"Just Love," Condemned.

It’s not every day that a book on my shelf is condemned by the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).  It turned out to be the case last week, when the CDF condemned the book Just Love. A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (New York: Continuum, 2006) by Sr. Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M.  You can read the condemnation here.  A flurry of activity followed:  Yale Divinity School, where Farley is Professor Emerita, gathered an impressive list of theologians and ethicists to defend Farley’s work; Farley responded to the notification; and 24 hours after news broke of the Vatican censure, the book was propelled from an Amazon ranking of 142,982 to 16, and #1 in Religion. 

I had conflicted feelings about the entire story.  I was disappointed but not surprised by the censure.  It is no secret to anyone reading the book that Farley arrived at conclusions contrary to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.  Still, I have a great affinity for Farley’s book.  Since coming across the book in 2009, I’ve used it as my primary frame of reference for discerning responsibility and truth within my personal relationships.  I think considering Farley’s work has made me a better human being in relationship to others, especially my wife.  And while I’m not perfect, Farley’s framework gives me the ethical and theological language to speak of success and failure in relationships shaped by a concern for justice, duty, virtue, and my Christian faith, as well as giving due consideration to current social science research.  I would recommend the book to anyone, Christian or not, seeking the same goals in their relationships.

Being the people-watcher that I am, I’ve been observing the reactions to the Vatican censure filter through a couple of different sources and circles for the past week, from Facebook to the New York Times to blogs, and from Christians of varying denominations to those who profess no particular tradition.  To my dismay, it became clear that conversations about the censure were actually not about the censure, but opportunities to give litanies of everything one considers wrong with the Roman Catholic Church.

To take one incredibly hyperbolic example, Maureen Dowd’s op-ed piece “Is pleasure a sin?” throws a lot of un-careful rhetoric around and makes the Catholic hierarchy a monolithic entity that it is not, which managed to turn a piece I could agree with into something not worthy of careful consideration.  For instance, equating the CDF to the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in terms of hostility to women is the kind of thing that should not be treated as self-evident, and certainly not as a throw-away comment in an op-ed.  Dowd also says that “The Vatican showed no mercy to the Sister of Mercy.”  That sounds like a very clever phrase; but while the censure was surely hurtful to Farley (and ill-advised in my opinion), the book was censured without any disciplinary action taken personally against Farley; that shows that the CDF had some restraint. 

Dowd then attempts to link the censure of the book (occurring in Rome) to the cover-up of sexual predation of children in the U.S., as though the workings of the USCCB---or individual bishops---and the CDF were one and the same.  Dowd suggests that:

 “The hierarchy should read Sister Farley’s opprobrium against adults harming vulnerable children and adolescents by sexually exploiting them; respect for the individual and requirement of free consent, she says, mean that rape, violence and pedophilia against unwilling victims are never justified.”  

Dowd’s rhetorical tactic is to implicitly say that the hierarchy is completely uncaring toward children, or to suggest that because the CDF condemns the book the hierarchy is not concerned about sexual abuse.  My guess is that, since the CDF didn’t mention that part of the book in the censure, they had no problem with Farley’s statement condemning the harm of children, and most likely agreed with it.  And since they are not the entity (in a huge institution) dealing with the sex abuse scandals (where more to bring perpetrators to justice indeed could be done), I don’t expect the CDF to make reference to the scandals when talking about sex.  But if one is keen to disagree with the Roman Catholic Church, it’s easy to pass over or relish in rhetorical phrases that seem to cut opponents deeply.  The unfortunate thing is that op-eds like this do nothing to hold open a place for any type of civil conversation; instead of dialogue, opponents entrench themselves.

Now, that is the limited defense I will give to the CDF.  I think Farley’s book is brilliant; it is certainly not a risk of “grave harm to the faithful” (some of the things Farley is concerned about are graver harms to the faithful:  like injustice or oppression which affect both one's material and spiritual well-being); and the CDF missed an opportunity for fruitful dialogue on the subject of sexual ethics.  I’ll come back to this in a moment.

