As many regular readers of this blog know, I'm a fan of and subscriber to the brilliant, conservative Catholic journal First Things. Last month's issue is finally on-line, and in it, a very provocative (to me, at least) piece by Australia's George Cardinal Pell: The Inconvenient Conscience. It's a relatively brief polemic, fiercely defending the primacy of church teaching over the modern definition of conscience as the "radical call to personal freedom."
Pell defines the traditional view of conscience in Catholic teaching:
We think well when we understand moral principles and apply them in clear and reasonable ways; we think badly when we ignore or reinvent moral principles, or apply them in ambiguous and unreasonable ways. “Good conscience,” in this way of understanding, means a good grasp and a good application of moral truth—for it is the truth that remains primary, the truth that is grasped and applied by the practical mind.
Every time I read an argument like this, I start quoting dear old Pilate: "What is truth?" You see, this is where I'm stuck at this point in my life (now three days past my thirty-eighth birthday): a doctorate in church history, a huge resume of coursework in philosophy and religion, more than one "born again" experience, a personal history of peregrinations that have moved me from church to church, and I'm still with Pontius Pilate! I read Pell's article, and something reflexively resists this doctrine of absolute truth.
I confess that Pell nails me perfectly. Heck, he also nails my progressive Anglican parish:
No one—at least, no Christian—believes conscience simply asserts the first thing that comes into our heads. Conscience looks for real answers to our questions, and where can it look except to the truth? But then the value of conscience surely lies not in conscience itself but in the truth to which conscience looks for answers. It is the truth that is primary, and it is from the truth that conscience takes its value—for the bare fact that something is my private belief has no moral significance whatsoever. (Emphasis in the original).
You see, this is where on the "big issues", especially those around sex, that I fall down. Even after all these years, when challenged, I find myself retreating not to Scripture (though I can proof-text with the best of them, for all that pastime is worth) nor tradition, nor the judgment of the community, but to my own "private moral belief", which tends to be grounded in my experience and my personal feelings! Pell may not be speaking of all liberals, but he's speaking about me when he writes:
So why would anyone try to oppose conscience to objective truth? Part of the answer lies in a distorted attitude towards the virtue of tolerance. “Tolerance” is often something of a weasel word. Of course, all human beings should tolerate the foibles and weaknesses of their fellows. But by “tolerance” many now mean “never judging.” And this is a much more debatable proposition. In fact, believers in tolerance themselves usually acknowledge unspoken limits. Tolerance rarely means refraining from judging racists, or sexists, or pedophiles, or political cheats—naturally enough: these are morally wrong and should be judged so. But the contemporary love of tolerance is severely limited. In effect, the only things we must be tolerant of are people’s sexual choices, or perhaps their choices about such life issues as abortion or euthanasia.
Why do people strain to accommodate absolute sexual freedom as a matter of conscience? Why does no one plead for the right to racism or sexism as a matter of conscience? Could it be because the liberal concept of conscience has been specially formulated in order to facilitate the sexual indiscipline that our culture upholds? (Emphasis is mine).
I chafe at the words "sexual indiscipline", even as I honor the importance of discipline in my own life. But when I think about how we use the term "conscience" at All Saints, I confess that most of the time we do use it in the sense of "private moral belief". We also, as Pell points out, are woefully inconsistent on the subject of tolerance. We at All Saints are not particularly tolerant of Republicans, or those who oppose abortion, or those who support the war in Iraq. (Though to be fair, we do have those who hold those views among our regular congregants.) We would never tolerate someone who held openly racist views. Most of what we mean by tolerance and inclusion is, frankly, about the sexual. At my church, I've never heard any criticism of any possible private sexual choice in the bedroom; from the pulpit itself I have heard explicit criticism of people's private political choices in the voting booth. Pell's last paragraph seems dead-on accurate.
