Month: May 2007

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Christopher Roberts on Marriage

Christopher Roberts Creation & Covenant: The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage

Does sexual difference matter for marriage? Are there good theological reasons why the two main characters in a marriage should be a male and a female, or is marriage a more flexible covenant, which any two people can keep? Creation and Covenant analyzes latent but under-examined beliefs about sexual difference in the theology about marriage which has been dominant for centuries in the Christian west. The book opens by studying patristic theologies of marriage, which rested on mostly implicit and often incompatible beliefs about sexual difference. However, Roberts argues that Augustine developed a coherent theology of sexual difference, according it a shifting significance from creation to eschaton. Roberts traces how Augustine’s theology influenced and was developed by subsequent theologians, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Luther, Barth, and John Paul II. Finally, Roberts engages today’s debates about gay marriage.

Before becoming an academic, Dr. Roberts was a journalist. On behalf of PBS television, he covered both the Lambeth Conference in England and the World Council of Churches in Zimbabwe. During those years, he was disappointed by both the liberal and conservative arguments on homosexuality. Left-wingers seemed more interested in privacy, autonomy, and experience than in theology, and right-wingers seemed to have lots of prohibitions but little good news. In the final chapters, this book tries to do better, inviting liberals to improve the standard of their arguments, and explaining what is beautiful and persuasive about the traditional case.

This book articulates often latent and under-examined, but nonetheless significant, beliefs about sexual difference in the theology about marriage which has been dominant in the Christian west. Chapter one explains that patristic theologies of marriage rested on mostly implicit beliefs about sexual difference, and sometimes these beliefs were incompatible with one another. However, chapter two argues that Augustine developed a coherent theological anthropology of sexual difference, according it a shifting significance from creation to eschaton. Chapters three through five show that for the major subsequent pre-modern theologians, the significance of sexual difference was rarely the subject of direct discussion. Nevertheless, Augustine’s most important successors both presupposed and occasionally developed his beliefs about sexual difference. Bernard of Clairvaux shows how sexual difference in marriage is privileged material for allegories of God’s love; Aquinas emphasised the procreative significance of sexual difference; and the Reformers argued that because God made the sexes, marriage should be central to Christian life. Chapters six and seven study Barth and John Paul II, who each discuss sexual difference with a hitherto unknown degree of sustained systematic attention. Their anthropology and biblical exegesis is rooted in Christology, which leads them to conclude that humanity is created for fellowship, and that sexual difference is necessary for this fellowship. Chapter eight explains why certain contemporary and revisionist theologies of marriage, notably ones which seek a rationale for gay and lesbian marriages, are problematic. These contemporary theologies have not yet reckoned with theologically important and defensible claims about the meaning of sexual difference. The conclusion suggests that renewed clarity and selfconsciousness about the theological significance of sexual difference should strengthen any Christian ethic of sexuality and marriage, enabling the church to be more articulate in its dialogue with contemporary culture and science, and more coherent in its own internal practices.

â??The question of the significance of sexual difference is at the heart of many divisions within contemporary society. It is producing hurtful tensions within all of the major Christian Churchesâ?¦.Robertsâ?? contribution to the debate is forceful and scholarly, while always charitable. This powerfully argued case for the abiding importance of our sexual identity shows how rich can be the contribution of the Christian tradition to our societyâ??s present search to understand the meaning of our lives. Even those who do not accept all of the authorâ??s conclusions should be grateful for this beautifully written and profound book. It will help us all in our journey towards understanding who we are in Christ.â?? – Timothy Radcliffe, OP, former Master General of the Dominican Order

â??Sexual ethics and gay marriage — Creation and Covenant is essential reading for anyone who wants to think about these issues in light of the Western Christian tradition. Roberts helps us see and resist the Gnostic temptation that so dominates the moral imagination of modern cultureâ?¦.A very fine book – just the sort of patient survey of the classical tradition we need, and absolutely on target as far as the core theological issue is concerned. It’s the sort of book that will be very helpful for teaching a seminar on sexual ethics.” – R. R. Reno, Creighton University, and editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.