Because of my appreciation of the book, I’m also disappointed that the media missed an opportunity to go deeper into the divide over sexual ethics. Farley’s book is about what the basic level of justice in romantic and sexual relationships should be; it isn't simply---as the New York Times put it--a book of "theological rationales for same-sex relationships, masturbation, and remarriage after divorce." There is much more to this story.  The book is not simply a reworking of what is permissible that was not permissible before.  The book Just Love takes as its central question:  "With what kinds of motives, under what sorts of circumstances, in what forms of relationships, do we render our sexual selves to one another in ways that are good, true, right, and just?"  Farley's answer rests on the fundamental notion that morally appropriate sexual relationships, heterosexual as well as same-sex, must be characterized by justice.[1]  This is a different sort of project than simply overthrowing traditional Catholic teaching.  This is the project I wish the media would focus on, and the propagation of the project of promoting justice in relationships is what I hope the increased book sales will allow to happen.

Still, perhaps it is understandable that the book was short-changed in the media.  Reporters probably did not have time to read the book before reporting on the censure, and the media’s reporting reflected the CDF’s censure’s priorities.  And---it must be noted---the censure’s priorities also missed the point of Farley’s book.  As Farley noted in her official statement:

“I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching.  It is of a different genre altogether…. I only regret that in reporting my positions on select “Specific Problems” in sexual ethics, the Notification does not also consider my arguments for these positions.  Nor does it render my positions in terms of the complex theoretical and practical contexts to which they are a response.  Hence, I fear the Notification–while clear in its conclusions–misrepresents (perhaps unwittingly) the aims of my work and the nature of it as a proposal that might be in service of, not against, the church and its faithful people.”    

It’s worth noting here that there is a fundamental difference in what the CDF does and what Farley does.  The CDF determines whether something matches the prescribed answers to sexual questions according to established Church teaching; Farley is suggesting an ethical framework for discerning answers in one’s own context:

"This book was designed to help people, especially Christians but also others, to think through their questions about human sexuality.  It suggests the importance of moving from what frequently functions as a taboo morality to a morality and sexual ethics based on the discernment of what counts as wise, truthful, and recognizably just loves.  Although my responses to some particular sexual ethical questions do depart from some traditional Christian responses, I have tried to show that they nonetheless reflect a deep coherence with the central aims and insights of these theological and moral traditions." 

There are a few ways of thinking about the divide between the CDF and Margaret Farley’s work.

1. The CDF has already determined the morally acceptable answer to actions and situations that is true in all times and in all places based on the moral tradition of the Church.  Margaret Farley is providing a framework for examining one’s own life and the answer is not necessarily a given. This is a divide over the process and the end result of moral deliberation. 

2. Another major difference is that the CDF is critiquing Farley from an understanding of ethics based primarily on the Natural Law, and Farley is not really working in that tradition in the book.  There were bound to discrepancies between the two systems.

3. A matter of genre, which Farley mentioned above.  The CDF notes that the book cannot be used as a reflection of Roman Catholic teaching.  Farley notes that she was not attempting to write such a book. 

4. Different pastoral concerns are evident.  The CDF wants to be clear on what the Church’s teaching currently is, and sees Farley’s work as an aberration from that teaching.  The Roman Catholic Church has an interest in being correct morally (whether one agrees with their positions or not) and enforce a clear teaching that can unify Catholics across time and cultures.  Margaret Farley is responding to the on-the-ground realities of gender oppression and injustice.  Her framework offers a way of thinking through what justice would require in personal and social relationships regardless of one’s status as religious or not, and in careful consideration of modern research. 

5. Others are noting that the CDF’s censure is happening in the context of a crackdown on American women Religious. I’m certain that plays some role, but I’ll refrain from trying to quantify or comment on this aspect.  I’ll leave that to others more capable, except to say that it does represent a divide in motive between Farley’s writing and the CDF’s censure.