My regular readers know I have always tried to maintain a civil tone on this blog. I confess I've fallen short of that mark, and have myself been unkind, particularly to the group generally known as Men's Rights Advocates (MRAs). One reason I'm such a stickler for civility is because I do believe that the world needs safe spaces, however small, for folks to exchange views without fear of hostile attacks. Another reason is that I was raised to be polite; "a gentleman never makes another person feel uncomfortable", I was told growing up; I still believe that to my core, even when my Christian faith suggests that some people ought to be made to feel darned uncomfortable!
But I'm also leery of making claims about absolute truth, especially about sexual discipline, because I just don't have any certainty in this area yet. Let me be clear: I've worked out a very clear code of sexual morality in my own private life with my fiancee. It happens to be congruent with what most folks would describe as mainstream biblical teaching. But I'm still unwilling to suggest that what works for me ought to work for other people. Even as I have moved from a life of indiscipline to a life of restriction and restraint, and even as I see the tremendous benefits from such a move, I am unable to even feebly suggest (at least in a public forum) that others ought to consider the same. Sometimes I wonder if this is moral cowardice. Other times, I think it's a loving refusal to impose my views on others. But more and more, I suspect it's the former. More and more, I wonder if I simply want to avoid alienating those around me by making any sort of pronouncements about how folks ought to order their intimate lives.
Folks often ask me why I, a straight man, have such a long history of work on gay and lesbian issues. (It's one of the few things I've done consistently for a great many years.) Part of the answer lies in my early childhood experiences, about which I blogged last year. Part of the answer is a professional sense, as a historian, that gay and lesbian rights really is the great social justice issue of our era. But another part of the answer is that I'm eager to defend the right of all people to make private choices, particularly romantic and sexual ones, without any criticism or societal restriction. Even my support for gay marriage is based less on my belief that marriage is a fundamental good and more on my belief that people ought to be able to acquire public sanction for their private desires and commitments, whatever they may be. Though I don't intend to ever drop my commitment to full equality for my gay and lesbians brothers and sisters, I do need to do more work to ask what part my own reflexive dislike of making judgments plays in my support for their struggle.
So, folks, another long post about why Hugo is conflicted. Rest assured, I'm not tormented by ambivalence all day long! I have my little certainties in which I take comfort: my relationship with my fiancee, my work, my "kids" at school and youth group, my chinchilla, and of course, my relationship with Christ. But lately, I've been feeling that Christ is calling me deeper into relationship with Him. Something tells me he's calling me to more than powerful sentimental devotion. And for all the reasons that I've laid out in this post, I've been resisting that call.
Remember Augustine's prayer: "Make me chaste, Lord, but not yet?" Hugo has his own variation these days: "Make me certain, Lord, but not yet." For a little while longer, let me hang out in this world where I can defy the principle of non-contradiction by embracing irreconciliables. Let me hang out in the world where I don't have to make quite so many hard choices, and offend quite so many people by proclaiming unerring truth. Let me stand with Pilate, Lord, just a little while longer.
I have run into this in myself so many times, just from the opposite direction. I have been making decisions based on "right and wrong" for years now. But if I want to keep doing so, I somehow become judgmental of others in the process. That feels like collateral damage of a point of view I will not, cannot, shake. If I believe, as I do, in real absolute Truth, there must likewise be real, acutal falsehood. and if i order my life around Truth, I silently or otherwise judge that falsehood.
Posted by: Erica | May 25, 2005 at 10:51 AM
Wow - I really appreciate this post. It is very true that tolerance focuses greatly on sexuality, and not on matters like racism or sexism. I don't think that by holding to a notion of chastity, Winner (or you) is imposing her _personal_ way, what 'works for her' on others. She is rearticulating what most Christians in most places have believed for two thousand years. Orthodoxy may be incorrect, and it needs to be tested, but it is far from personal opinion. If anything, it is 'majority' opinion (across time and place). Orthodoxy raises more questions about power (who gets to speak 'truth', who has authority, and is the majority correct) than about individuals asserting their beliefs on others. Christianity is a communal faith. Each of us holds personal beliefs, but within a community of living saints, dead saints, and a living Word.
I actually came over here, Hugo, to ask whether you might have anything to say about the media surrounding the wedding of Mary Kay LeTourneau and Vili. I keep thinking that if it were a male sex criminal marrying his victim, it wouldn't seem so lovely, nor gain much media attention.
