amounts to a vast difference in practice. Actually, even in theory, the difference is huge. It's like accidentally using a negative integer in math instead of a positive one; it's only small on paper -- nowhere else. It was almost exclusively these Prussian Pietists who settled in America in the colonial period, and exclusively these Pietists who vociferously supported the American Revolution. The Puritanism which helped propel the Revolution, while it would have been strange fish to the Gnesio-Lutherans, resonated quite happily with Hallensian and Wurtemburger Pietism. Daniel Patrick Muhlenburg, one of George Washington's greatest generals, was, in fact, a Lutheran minister. Again, the orthodox wouldn't have touched this with a ten-foot pole -- the whole "men of the cloth shall not touch arms" thing -- but the Pietists were on it like mud. It wasn't until the 1840s that a migration of orthodox Lutherans came to America, settling in enclaves in Missouri and near the Mississippi headwaters in Minnesota. They mostly kept to themselves.
Where does it say that he who does not protect his own is less than an infidel? Honest question. I like it.
I am wondering what CLS v Martinez implies about Suedeπgraph's point about the state ordering us to shack up. I believe the SCOTUS ruling says that private organizations who have a presence at public universities do not have the right to discriminate regarding their private membership and elected officers.
ReplyDeleteThat seems to be a whole new degree of public intrusion into private morality, not to mention (as the linked FPR article points out) the destruction of yet another intermediary body of authority between the so-called "individual" and the state.
Mark, have you read Nisbet's The Quest for Community? That's the text that all the FPers are working from. It may well do a similar thing for you as Historical Consciousness did.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to justify things for the lutheran mind dwelling within me. That would be dumb, because my mind isn't very Lutheran (I think I've suggested Free Meth to more freshmen at this point), and Lutheran history, on the whole, is not something I'm a huge fan of. I'm trying to find concrete things to talk about rather than "the church and the state should be separate." Its easy to talk about abstractions, but it also means nothing. I'm not searching for something in the Lutheran history, I'm asking questions about specific moments that have bearing here. For that matter, Augustine's writing is another specific thing to talk about. The Reformed Confession posted earlier was another fine example of an actual instantiation of something for us to discuss.
ReplyDeleteThat said, your comments back on Smalcald have been specific, informative, and have had bearing on the discussion.
Trying to avoid being a Platonist and discussing a bunch of disembodied ideals.
Not a huge fan of Lutheran history? It is what it is. Are you saying that you're not a big fan of Lutherans, historically?
ReplyDeleteYes, the Reformed Confession was a fine example of something for us to discuss, namely, crappy theology. We discussed it. My tack here hasn't been hard to follow. I think I explained why I think it's wrong. In my arguments here, I have been arguing from what I believe is a more or less consistent position -- consistent in and of itself, and consistent with the Lutheran confessions, which I hold to be the best epitome of Christian orthodoxy in Christendom (here used to mean "all Christians everywhere." If I didn't think that, I wouldn't be Lutheran. So, yes, I'm Lutheran in my thinking, i.e., my mind is Lutheran, and I'm seeking to make it more Lutheran -- not idiosyncratically so, but inasmuch as to do so is to acquire and develop a catholic and orthodox perspective with respect to doctrine and practice. With that said, you should consider doing one of two things: making your mind more Lutheran, since you profess to be one, or, alternatively, leaving the Lutheran church and becoming a Free Methodist. You might also look to your spiritual fathers in the Lutheran Church, including but not limited to your pastor and older men in the Lutheran church who are more formed in this confession's understanding of Two Kingdom theology.
Also, I wish to challenge your assertions that "abstractions...mean nothing." That statement is an abstraction, Byrthnoth. Abstractions are quite helpful sometimes. Are you really suggesting that theoretical discussion is pointless and meaningless? Or have you really misunderstood the abstractions of one Dr. Jackson, your bearded friend and mine, which, at first glance, seem to identify all abstract/conceptual/theoretical thought as somehow un-incarnational? Yeah, that's just dumb. Or rather that would be dumb. If you were doing that. I hope you're not.
Come down off the cloud and join the rest of us who can speak both theoretically and practically. There is a nuanced relationship between theory and practice, to be sure, and it it is oft misconstrued, to be sure, leading some to overcompensate.
Yes, there have been several good, concrete examples pertaining to the rectitude of Christendom. But we're not here to list examples. We're all participating in a Conversation on Christendom here. So it would seem that some people would be taking positions for or against Christendom, whereas some others would be undecided. I'm not undecided. I oppose a political Christendom, and I think I've explained my position regarding a cultural Christendom in previous posts. Does having and defending a position mean that it might not change, or be modified? No. Does it make one a prophet of abstraction? No. It means that I think I'm right. I think that you think you're right, too. I certainly hope you don't think you're wrong. So I intend to keep arguing with people on this blog whom I think the evidence -- be it theological, historical, philosophical, etc. -- shows to be wrong. You should, too.
All that said, I'm glad that you've opened up the conversation as you have done. We do need to talk about possible layers of meaning to the term Christendom, but that talk has to fructify in argument for or against things eventually.
I may have read any essay or two by Nisbet. I suppose I ought to get my hands on the Quest for Community.
ReplyDelete