In the end, I recognize the CDF acted within their ability, but I think it is a shame that the CDF will not interact with the book in dialogue, or with more clarity and depth in conversation.  There was an opportunity to speak of the promise of seeking justice in relationships, to affirm parts of the book that are in accord with traditional Church teaching.  Instead the CDF took an easier (and a bit lazier) way that showed them reticent to engage modern ethical conversation from one within their own tradition.  To those not within academia or the Catholic faith, I have seen that this left the Roman Catholic hierarchy looking unnecessarily dismissive of modernity and disconnected from reality.  Within academia, the hierarchy appeared anti-intellectual and dismissive of excellent scholarship.  This could have been avoided...it should have been avoided.

And regardless of whether the Roman Catholic Church chooses to engage Farley’s work in ethics, I hope her project of advocating a framework that will help people continually discern the just and unjust in their own relationships will continue.  To that end:

A quick, quick review of the framework in Just Love

(That should leave you wanting to buy the book for the massive amount of awesome detail I do not add)

The framework moves through six principles.  Farley is proposing a standard to which individuals could hold themselves and measure their partners.  These duties are: doing no unjust harm, free consent, mutuality, equality, commitment, fruitfulness, and social justice.

Do no unjust harm.  Given that Christians (although certainly not only Christians) tend to see themselves as having both a body and soul and that the two are closely linked, the concept of doing no harm holds two meanings:  do no unjust physical harm (rape, battery) and do no unjust spiritual/mental harm (deceit, betrayal, disparity in committed loves).[2]  This is presented as a duty, but the prohibition on unjust harm requires, and in many ways may inculcate, the virtue of (at least) nonmaleficence when dealing with others.

Free consent  Those in the relationship should respect the other as an end in himself or herself.  This also reinforces the above duty of not harming the other, since lying/deceit truncates the ability of the other to make informed decisions about the nature of the relationship; free consent asks that we beware of forms of coercion.[3] 

           

Mutuality  Farley speaks mainly of sexuality when enumerating the characteristics of just relationships.  She sees both giving and receiving of both partners as necessary (contrast with the image of the active male and the passive female).[4]  Still, the concept of mutuality in relationships extends well beyond sex and into the everyday requirements of living in relationship.  Consider division of household chores—there can be agreement of who performs what duties, and they can be divided among lines of traditional gender expectations, but no task in itself is beneath a man or above a woman to do.  The very nature of life together makes it a project in which there must be give and take.

Equality  This is a radical equality that goes beyond merely saying that one is equal to the other.  One must be mindful of power differentials in play throughout the relationship and try to mediate the differentials in order to keep from treating the other as property or commodity, not to mention endangering the others’ autonomy and sense of self by the inordinate use of power by one partner.[5] 

Commitment   As Farley says, sexuality is something that needs to be “nurtured and sustained, as well as disciplined, channeled, and controlled.”[6]  Sexuality is an important part of human identity and constitutive of our nature.  Sexuality is also powerful, given its procreative potential and intimate nature.  What commitment offers, then, is an outlet for partners to know, and be known, by each other and deepen that relationship.  The advantage that commitment offers over the novelty of seeking many sexual partners is that seeking other partners runs the risk of treating others as a mean to a selfish end instead of ends in themselves.  

Fruitfulness  This has traditionally been associated the procreative nature of sexual relationships and marriage but there is another way to think about fruitfulness.  Those who are in relationships are not only responsible for the creation or raising of their own children; wider community also makes a claim on couples.  American culture holds individualism in high regard and to a certain extent rightly so.  However, humans are social and need relationship. Those in relationship (a couple) offer nourishment to a larger community by providing avenues for resources, just as the community provides resources to the couple.

Social justice   The respect for persons as sexual beings in society.[7]  Since humans are always in relationship to one another, humans must realize that their personal decisions have consequences that affect others in a ripple effect.  As Farley puts it, “at the very least…social justice requires of sexual partners that they take responsibility for the consequences of their love and their sexual activity…No great love, is just for “the two of us.””[8]  Certainly this includes children who are born of such relationships.  Social justice expands even further outwards in hope of addressing global sexual and gender injustices.  People contribute to realizing this global social justice by acting in such a way that their relationships, characterized by virtue and duty, become a standard to which they hold themselves and others.

---

[1] Taken from http://notesfromthequad.yale.edu/response-vatican-reproach-fellow-theologians-rally-support-margaret-farley.