Posted by: jenell | May 25, 2005 at 10:54 AM
Jenell--maybe my strategy of avoiding all press coverage of said wedding is shielding me from such interpretations, but on what planet does this wedding seem "lovely"? It seems downright creepy to me. Perhaps I'm insufficiently inclined to the romantic notions attached to some mystical substance of true love conquering all else.
Posted by: djw | May 25, 2005 at 11:08 AM
I watched coverage on Access Hollywood or ET or something like that, and it was soft-focused with people weeping and nice music playing. It was spun as a "love conquers all" story. I haven't heard any commentary about her rejection of her other biological children or her husband, or of what it means to continue a sexual relationship with a person who had been a child when it began. I just think that if a man had impregnated a 6th grade girl twice, and then later married her, the public view would be very different. I don't think people really believe that a boy can be abused, or at least that it isn't as serious as when a girl is abused.
Posted by: jenell | May 25, 2005 at 11:30 AM
I think that the right often mischaracterizes liberal "tolerance" as meaning that liberals believe that there should be no moral standards.
I am pretty darned liberal on sexual and social issues. That does not mean that I don't believe in moral absolutes. I just don't believe the moral absolutes are what the religious right says they are. I also don't believe that the moral absolutes are as easy to identify as the religious right claims, especially since I do not rely on the Bible.
I believe that people of good faith can (and should) use their reason, and yes, their personal experiences and emotions, to make sound moral decisions. In sitations where moral wrong-doing may infringe upon the rights of others, the State should step in and prevent or punish it, i.e. the State should prevent and punish murder, theft, and assault (which everyone in their right mind accepts as moral wrongs).
Most liberals would surely agree that there are all sorts of sexual wrongs that society should not tolerate, and we which should condemn and judge, such as sex by coercion, or sex with those who do not have the capacity to consent (children, animals, etc.) I also judge it as wrong to irresponsibly court or spread disease, or to risk conceiving a child for whom one is not prepared to care, and I bet most liberals would agree (although I would not advocate government interference in these matters). Pornography is a greyer area where the answers are unclear.
The point is that I do not see a double standard in liberal "tolerance," nor do I believe that liberals do not accept the concept of morality. Where we draw the lines on sexual issues is different than where conservatives do.
Posted by: cmc | May 25, 2005 at 11:39 AM
I think the analogy between "private sexual choice in the bedroom" vs. "private political choice in the voting booth" is a poor one. Our political choices can and do have a tremendous impact on the lives of the community, whereas our sex lives do not. Politics is something that takes place amongst/within a community, and sex....for most of us anyway....does not.
Posted by: La Lubu | May 25, 2005 at 12:01 PM
janell: The issue you raise is off-topic for this particular thread, though it's a good one. Perhaps Hugo can place it in a thread of its own. OTOH, I fear that few around here will be much interested in looking into that particular issue. It features the wrong flavor of sexism, and is inconvenient for the faithful of the "male privilege" persuasion.
Posted by: stanton | May 25, 2005 at 12:17 PM
"It features the wrong flavor of sexism, and is inconvenient for the faithful of the 'male privilege' persuasion."
Care to name any names, stanton? ;-)
Not to get too off topic, but I have yet to meet any feminists in real life or in the blogosphere who think of Mary Kay LeTourneau as being anything other than a child molesting rapist.
Posted by: La Lubu | May 25, 2005 at 12:29 PM
Stanton, as a faithful member of the Orthodox Feminist Church, I appreciate your efforts to understand my interests and ideas, and anticipate any inconvenience they might cause. However, I must assure you that my fellow congregants and I are fully capable of articulating our own conversational likes and dislikes. Your insights in this matter are very thoughtful, but go above and beyond the call of courtesy.
Posted by: yami | May 25, 2005 at 12:48 PM
yami: I was not answering the call of courtesy, though I truly do try to understand the (extremely diverse) interests and ideas of the members of your faith. I was expressing an opinion which I expected to be unpopular, but which was based on personal experience. That opinion, stated as a "fear," is that members of your church tend to dismiss the idea that there may be major social implications to such events as the one janell brought up.