â??In Creation and Covenant, Christopher Roberts has done both church and society a great service. â?¦We cannot go forward with any of these issues in the future without Roberts’ excellent guide to the past.â?? – Don Browning, University of Chicago and author of Marriage and Modernization Creation and Covenant

You would like a publisher’s discount? How about $78, or £39? Get in touch and I’ll pass you right along

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Benedict on Irenaeus

Dear brothers and sisters, in the catechesis on the prominent figures of the early Church, today we come to the eminent personality of St Irenaeus of Lyons.

…Irenaeus was concerned to describe the genuine concept of the Apostolic Tradition which we can sum up here in three points.

a) Apostolic Tradition is “public”, not private or secret. Irenaeus did not doubt that the content of the faith transmitted by the Church is that received from the Apostles and from Jesus, the Son of God. There is no other teaching than this. Therefore, for anyone who wishes to know true doctrine, it suffices to know “the Tradition passed down by the Apostles and the faith proclaimed to men”: a tradition and faith that “have come down to us through the succession of Bishops” (Adversus Haereses, 3, 3, 3-4). Hence, the succession of Bishops, the personal principle, and Apostolic Tradition, the doctrinal principle, coincide.

b) Apostolic Tradition is “one”. Indeed, whereas Gnosticism was divided into multiple sects, Church Tradition is one in its fundamental content, which – as we have seen – Irenaeus calls precisely regula fidei or veritatis: and thus, because it is one, it creates unity through the peoples, through the different cultures, through the different peoples; it is a common content like the truth, despite the diversity of languages and cultures. A very precious saying of St Irenaeus is found in his book Adversus Haereses: “The Church, though dispersed throughout the world… having received [this faith from the Apostles]… as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world” (1, 10, 1-2). Already at that time – we are in the year 200 – it was possible to perceive the Church’s universality, her catholicity and the unifying power of the truth that unites these very different realities, from Germany, to Spain, to Italy, to Egypt, to Libya, in the common truth revealed to us by Christ.

c) Lastly, the Apostolic Tradition, as he says in the Greek language in which he wrote his book, is “pneumatic”, in other words, spiritual, guided by the Holy Spirit: in Greek, the word for “spirit” is “pneuma”. Indeed, it is not a question of a transmission entrusted to the ability of more or less learned people, but to God’s Spirit who guarantees fidelity to the transmission of the faith. This is the “life” of the Church, what makes the Church ever young and fresh, fruitful with multiple charisms. For Irenaeus, Church and Spirit were inseparable: “This faith”, we read again in the third book of Adversus Haereses, “which, having been received from the Church, we do preserve, and which always, by the Spirit of God, renewing its youth as if it were some precious deposit in an excellent vessel, causes the vessel itself containing it to renew its youth also…. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every kind of grace” (3, 24, 1).

As can be seen, Irenaeus did not stop at defining the concept of Tradition. His tradition, uninterrupted Tradition, is not traditionalism, because this Tradition is always enlivened from within by the Holy Spirit, who makes it live anew, causes it to be interpreted and understood in the vitality of the Church. Adhering to her teaching, the Church should transmit the faith in such a way that it must be what it appears, that is, “public”, “one”, “pneumatic”, “spiritual”.

Starting with each one of these characteristics, a fruitful discernment can be made of the authentic transmission of the faith in the today of the Church. More generally, in Irenaeus’ teaching, the dignity of man, body and soul, is firmly anchored in divine creation, in the image of Christ and in the Spirit’s permanent work of sanctification. This doctrine is like a “high road” in order to discern together with all people of good will the object and boundaries of the dialogue of values, and to give an ever new impetus to the Church’s missionary action, to the force of the truth which is the source of all true values in the world.