[2] Farley, 216-17.

[3] Farley, 218.

[4] Farley, 221.

[5] Farley, 223.

[6] Farley, 224-225.

[7] Farley, 228-231.

[8] Farley, 229.

"What's Your Story?" : The Whys and Hows of Spiritual Timelines

How good are you at telling your own story?
Would you like to get better at it?
Are you a writer, or keep a journal?
I have found that spiritual timelines might help you identify events to talk about and to write about.

Timelines are quick ways to organize information, particularly about autobiographies.  And I’m a visual person so it is particularly helpful for me.  Looking at your life in a linear way brings memories to the surface as you think about how you may have gotten from point A to point B.

I was introduced to spiritual timelines as a class assignment/icebreaker this past fall.  Thinking that it was a simply a bit of busy work, I completed the assignment in about 2 hours.  But, looking at it over the past year, the timeline has opened up to be something more. The timelines have helped me practice telling my stories and help me reflect on my life.

Why care about our own stories?  To make a general observation, the Bible is first and foremost a collection of stories of peoples’ encounters with God.  It does not speak with one voice or present a single theology.  The Bible is a library of individual books with the writing spread over thousands of years.  When you come to the Bible looking for some bit of knowledge about God, the Bible--in a way--replies, "Let me tell you a story."

Likewise, we can think of our life as a library and events as books.  Or perhaps of our life as one story, with many chapters.  You can pick your own metaphor here.  But, typically when people ask you a question about yourself, it is an invitation to tell a story.

The spiritual angle: 

Working with a timeline helps in being able to identify with other people’s stories by knowing your own story better, and getting a sense of how you would tell your story in relation to theirs.  Practicing telling your stories also helps you think more deeply about your own relationship to God; because it will bring up some questions that will ask you to look harder at what has happened.  To return to the metaphor:  it helps you pull books from your library when you need them or want them, and therein discover something you had not noticed before.

My timeline can be an example.
Panel 1.
Panel 2.
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Making your Timeline

Overriding Rubrics:  Freedom, honesty, and integrity.  It is your timeline, you can make of it what you will as long as you are honest with yourself.

So, here are some recommendations instead of instructions:

1.      Create at least three lines for world events, life events, and spiritual events.

2.      Examples of things to put on the timelines:

a.       World Events: presidents, civil rights movements, memorable deaths, meetings, wars, etc.

b.      Life Events: Birth, other births, moves, schools, illness, marriages, coming out, first loves, following loves, accidents, family events, deaths, happinesses, etc.

c.       Spiritual Events: baptism, Churches (going to/leaving), time in different/no religions/denominations, time not knowing what you are spiritually/religiously, first time taking communion, particularly powerful spiritual moments (in nature, with someone, etc.)

                                                              i.      These often connect to life and world events, so connect them if they seem to fit.

d.      Other things you could include:  formative songs, movies, quotes, friendships, meaningful biblical stories.

e.       See below for a way to illustrate the closeness or distance/hiddenness of God.

f.       Your life is more than one color; you timeline should be colorful too!

Another Option --or-- you can combine these two projects

1.      On one line, mark off 5 or 10-year increments of your life.

2.      Using one color, mark the ‘highs’ above the line and “lows” below the line, in each time period— “external events or experiences when you were surprised by delight, changed, stuck in a rut, or dismayed by loss (births, deaths, job changes, health issues, relationships)

3.      Using a different color, mark the spiritual “highs” and “lows” — Times of closeness to God, times of distance, inner turmoil and transformation, meaning, belonging, purpose (these may or may not have taken place in connection to a church).

4.      Highlight/write in 3 or 4 places where you sense a story you might want to develop for your library.

Some things to ask of your timeline

1.      Try looking at your timeline as if you were a stranger.  Do you see something that you think would make (or already has made) a good story?  How do you tell the story of points on the timeline, the transitions?