This thread certainly is pertinent to this particular turn in the discussion. How would you rate your church in terms of tolerance for those of other faiths? (Actually, I believe that you have been more tolerant than most, in your posts here.)
Note: I would be the last one to suggest that the OFC congregation falls short in the matter of expressing their likes and dislikes! :-)
Posted by: stanton | May 25, 2005 at 01:06 PM
Jenell--I'm sorry. I didn't know. I tend to find access hollywood nauseating on general principle, but this is obviously much, much worse.
stanton--I'm with la lubu. I'm a card-carrying feminist (sorry, "male feminist ally") and I'm literally surrounded by feminists in my social and professional circles. None of us have any sympathy at all for MKL and her creepy criminal exploits. You're right to be critical of those who present this as a nice happy love story, but you're wrong to confuse the producers of Access Hollywood with the High Priestesses of Feminist Orthodoxy. (Can you consider the possibility that just this once, feminists might be on your side?)
(sorry to contribute to thread drift)
Posted by: djw | May 25, 2005 at 01:51 PM
La Lubu:
Private sexual choices have no social dimension?
Of course they do. That's why marriage is so important, because it does have a social dimension. Each one of our sexual choices affects at least one other person, and the sum-total of all those choices creates a moral climate which affects the whole of society.
Why are gays and lesbians demanding "equal access to a fundamental social institution" to quote several gay marriage activists, if marriage and sexual relationships have no social dimension? Of course they do.
Posted by: John | May 25, 2005 at 02:27 PM
Jesus answered Pilate's question, you know. In His High Priestly prayer, He said:
"Sanctify them by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth"
That's really the source of the much-maligned certainty. My moral opinions don't matter. I'm a speck of dust. God's do. And He's told us what they are.
Posted by: John | May 25, 2005 at 02:30 PM
I hate to agree with John, La Lubu, but it could be argued that in a nation of millions, who we love and how we love them (in the physical sense) has a greater impact than a single vote. When I marry and divorce, it affects my family and countless others. If I'm unfaithful, everyone around me suffers. Look at how one person's poor decision (sexually speaking) can affect everyone in their family, sometimes multi-generationally!
Sometimes, I wonder if anything we do is truly "our own business." What we eat, what we drive, how we vote, maybe even who we f*ck and who we hug -- maybe all of that matters more than we know.
Posted by: Hugo | May 25, 2005 at 02:53 PM
djw: Actually, as far as ending discrimination is concerned, I and feminists are in full accord. I am husband to a wife, and the father of daughters, and I am a fierce advocate for all of them. (But I know that they don't need college freshmen to be herded into sensitivity training workshops to protect their delicate psyches from 'chilling effects' of non-PC behavior.) And feminists and I often/usually agree about which behaviors are honorable and which are reprehensible. We sometimes do not see eye-to-eye about what constitutes discrimination and how much the government should intervene in our lives to assure PC outcomes and to enforce the fundamental right to not be offended.
And we almost always disagree about discrimination against males. The case in question involves a slimy woman - we generally agree on that. We part ways when it comes to the implications of this. Janelle raised the proposition: "I don't think people really believe that a boy can be abused, or at least that it isn't as serious as when a girl is abused." I believe she's right. And I believe that you, yami, LaLubu, mythago, and others will disagree, possibly with a certain amount of indignation. I would be happy to be corrected on this.
Posted by: stanton | May 25, 2005 at 02:58 PM
Folks, I promise to post soon about the topic of the marriage. In the meantime, please help me keep the comments in this thread on-topic.
Posted by: Hugo | May 25, 2005 at 03:02 PM
Hugo: I apologize for continuing this tangent. I will stop now.
Posted by: stanton | May 25, 2005 at 03:02 PM
John, and Hugo:
Do you know how often your neighbors have sex? Do you know which days, and what time of the day, they prefer to engage in sexual activity? Do you know their favorite sexual positions? Their favorite techniques for bringing their partners to orgasm?
