Author: Ron Belgau

Talking With vs. Talking About

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Last November, Justin Lee and I were invited to Gordon College in Massachusetts to do a presentation like the one we gave at Pepperdine University a couple of years ago. Afterwards, some of the student organizers decided to create a blog to allow them to continue the conversations begun by our presentations, and invited me to write an introductory post. Here’s what I had to say:

Whenever I’m invited to speak at a college campus, I think back to my experiences in my late teens and early twenties. What would I have wanted to hear from a talk like this back then? And, what do I wish my friends had heard?

I was in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship as an undergrad. Not surprisingly, given the audience, we had speakers talking about how to prepare for marriage and choose a good spouse, and about struggles like premarital sex, pornography, etc. When these topics were discussed, they spoke in the first person plural, as questions we were interested in, or some of us struggled with.

But when homosexuality was addressed at all, discussion tended to shift to the third person: what should we Christians say about them?

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Confusion at Crisis

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Austin Ruse isn’t sure what to think about me, which is ok. I’m not sure what I think about him, either.

A few days ago, he published a piece about my writings in Crisis Magazine. In the first, and by far the largest, part of the piece, which was based closely on what I have actually written, he took a very positive tone, recognizing that I have written a lot that unequivocally defends Catholic sexual ethics.

I appreciate his attempt at giving my views a fair shake. And, since the piece came out, Spiritual Friendship has had about 10,000 more page views than I would have expected based on past readership. So I’m glad that at least some of those who read his pieces in Crisis came over to check out what we had to say. I hope that they got a clearer picture of what we’re up to.

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A First Response to Austin Ruse

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Pope Francis

Last week, Crisis Magazine published a critical profile of my writings by Austin Ruse.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent some time thinking about Ruse’s article and following the comments on his Crisis articles. I’ve also been reading some of his other writings about homosexuality and the reactions he’s triggered in the gay press. (I would not recommend this as a way of spending your Christmas holidays.)

In the midst of all of this, I’ve tried to figure out what to say in response that is charitable and likely to move the conversation forward.

Ruse presents himself as deeply committed to Church teaching on this question. And if we limit the message of the Church to “gay sex is an abomination,” there is no question that Ruse communicates this teaching clearly, with emphasis, and with a certain joie de combat.

However, in an interview published in America Magazine last summer, Pope Francis said:

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.

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The Line Dividing Good and Evil

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In the midst of all the last minute shopping, holiday parties, Christmas music, Santa Clause, and so forth, it’s easy to forget why Jesus came in the first place: to save us from our sin.

In the Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

If evil were something done by evil people to good people, then God would only need to destroy the evil people. But since “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being,” God had to use a different plan to save us.

I worry that few far too many American Christians have forgotten that this Christmas. Over at Part of a Plan, Zachary Perkins writes:

About a week ago, Phil Robertson was suspended from his family’s show Duck Dynasty for comments he made regarding homosexuality. The fury poured forth from social media like none other. Many Christian are even now organizing boycotts against A&E.

About two to three days later, Uganda passes a bill through it’s legislative body that is now waiting a signature from the President which would imprison homosexuals for life, give 14 years imprisonment to Ugandan citizens that help gays and potentially put some gays to death. Update: The death penalty provision has been shelved, but the long prison terms remain.

It’s been three days since the news from Uganda broke out. I’ve searched through ChristianityToday.com, ChristianPost.com, and CBN.com, but there is still not one mention of the story that Uganda has passed a bill which could put to death gays and lesbians. I even searched ReligionToday.com and instead of finding stories about Uganda’s growing violence towards gays and lesbian people in their community, I saw one story titled “Ugandan Church’s Remarkable Growth”.  Phil Robertson’s story is still plastered all over the front pages of these outlets.

“For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” In either our loud crusades or in our silent complicity, is that the message the world is hearing from Christians this Christmas?

Persons, Not Body Parts

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In my post yesterday, I said nothing about the substance of Phil Robertson’s comments to GQ Magazine. I said only that I did not think his comments about gays were bad enough to deserve suspension (I actually think his comments on race are more disturbing, though as far as I know A&E didn’t make an issue of these comments in announcing his suspension).

I deliberately did not address the substance of his comments, because I didn’t want to seem to be joining the people piling on and calling for his head. However, I then spent a lot of time yesterday moderating comments here and at First Things, and became convinced that I needed to say something more about the substance of Robertson’s remarks.