2.      Are there any biblical stories that mirror your life? 

3.      Are there biblical stories that you took strength from in a time in your life?

“Homework”

1. Share timelines and stories when you have a chance.
2. Don’t be afraid to mess up and have to start over.  It is your timeline. You might discover things you need to reconsider… and space is an issue... Timelines, like life, can be messy.
3. Similarly, you might decide that a period of time needs its own separate timeline!  You can make more than one.
4. Practice telling some stories over the next few weeks.  See if, in conversation, an avenue comes up to share something of yourself.
5. If you like to write, perhaps pick a story to write out in detail.

Christians who like the Idea of Concentration Camps

There is a video that has been haunting me for the past eight days or so.  I’ll post the video below, but for the sake of context, I’d also like to mention that this video comes out of the past five weeks in which anti-lgbtq malice has gotten more press, either because homophobic churches are increasing their own rhetoric, or their normal homophobia is simply making it into the mainstream much faster.

For example, a preacher advocated physical abuse toward children.   Another suggested they go into what would be best described as concentration camps.   Another flat-out advocates a government extermination program.   And this last week a video surfaced of a church teaching/allowing a toddler to sing "Ain't no homos gonna get to Heaven".

I’ve written a short Christian response to homophobia/heterosexism that you can find on Facebook, so I will not repeat that response’s argument except to say the pastors linked above are peddling sickening stuff not worthy of the Gospel of Christ.

The video that has been haunting me is related to the sermon of Pastor Charles L. Worley who advocated putting gay and lesbian men and women into electrified fenced-off areas until they die.  As bad as that is, even more chilling and cringe-worthy is the video of Anderson Cooper interviewing a congregant of Worley's church.

(I do a "close viewing (?)" of the video, so it's up to you if you want to watch it now or return to it later.)

The rest of this post is my reflection about this video, which utterly fascinates me.  I'm broadly putting my reflections under the headings of "the failure and marginalization of Christian language" and "studies in how to cultivate the conditions for the elimination of entire peoples."

The utter failure and marginalization of Christian language

There reaches a point where Christian language--the language that Christians and the Church uses to describe reality--fails.  Part of this development is simply part of one generation passing on the language, propositions--and, more importantly, the unresolved questions--of the Faith to the next generation.  The next generation then has the task of making sense of and engaging the Faith in a way that is able to be heard in their own time and place.  This is a messy process and occurs unevenly.  It is work that is never finished because the world in which we live and move and have our being in relationship to God is always changing (which is why a Christian who claims to have all the answers is a liar).  Christian language fails when Christians give up the task of reinterpreting the tradition and do not bother to make it understandable to those outside the Church.

While we in the Church try to describe the reality we experience, other things are going on.  In this particular time in human history, it is increasingly clear that the "burden of proof lies on believers and the life they lead" in terms of whether the Faith adequately describes reality.  The Church is rightfully under the judgment of the world--and God--on this point, because it is the world--and God--that points to the Church's own inconsistencies and calls the Church to account.  The Church rightfully loses credibility in the world when the Church's language becomes incomprehensible to anyone but ourselves, and at the same time the transformation--and the reality we try to bear witness to--is not forthcoming. We forget that the Church must continually earn the right to speak about God. Further:

The weightiest criticisms of Christian speech and practice amount to this:  that Christian language actually fails to transform the world's meaning because it neglects or trivialized or evades aspects of the human.  It is notoriously awkward about sexuality; it risks being unserious about death when it speaks too glibly and confidently about eternal life; it can disguise the abiding reality of unhealed and meaningless suffering. [1]

I would also add that Christian language is also co-opted to legitimate terrible violence against a variety of "others."

As a result of the failure of Christian language, our preaching loses power.  A religion based on the living Word (logos) of God in Jesus Christ loses its ability to transform.  The Church becomes Godless.  (Ironically, God can still be found in the world where Christians may least expect to find God.)    The challenge for the Church is to not to simply learn the Church's own language about God and Jesus, but to find the words that make people capable of transforming and renewing the world through the enabling of the work of God.  In those words are where one will find the Gospel, and they may not mention God at all.

That is a lot of introductory material to make a simple point:  Christian language--and basic Christianity--fails in this video.