And if not, can you possibly believe that the reason you don't, is because this is private information that is immaterial to your life?
Granted, Hugo, if you cheat on your wife, it would have an impact on her, and on you, and on the person you were cheating with. But if you lived next door to me, it wouldn't have any impact on me.
The conservatives' assertion that private sexual decisions impact the public at large is a smokescreen to cover up for a lot of bigotry against gays and lesbians, and an excuse to scapegoat any nonmarried, sexually active people for all the ills of the world.
And John, gays and lesbians want access to that social institution of marriage because it legally confers rights and privileges that the unmarried don't have. If there were no legal ramifications to marriage, it wouldn't be an issue. In any case, I'm a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and think that denying gays and lesbians the right of marriage is imposing religious beliefs in the public arena. Denying civil marriage to gays and lesbians is plain, old-fashioned bigotry.
And either of you are free to try and explain to me how my private decision to have sex with a consenting adult harms you or anyone else.
Posted by: La Lubu | May 25, 2005 at 04:45 PM
"The conservatives' assertion that private sexual decisions impact the public at large is a smokescreen to cover up for a lot of bigotry against gays and lesbians, and an excuse to scapegoat any nonmarried, sexually active people for all the ills of the world."
How do you know this? Seems there's plenty of bigotry to go around.
I tried in a different blog to differentiate between the erotic and generative aspects to sex. La Luba, you are quite right that I haven't the foggiest idea of the erotic practices of my neighbors' or friends' sex life and it doesn't impact me.
Nevertheless, the generative outcomes impact me and everyone on this blog greatly. Consider the social costs associated with out-of-wedlock births: increase in welfare, greater liklihood to continue cycles of poverty, markedly increased rates of incarceration for those born to single parents, 50% higher chance of divorce for children of single mothers, etc. etc. It's your business but the impact hits all of us.
Stephen
Posted by: Stephen | May 25, 2005 at 05:25 PM
Damn, I hate it when I agree with Stephen. I guess that means I have to buy him breakfast tomorrow. (And for the record, Stephen, it's La LubU not Luba.)
I think there are sound, non-bigoted reasons for wanting to deny marriage to gays and lesbians. That said, I favor gay and lesbian marriage! But I do my opponents the favor of understanding the roots of their arguments, and the primary argument against gay marriage is rooted less in homophobia and more in a fundamental vision of the role of marriage in society. I don't share that vision; La Lubu, I am on your side. But I'm convinced that the majority of those on Steve's side are well-meaning, thoughtful people who simply have a different notion of what society is and ought to be.
When my ex-wife and I divorced, I watched no fewer than five kids in my youth group cry. One girl said to me "Hugo, I wanted it to work so badly for you. But I'm crying for me too cause I want to see just one marriage work." Talk about gut-wrenching! How is it that I can call marriage/sex private after something like that?
Posted by: Hugo | May 25, 2005 at 05:43 PM
Well, actually, the activists I heard said civil unions with all the benefits of marriage was "separate but equal" because "Marriage is a fundamental social institution".
Stephen is right, as usual. And while I hate agreeing with Hugo less than he hates agreeing with me, this time, he's right too.
Posted by: John | May 25, 2005 at 06:23 PM
"How do you know this?"
Well, Stephen, I read a lot. I've seen/heard all the quotable quotes from conservatives who like to present people like me as "exhibit A" for why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Do you really need a list of names?
Yes. People like me. Single mothers. And for real information on single parenting, you can head here, courtesy of Trish Wilson. I am not on welfare, and neither are my single-mother neighbors. We're not Murphy Brown types, either. Just normal, average, working mothers....just like our married neighbors. And our kids are indistinguishable from theirs. Deal with it. Demonizing single mothers makes some people feel good, I guess, but in the meantime it sends the entirely wrong message to a lot of women....the "a man in the house at all costs!!" message. The one that causes them to keep an abuser, addict, or philanderer around, instead of kicking him to the curb where he belongs. It's not a message I buy into (anymore), and it's one I don't want my daughter to ever buy into, even if she ends up getting divorced someday. I want my daughter to know that divorce is the best solution for dealing with a philandering or abusive partner, and usually the best solution for dealing with an addicted partner. There are far, far worse things than divorce.