Pope Benedict XVI on Irenaeus (General Audience Wednesday 28th March 2007)

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Whenever I face another human being, I face a mystery

Christianity teaches that each person is created by God with a distinct calling and capacity. For the Christian believer, human dignity – and therefore any notion of human rights – depends upon the recognition that every person is related to God before they are related to anything or anyone else; that God has defined who they are and who they can be by his own eternal purpose, which cannot be altered by any force or circumstance in this world. People may refuse their calling or remain stubbornly unaware of it; but God continues to call them and to offer them what they need to fulfil their calling. And the degree to which that calling is answered or refused has consequences for eternity.

This means that whenever I face another human being, I face a mystery. There is a level of their life, their existence, where I cannot go and which I cannot control, because it exists in relation to God alone – a secret word he speaks to each one, whether they hear or refuse to hear, in the phrase from the prophecy of Ezekiel. The reverence I owe to every human person is connected with the reverence I owe to God’s creative Word which brings them into being and keeps them in being. I stand before holy ground when I encounter another person – not because they are born with a set of legal rights which they can demand and enforce, but because there is a dimension of their life I shall never fully see, the dimension where they come forth from the purpose of God into the world, with a unique set of capacities and possibilities. The Christian will have the same commitment to human rights and human dignity; but they will have it because of this underlying reverence, not because of some legal entitlement.

. . . .

The churches do not campaign for political control (which would undermine their appeal to the value of personal freedom) but for public visibility – for the capacity to argue for and defend their vision in the public sphere, to try and persuade both government and individuals of the possibility of a more morally serious way of ordering public life.

Archbishop Rowan Williams Christianity Public Religion and the Common Good St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore 12th May 2007.

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Islamic self-criticism

In a striking example of self-analysis, about 500 delegates, including both practising and nominal Muslims, attended an inaugural Secular Islam Summit this month in St Petersburg, Florida.

The declaration was signed by such luminaries as Ibn Warraq, a widely published author, whoA group of prominent secular Muslims has shown the kind of unconditional willingness to engage in self-criticism which is so well-established in the non-Muslim West. The declaration points the finger at some of the pillars of institutional Islam, calling on governments to â??reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their formsâ??, and to â??oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy, in accordance with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsâ??.

Rather than trumpeting the message of Muslim conservatives, who call for obedience to authority structures, this new group demands â??the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxyâ??.
In perhaps the most controversial statement of all, the group calls for â??a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islamâ??. This suggests that the scriptural foundations of Islam, the Qurâ??an and Hadith, should be subject to scrutiny.

Of course, there must be some doubt about the extent to which the secular Muslims will have any impact in Muslim-majority countries. Yet theirs is a voice that is long overdue. Under the right circumstances, they might trigger a process of profound self-examination among some Muslims.

Peter G. Riddell A breath of Islamic fresh air – Secular Muslims are creating signs of hope: donâ??t knock them

The St Petersburg Declaration – There is a noble future for Islam as a personal faith, not a political doctrine

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Europe’s predicament is self-inflicted

Europe’s current problems are entirely self-inflicted. This does not mean, however, that the result will be less catastrophic. By subverting the roots of its own Judeo-Christian culture – a process that started with the French Enlightenment (as opposed to the Scottish Enlightenment, which was not anti-religious) – a religious and cultural vacuum was created at the heart of European civilization. The collapse of faith in its own values has, not surprisingly, led to a demographic collapse because a civilization that no longer believes in its own future also rejects procreation. Today, a new religion and culture is supplanting the old one. There is little one can do about it, but hope for a miracle.

America’s immigration problems pale in comparison with what confronts Europe. America’s major ethnic minorities – Blacks as well as Hispanics – are Christian, while the meanstream culture is also rooted in Christianity. In Europe a secularized post-Christian culture is facing a Muslim one. The secularized culture is hedonist and values only its present life, because it does not believe in an afterlife. This is why it will surrender when threatened with death because life is the only thing it has to lose. This is why it will accept submission without fighting for its freedom. Nobody fights for the flag of hedonism, not even the hedonists themselves.