Okay. To the video. I think I've identified two major rhetorical tactics the congregant (Stacy) tries. The first tactic is to claim that the statement was taken out of context; this tactic is used in three different ways by Stacy. The first way was to try to say that Pastor Worley surely "would never want [imprisoning gays and lesbians in concentration camps] to be done." She then continues to say that people will take what he said and use it any way they want to.

Anderson then brings a powerful observation to Stacy: "You said he doesn't want it done, but [Worley] said that he wanted it done, and he said it from the pulpit." Anderson is making an interesting and appropriate move here. Anderson accords a great deal of respect to the pulpit, and assumes that what is said in the pulpit by a preacher are not idle words. I would hope most Christians would agree that the pulpit is not a place for idle, rambling thoughts.

Stacy counters with, "Maybe that's what [Worley] felt like should happen...but to make the short of it, yes, I agree with him." The tactic fails. Stacy then begins to imagine the Worley's scenario playing out. Homosexuals "would not get the message that that's wrong....you know...they can't reproduce and eventually they would die out."

So, Stacy started the interview by trying to say that Worley didn't literally mean to put homosexuals into concentration camps, then within thirty seconds she is agreeing with Worley and imagining such a future. The head shake and the "...you know..." in her thought and speech passes over the imagining of homosexuals being rounded up over months and years, transported under armed guard to a facility they would never leave. But maybe she isn't imagining it. Maybe her hope is that it would happen with no claim on her conscience or attention. It's probably much easier for her to simply imagine a future without homosexuals than think about how they would be made to disappear.

The second attempt at tactic one comes; Anderson forces her to go deeper into her agreement with Worley and imagine how the crackdown would work. I think Stacy knows at this point that she's in over her head. She becomes increasingly belligerent and defensive. Anderson asks if she really thinks imprisoning homosexuals would keep others from being born. She concedes that more homosexuals would be born to straight parents (and I don't think she really meant to do this; because for her homosexuality is a choice, not something you are born with). She now says that they just meant the imprisoned homosexuals would die. Then she reiterates that all of this is being taken out of context. "The main point is always the same." For Stacy, homosexuality is wrong.

Anderson then asks about other categories of sin from the Old Testament and whether the death penalty should be applied. Stacy stumbles to answer but eventually simply says "yes." Did she just agree to expand the death penalty to promiscuous girls, disobedient children, and adulterers? It seems to be the case.

The third attempt at tactic one comes next. Anderson (rightly) asks if putting people in electrified fences seems Christian. Stacy rolls her eyes. She bemoans that "people keep harping, harping, harping on the electric fence, this and that...It's about the homosexuals and it's [sic] wrong." So, another attempt at downplaying what was actually said. Anderson asks her to consider why people may think it is a rather big deal that one group of people wants to put another group of people into a concentration camp. The point seems lost on her. She retreats to saying that no one is actually going to put people (particularly homosexuals? hard to tell...) in fences and kill them. Anderson rightly points out that this happens to homosexuals in other countries, which does not faze her except to increase her defensiveness.

Tactic two immediately follows, and it's an appeal to authority. "You know what?  This is a pastor who speaks the word of god [intentionally lower-case]. Anybody can take it any way they want to and if they don't like it they don't have to...they can turn around and go on!" Stacy has had enough, she pulls the God card, and retreats into a world that cuts off conversation. Her language about God had failed, and she gave up.

So, how does Christian language fail in this video? In the past four months I've seen Christians attempt moves like Stacy's first tactic. It is a weird argument for someone of such a text-centric religion [2] to make: that what the pastor said was harmless or meaningless, nevertheless the congregation defends his/her belief and support of a harmless and meaningless statement. In other words, these Christians claim that which they hold dear is meaningless, yet it is treasured by them. One should not simultaneously say something is meaningless, yet of ultimate concern. A person can go on believing such a meaningless statement, but the question that immediately comes to my mind is why I or anyone else should give any type of credence or respect to a belief that its adherents claim is meaningless. I cannot respect a meaningless statement. If that is what Christian language comes to--insider jargon that has no power to transform and transmit faith, hope, and love--it should be treated as unserious. It already is treated that way by most of the world. And the irony of it all is that these Christians participate in fostering their own irrelevance.