Considering that my daughter is as physically, emotionally, and intellectually healthy as my married neighbors' kids (I mean, on objective measurements, rather than pulling assumptions out of one's culiddu); perhaps you'd like to try again on how my sexual business impacts you?
Hugo, that's sad. Those kids care about you, and didn't want to see you hurt. But at the same time, are we investing marriage with too much power? Frankly, I think we (as a society) give marriage a weight that it doesn't warrant. We shed a lot more tears over "failed" marriages (when really, the failure existed long before either partner ever saw a lawyer) than we do over other struggles that have every bit the impact divorce does.
I just see moralizing over sexuality as the "easy" path. It's easy! Hell, even I could do it! You just find a person or subgroup with a different view or practice of sexuality, then start putting them down. Simple! And the reason it is so simple, is because the sexual practices of other consenting adults have little or no impact on your life.
It's a helluva lot less simple to moralize over issues like wealth disparity, poverty, human rights, ecology and the like, where we are all implicit structurally in the system. It's easy to blame others. Hard to look in the mirror.
Anyway, I'm right with jenell up above, with questions about Orthodoxy and power. As someone who doesn't get any power within the Church, I'm not apt to put much faith in the assertions of the men who run it, and their interpretation of what my faith ought to be. I learned far more about my faith from my grandmothers than from any priest.
Posted by: La Lubu | May 25, 2005 at 06:37 PM
Yeah, the fight for gay marriage isn't just about getting the government to recognize all unions. It's also about your grandmother coming to your wedding, and your youth group kids seeing your relationship as a triumph of true love.
I do believe that nearly everything we do has a social component, but I also winced at the analogy between voting and sex. The difference to me is that the process by which one's private acts in the voting booth are translated into public impacts is itself public. By contrast, the process by which one's private acts in the bedroom turn into social impacts is sometimes clear, as it is with adultery (which most liberals I know have no trouble condemning), but it's more often obfuscated, indirect, and intensely personal.
If I'm going to make consequentialist arguments about the immorality of a particular sex act, I need to be able to make some assumptions about how human sexuality and emotions work together. As far as I've been able to figure out, people are both exactly the same and staggeringly different in this regard. Perhaps the Bible describes limits on this aspect of human diversity, but as an atheist, I don't consider that sufficient reason to deny others' experiences of fulfilling, beneficial sexual unorthodoxy.
So sure, private sexual decisions have a social dimension, and that social dimension provides a legitimate ground for a publically enforced sexual morality. But the assumption that the relationship between private sexual decisions and their social consequences will be the same for everyone is, like, totally not spring break, and it's that assumption that underlies a lot of the Universal Chastity stuff.
Posted by: yami | May 25, 2005 at 07:16 PM
La Lubu:
Let me get this right. You are vilifying the conservatives, en masse, for vilifying you. "They" demonize those they don't know and are afraid to look in the mirror. But you read a lot of things by conservatives so can ascribe to "them" base motives. Can you at least smile a bit at the irony?
"And our kids are indistinguishable from theirs. Deal with it. Demonizing single mothers makes some people feel good, I guess ,....”
I'm not entirely sure what is meant by, "Deal with it." I don't need to see you or your daughter as the cause of any evil. The question was "Is there a social aspect to sex?" The answer is "Yes, there is," and one piece of it is the cost of out-of-wedlock births and divorce. There is also a huge cost (as in billions) to treat sexually transmitted diseases. So, there is a very public aspect to sexual expression.
I am not demonizing you, La Lubu, or any single mother. I am a divorced father with two children who knows that kids from divorced homes have a much, much tougher time in life.
Stephen
Posted by: Stephen | May 25, 2005 at 09:05 PM
Interesting discussion. I'm afraid I don't have much to add but I just wanted to wish Hugo a happy belated birthday!
Posted by: Stephanie | May 25, 2005 at 10:40 PM