I suppose one could feel sad about all this, but sadness is not what I feel. One can feel compassion for those who die in accidents, fall in battle or get murdered (like the countless unborn children that perish every day) but can one pity those who have killed their own future for the pleasures of the present? Europe’s predicament, I repeat, is entirely self-inflicted. Not Islam is to blame. Secularism is.

Paul Belien The Closing of Civilization in Europe

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The reduction of scripture

One of the points made was that many religious houses, whilst centred deeply on prayer and the eucharist, have allowed the study of scripture to fall into neglect. When it does take place, it is predominantly the individual religious who ‘studies scripture’, meditating alone with his or her Bible. Aside from recitation of the psalms and the lections in worship, there is little if any communal engagement with scripture – and its use in worship is in any case a thing distinct from study.

It is not only the ‘catholic’ tradition that faces worries about the quality of scripture study in the life of the Church today. Many of those gathering in the Deep Church group in London come from charismatic and/or evangelical backgrounds, and feel that their traditions while professing to be ‘biblically based’ often engage with scripture in a relatively superficial way. This can be because a strong doctrinal paradigm acts to preempt a sustained attentiveness to the possibilities and nuances of a text – the reader already ‘knows’ what she is going to find; she thus hears what she expects to hear. It can also be because scriptural texts are deployed in relative dissociation from each other (in bite-sized chunks, used for very specific pastoral or teaching purposes, and thereby prematurely instrumentalized), or else through very controlled forms of association with specific other passages or verses (again, it is often doctrinal concerns that dictate which associations are considered legitimate).

‘Bible Studies’ in the contemporary church often manifest precisely an evasion of scripture, rather than a willingness to take it seriously. This is true at every level of the Church’s life: I saw exactly the same symptoms at work in the Bible Study groups of senior bishops at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 as in many student or parish groups.

Broadly, two tendencies tend to emerge – neither of them wholly satisfactory. The first is the reduction of scripture to propositional statements, which are then deployed as authoritative descriptions (of the world, human beings, the facts of sin and redemption, or
whatever), or else as irresistible ethical instructions or injunctions. As a mode of reasoning which works from the establishment of clear first principles and then works out from them, this approach to scripture might be described as rather like ‘deductive’ reasoning.

The other dominant tendency – even more prevalent in my experience – is one which uses the reading of scripture as an occasion to tell stories about oneself and one’s own religious experience. Scripture is thus made a vehicle or opportunity for self-expression, rather than being read as something with its own internal ‘logic’ and power to resist and reconfigure the reader’s expectations and understanding. As a mode of reasoning which seeks to derive judgements from experience, this might be likened to an ‘inductive’
approach to scripture.

Ben Quash Deep calls to Deep

Ben is moving from Peterhouse Cambridge, where he was Dean, to become Professor of Theology and the Arts at King’s College London

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The reach of the State

I think weâ??ve reached a point where certain things need to be clarified about the rights, liberties and dignities of independent bodies with the State (the Archbishop of Canterbury to Robert Pigott of the BBC on Jan 24th 2007).

In what follows I want to explore why I think that the Archbishop has offered that careful and profoundly serious observation and to ask, in the light of recent events and with the publication imminent of the long-awaited Sexual Orientation Regulations for the UK Mainland, whether there are limits to the â??reachâ?? of the State?

The Government – basing itself in a range of convictions and ideas quite widely but by no means universally held, and often loosely linked to the Human Rights Act – is behaving increasingly as if Government and Parliament were the sole arbiter of what is right and good and wholesome, whether for individuals or for society.

There is appearing a jealous, if somewhat edgy, and a rather poorly informed intolerance of alternative moral and ethical authorities, and especially of those based in the life and the traditions of communities of Faith.

And unless, to use the Archbishops judicious language, â??certain things……are clarifiedâ?? and certain people think about all this with rather more care, there seems to be a real danger that this country will come to lose the contributions made to every aspect and level of its life by its range of independent voluntary bodies, many but by no means all of which have their roots and motivation in the Churches or in other communities of Faith.