I have no objection to Robertson paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; I’ve quoted those verses on various occasions myself. However, there is a glaring problem in his comments that none of his defenders seem to see.

In pointing this out, I want to be clear that I am responding to his comments in the GQ interview. I do not watch his show, and I do not know him personally. However, since the interview is the source of controversy, and the interview is what many Christians are defending, I think it worthwhile pointing out that at least part of what he said in the interview should have attracted much more objection from Christians than it has. A blanket defense of Robertson’s words is, from a Christian perspective, indefensible.

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A Brief Note on Phil Robertson and Double Standards

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I’ll join Wes in making a brief comment on the Phil Robertson fiasco.

First: I agree with Rod Dreher that Robertson’s suspension shows a double standard on the part of A&E, a standard that is much more hostile to criticism of homosexuality than it is to other offensive content.

However, this reminds me of Rod’s gushingly positive response to Joshua Gonnerman’s first post on First Things just 18 months ago. The title of Rod’s post was “One Crazy — Or Very Brave — Gay Catholic,” and he began by saying, “Joshua Gonnerman, a gay, chaste Catholic who is a theology doctoral student at Catholic University, may have blown up his academic career with his short, courageous piece in First Things today.”

Why would it take courage for Joshua to write that post, and why would it potentially blow up his academic career?

Because A&E is not the only operation out there that has double standards when it comes to homosexuality.

Rod recognized that a chaste gay graduate student would not just be at a disadvantage when it came to looking for jobs in conservative Christian circles: he could be at such a serious disadvantage that disclosing his sexuality could amount to “blowing up” his academic career.

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Chris Damian on Marriage at Intercollegiate Review

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The Intercollegiate Review has been running a series of posts about same-sex marriage as part of symposium called “Sex and the Polis: Perspectives on Marriage, Family, and Sexual Ethics.” 

Today, they have a post from our own Chris Damian, “Defining Marriage Isn’t Defending Marriage“:

Conservatives aren’t losing to the culture on marriage because they’re wrong. They’re losing because they’re answering the wrong question, because they’ve failed to grasp what the issue actually is. It isn’t same sex marriage: it’s people wanting same sex marriage.

Read the whole thing  > > >

USCCB: The Necessity of Friendship and Community

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In 2006, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a document entitled Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination: Guidelines for Pastoral Care [pdf]. The following excerpt comes from the section on “The Necessity of Friendship and Community.” 

One way in which the Church can aid persons with a homosexual inclination is by nurturing the bonds of friendship among people. In their analysis of human nature, the ancient philosophers recognized that friendship is absolutely essential for the good life, for true happiness. Friendships of various kinds are necessary for a full human life, and they are likewise necessary for those attempting to live chastely in the world. There can be little hope of living a healthy, chaste life without nurturing human bonds. Living in isolation can ultimately exacerbate one’s disordered tendencies and undermine the practice of chastity.

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Spiritual Friendship and Christian Ministry

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Although theoretical reflection about spiritual friendship is important, there is also an important place for talking about the practicalities of how it gets lived out day-to-day.

Over the last few years, I’ve gotten to know a number of young Christian professionals and grad students here in St. Louis. Although our careers spanned a range of disciplines, we had enough common interests that we could get along well and have meaningful conversations.

In some ways, the life of this group of friends is quite mundane. We’re all quite busy with our studies and work. But we still make time to go hiking on weekends, or grab dinner and a movie, or hang out at a pub, or walk around Forest Park or the Botanical Garden. Sometimes there are more of us involved in these activities, sometimes smaller subsets of the group—even just two or three—will do something.

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Till We Have Faces

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blank faceThe Fall, 2013 issue of Leadership Journal has an article by Stanton Jones up entitled, “Help, I’m Gay.” It is billed as “A pastoral conversation about same-sex attraction.”

The editors chose to illustrate the article with the picture at left.

This would be a good image to use on a gun range, where shooters can see the outline of a human head with no human features to disturb them as they practice aiming to kill. It is not an appropriate image for preparing Christian leaders to respond like Christ to the plea, “Help, I’m gay.”

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people have faces. If Christian leaders want to offer pastoral care to us, they need to be able to look us in the face. If they will not show our faces, or are uncomfortable looking at our faces, they are not seeing us as human beings, and are not ready to be Christ to us.

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