The second way Christian language fails is related. Advocating locking people up in concentration camps is not the transmission of the Gospel, and in any case, it is not harmless. It's always good and appropriate to remind people that words do have meaning and consequence. It is scandalous that Christians have to be reminded of the power of words, particularity when Christians should always be able to be called to account for the words they use.

In the end, I'm left with the conflicting feelings that what I'm watching in the video is simultaneously Christian and un-Christian. The Gospel has not worked to convince these folks that advocating concentration camps is something to take seriously, to be apprehensive about, or fosters a need for their own repentance. Christianity becomes the shell in which they place their own hate, bravado, defensiveness, and insularity.  Christianity is in this case nothing but a pious wrapping around the demonic.  What is terrifying for me is that this goes under the banner of Christianity in popular conversation in America, that this video will far exceed the reach of the people like me who write to denounce it, and that Christianity will only be known by what it is supposedly against. 

How to cultivate the conditions for the elimination of entire peoples

One doesn't have to have spent a significant amount of one's academic career on genocide, holy war, and post-holocaust ethics to be disturbed by this video.  But I think it helps and it certainly colors my view of what is going on.  This is ironic to me, because disapproval of concentration camps through an academic lens is a place where a Christian concept is found in the world, and this disapproval is missing from churches where people want to put other humans into concentration camps.  Where Christian language fails, (finding God in) the world can provide the words.  As I watched the video, Daniel Goldhagen's work on eliminationist policies came to mind.  His work details five distinct ways of eliminating a population:  transformation, repression, expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and extermination.  Pastor Worley's vision meets all five of the criteria of an eliminationist stance.  For Pastor Worley and Stacy, if homosexuals do not act the way they are supposed to (ultimatum of transformation), then they should be rounded up against their will (repression), placed in concentration camps (expulsion), where they "cannot breed" (prevention of reproduction), to eventually die (extermination).

There are a few points in the video where what Anderson was saying wasn't on a level Stacy could understand.  One of those levels was the gravity of someone advocating a dream of a group of people dying out in a concentration camp in a world in which it has already happened, is happening, and will happen again.  Elimination of populations is a real thing, and I think Stacy exemplifies the conditions of individuals that show how it can happen.  Like many others, Stacy doesn't think eliminations are possible, but they are.  The Third Reich proved it.  Rwanda proved it. [3]  Like many others, she will think the population to be eliminated--in this case homosexuals--deserve what they will get, particularly by refusing to change to meet the dominant groups demands and expectations.  As exemplified by Pastor Worley, there is a significant amount of disgust, to the point where imagining homosexuals' existence and its consequences (like, say, a kiss between two men) is deeply and personally offensive and repugnant.  These homophobic folks see the lgbtqia community as more than in error or sin.  They see gay folk as contaminating, an abomination.  This level of hatred, fear, and disdain is familiar to marginalized groups who have faced oppression from dominant groups. 

I cannot stress this enough:  Pastor Worley said he was not joking; Stacy eventually admitted that she agreed with him; there were plenty others in the congregation saying 'amen' to what Worley was preaching.  There are people in this country who can imagine--and like the idea--of putting other groups of people into concentration camps.  This is not a small matter or a joke in a world that has seen such things happen.  It is odd but true that wanting to eliminate people and claiming it cannot happen is exactly how you go about eliminating a people.  It takes time and a complacent populace to create the conditions for an eliminationist policy.  I'm not willing to give these folks that opportunity.

This is not the kind of thing Christians should let pass in silence, which is a sort of consent.  Christians ought to be getting loud about the cultivation of this type of behavior in a church, and be quick to denounce anything that degrades others' very humanity.  Christian silence, particularly progressive Christians' silence, leaves a void where Christians who like the idea of concentration camps become the ones who define our faith for the rest of the world.  And that ain't the Gospel.

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[1] The three opening paragraphs under this heading are based on the essay "The Judgment of the World" by Rowan Williams, found in On Christian Theology. The quote is on page 39.
[2] Christianity is a "bookish" religion, but I also mean 'text' in a much broader way that includes a range of symbols and symbolic actions.
[3] To name two of many, many 20th century examples.