At stake is the status of marriage in British society. Government and Parliament are imposing upon the country â?? and especially upon the Churches â?? alternative concepts of the family and of parenting as the equivalents of marriage.

Where does this leave this countryâ??s hard-won traditions of religious freedom and of the freedom of the individual?

The Government is rightly concerned that the Human Rights Act should be valued and welcomed, not misused as whipping-boy by means of all sorts of fantastic charges against it. The Government could have used the HR Act, as the Polish Government used it, to exempt Roman Catholic and other adoption agencies from the SORs. But instead it has chosen to privilege secular over religious ideologies, perhaps because it thinks it opportune to cut the Churches down to size after the autumnâ??s arguments over (so-called) â??Faith Schoolsâ??.

And Government is colluding with those who would corral the Churches and the Faiths into the private sphere, so as to leave â??the street, public life and political decision-making open to the influence only of secular ideologies.

No wonder the RC Archbishop of Southwark has called the recent decisions about Faith-based adoption agencies â??a triumph of dogmatism over freedom of conscienceâ??.

Nor are these the first examples. Registrars are required, at the risk of their jobs, to officiate at marriages of transgendered people and at registrations of Civil Partnerships, even if they have conscientious hesitations about doing so. Verified stories abound of Faith-based, and especially Church-based, organisations that offer social care, often to some of the most disadvantaged and demanding individuals and groups, which have had their public funding threatened as officialdom is anxious about a crucifix on the wall or Grace before meals.

Is this ignorance? Or prejudice? Or is it intolerance, even fear of an influence and a source of authority beyond and implicitly challenging the authority of the State? Must diversity of provision have been designed and authorised by Whitehall and Town Hall, rather than developed over centuries in a society that has had to struggle hard and long to win its freedom from Government.

How close are we getting to the point when a religiously-formed conscience will be seen as an obstacle to, rather than an inspiration for, service in Parliament, and still more in high political office? What an irony, as we celebrate William Wilberforce and all the others, of many churches and more than one Faith, through whose efforts in Parliament the Slave Trade was abolished.

The Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, When the State decides what the Church believes

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Christians in the UK public square

Communicating Bible to Babel
– Exploring and shaping the debate on Christian language and communication in the public square

Liverpool Hope University Friday 28 – Saturday 29 September 2007

For a long time religious discourse has had limited access and impact in politics. In the UK, it is generally acknowledged that Christian political discourse has not been effective in speaking truth with grace in our contemporary mediascape. However, given the growing number of challenges to secularism, it is clear that God is very much back on the political agenda. In this new context, it is important to explore the themes and issues that define language and communication of a Christian worldview in the public square.

Following Bible Society Discourse Process events at political party conferences and a Parliamentary symposium, the colloquium will provide for a more detailed theological and philosophical exploration. With an interdisciplinary approach, it will offer a forum to
facilitate discussion about the development of Christian political discourse.

Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd James Jones
Dr Jolyon Mitchell, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh
Nick Spencer, Theos – the public theology think tank
Professor John Sullivan, Centre for Christian Education

Building on themes and issues raised in the earlier events, the colloquium facilitates a more sophisticated theological and philosophical exploration of the language and communication of Christians in the public square. On the basis of what we understand and experience about the challenges and opportunities for ‘Doing God’ in contemporary political discourse, this event develops thinking about the necessary connections between worldview and discourse in public theology.

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Catholic in London

I have found three events organised by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster in London

1. First Sunday Plus Young Adult Ministries launches THEOLOGY-on-TAP, a speaker series for young adults 18-39 straight talk, hard facts and real answers about our Catholic faith and how to live it in real, everyday life.

2. Society and its problems: The Catholic perspective
 A series of four Monday evening talks and questions at St Mary Moorfields entitled: ‘Society and its problems: The Catholic perspective’ by Edward Hadas.

