Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Redefining marriage.

There are few things that irk me more than inconsistencies in Christian efforts. There are two that come to mind most readily.
1) As noted in a previous post, my belief is that if Catholics and Christians spent more time focusing on getting at the root of homosexuality we wouldn't have to deal with all the (fruitless) legal battles. This plays into the idea of "cafeteria Catholicism". That phrase is used to lambaste politicians and public figures who, while generally are worthy of excommunication, nonetheless receive rather unchristian treatment. Which is ironic since when that happens the people laying into the unfaithful Christians are themselves being cafeteria. Whatever happened to "cook the truth in Charity until it becomes sweet"? It's my belief that some times how you say something is more important than what you say, since truth is relational. The truth is not something it's someone. But that's for another rant. All in all the whole "love your neighbor", "tax collectors and sinners getting into heaven before you" bit seems to be frequently missed as good intentioned Christians reflect on my, I mean... ::ahem::... the depravity of homosexuals.

2)What also really irks me is that most Protestants opposing gay marriage. Rather sweeping judgement, I know. Let me explain why. Most protestant churches not only do not have a total condemnation of contraception and divorce, but explicitly allow for it. The fact is marriage was "redefined" in western civilization a looooooong time ago. Arguably with King Henry XVIII and his whole divorce thing. Once again in the early days of "the pill" it was Episcopalians who made allowance for such effective contraception. Contraceptives are the ultimate blow to the definition of marriage. The end result is "marriages" that last a few years and bring few children, if any. In effect they are no different than gay "marriage". Rick Warren I think recognizes this. Basically for the sake of consistency you need to reject contraception, fornication, divorce, masturbation and every sexual deviation that will never lead to kiddies. Otherwise I think the gay groups are right in their arguments, they do deserve a shot at that kind of "marriage".

In the end only a handful of protestants and Catholics have any level of consistency in their arguments. And while it may seem [somewhat] unrealistic, to be truly consistent Catholics should start pushing for legislation that will make divorce and contraceptives illegal. Not only that, but legislation that gives the family more power than the government. Social services should not be the ones to step in if there's a bad situation, the closest kind should and the government should enforce that. Otherwise it's just going to be reactions to the latest depravity in the culture.




2 comments:

KennyG said...

I agree with you that as Catholics and Christians we need to, at some point, push both for contraception to be illegal and for divorce to be much more difficult to obtain. However, at the moment, we can't even win the abortion problem. I'm not sure what needs to happen so that we can go on the offensive and stop being reactionary, but I don't think attacking contraception is the right answer at this point.... except for the contraceptives that are abortificent of course.

Theophilus said...

Abortion is a symptom of the contraceptive mentality. The separation of sexuality from procreation is what allows for abortion. It is possible to see abortion as wrong and still believe contraceptives are morally permissible, just as it is possible to believe promiscuity is wrong while still believing premarital sex is permissible. I don't believe we will be as effective in transforming the culture if we are not completely coherent and consistent. With the issue of abortion it is especially important that we strike at the root, otherwise we will just keep chopping off it's branches.