1. Wealth and work: Economic issues in an industrial age (Monday 4th June at 6.30pm)

2. The ruling class: The right way for government (Monday 11th June at 6.30pm)

3. War and peace: Idealism, realism and hope (Monday 18th June at 6.30pm)

4. Modern society: Light and shadows (Monday 25th June at 6.30pm)

Edward Hadas is Associate Editor at Breakingviews.com. His book, Human Goods, Economic Evils; A Moral Look at the Dismal Science will be published by ISI Books in August. He has also written a coursebook on political and social philosophy for the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham.

3. Marriage: the rock on which the family is built; the rock on which society is built. An evening with Dr. William E. May Vaughan House, Francis St (behind Westminster Cathedral) Monday 21st May, 6pm – 8pm.

Dr. May will share his reflections for discussion on male/female complementary,and the importance of the role of the family as the domestic Church in the work of evangelisation.

Dr May is the Author of ‘Marriage: the rock on which the family is built’ (1995) and the Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology, Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Member of the International Theological Commission from 1986 through 1996.

I’ll go to that last one – even I have heard of William E May .

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Humility is the beginning of sanity

The â??common goodâ?? is more than a political slogan. Itâ??s more than what most people think they want right now. Itâ??s not a matter of popular consensus or majority opinion. It canâ??t be reduced to economic justice or social equality or better laws or civil rights, although all these things are vitally important to a healthy society.

The common good is what best serves human happiness in the light of what is real and true. Thatâ??s the heart of the matter: What is real and true? If God exists, then the more man flees from God, the less true and real man becomes. If God exists, then a society that refuses to acknowledge or publicly talk about God is suffering from a peculiar kind of insanity.

What can the â??common goodâ?? mean in the context of Nietzscheâ??s superman or Marx or Freud or Darwin? These men became the architects of our age. But they were also just the latest expressions of a much deeper and more familiar temptation to human pride. We want to be gods, but weâ??re not. When we try to be, we diminish ourselves.

Thatâ??s our dilemma. Thatâ??s the punishment we create for ourselves. Thereâ??s a terrible humor in a man who claims that God is dead, then starts believing heâ??s Dionysius or Jesus Christ, and then ends up on a candy bar made by out-of-work philosophers for middle-class consumers who just want some â??chocolaty goodness.â??

Humility is the beginning of sanity. We canâ??t love anyone else until we can see past ourselves. And man canâ??t even be man without God. The humility to recognize who we are as creatures, who God is as our Father, what God asks from each of us, and the reality of Godâ??s love for other human persons as well as ourselvesâ??this is the necessary foundation that religion brings to every discussion of free will, justice, and truth, and to every conversation about â??the common good.â?? Sirach and the Psalms and the Gospel of Luke and the Letter of Jamesâ??these Scriptures move the human heart not because theyâ??re beautiful writings. Theyâ??re beautiful writings because they spring from what we know in our hearts to be true.

Bernanos once said that â??the world will be saved only by free men. We must make a world for free men.â?? He also said that prudenceâ??or rather, the kind of caution and fear that too often pose as prudenceâ??is the one piece of advice he never followed. â??When trouble is looking for you,â?? he said, â??itâ??s primarily a question of facing it, since it would be still more dangerous to turn your back on it. In that case, prudence is only the alibi of the cowardly.â??

We most truly serve the common good by having the courage to be disciples of Jesus Christ. God gave us a free will, but we need to use it. Discipleship has a cost. Jesus never said that we didnâ??t need a spine. The world doesnâ??t need affirmation. It needs conversion. It doesnâ??t need the approval of Christians. It needs their witness. And that work needs to begin with us. Bernanos said that the â??scandal of Creation [isnâ??t] suffering but freedom.â?? He said that â??moralists like to regard sanctity as a luxury; actually it is a necessity.â?? He also said that â??one may believe that this isnâ??t the era of the saints; that the era of the saints has passed. [But] it is always the era of the saints.â??

Charles J. Chaput Archbishop of Denver Religion and the Common Good at First Things – with some discussion of George Bernanos