Judge Walker\u2019s opinion<\/a>\u00a0may be paragraph 77 of his factual findings:\u00a0 \u201cReligious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful . . . harm gays and lesbians.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Paragraph 77 lists 18 findings in support of this proposition, including 77(i) \u2013 (p), which identify statements by\u00a0Catholic\u00a0and Orthodox Church bodies, as well as by various protestant churches,\u00a0concerning\u00a0\u00a0homosexual practice and sin.<\/p>\nThis section is troubling for several reasons.\u00a0 First, it highlights some ways in which the Church has acted wrongly towards\u00a0homosexuals\u00a0in the rhetoric and tactics that often have been employed in the culture wars.\u00a0 Indeed, it does not even scratch the surface concerning\u00a0a deplorable history of violence and hatred for which the Church ought to sincerely repent.\u00a0 Contrary to Judge Walker’s conclusions, however, I don’t believe the harm necessarily inheres in the category of “sin.”<\/p>\n
The\u00a0opinion\u00a0surrpetitiously establishes a conflict between faith and science by suggesting that a social-scientific definition of \u201charm\u201d must trump any theological concept of harm.\u00a0 Judge Walker, it seems to me, clearly wishes to pour out moral approbation on Christianity for employing the category of \u201csin\u201d in private sexual matters.\u00a0 To do so, he assumes a metaphysical stance that waves away any concerns beyond the here and now.\u00a0 But when Christian churches issue pastoral statements about sin, they assume an anthropology that extends beyond the world we presently inhabit.\u00a0 The very concept of \u201csin\u201d implies a metaphysic in which the \u201charms\u201d and benefits people experience, or may in the future experience, extend far beyond what\u00a0seems evident in this life.\u00a0 The deepest and most honest Christian response to arguments about sin and \u201charm\u201d must be that the short and temporary wound caused by a rebuke of sin yields eternal good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A\u00a0related concern is that Judge Walker mischaracterizes Christian sexual ethics by characterizing\u00a0\u201csin\u201d as only a sort of legalistic, negative, irrational divine command.\u00a0 The Christian tradition, however,\u00a0is rich with ethical and theological reflection about human sexuality and the family, which extends far beyond a blind emphasis on rules.\u00a0 Judge Walker seems ignorant of the way in which Christian sexual ethics are situated in the basic doctrines of the difference and co-inherence of the Trinity, the gift of the good and generative\u00a0creation, and the establishment of a unique community of worship.<\/p>\n
Of course, we cannot expect a federal district court judge to involve himself or herself in such deep theological questions.\u00a0 And here, I would suggest that the lobbying and litigation tactics of the Prop 8 proponents were devastating for Christian mission and witness.\u00a0 Precisely because the secular law cannot deal in theology, arguments in support of Prop 8 had to be made on supposedly \u201cneutral,\u201d secular and \u201cscientific\u201d grounds.\u00a0 The\u00a0rich Christian theology and ethic of family and sexuality had to be compressed into an unrecognizable lump of consequentialist mush.\u00a0 The result was all too familiar:\u00a0 religion loses when it compromises its metaphysical claims.<\/p>\n
My initial feeling after reading Judge Walker\u2019s opinion, then, is a stronger belief in Hauerwas\u2019 axiom that \u201cthe Church must be the Church.\u201d\u00a0 Our beliefs and ethics are rooted in metaphysical claims that are revealed more than they are empirically self-evident.\u00a0 We need to learn to live as an ekklesia<\/em> in a culture that does not share most of our metaphysical presuppositions.\u00a0 And we need to learn how to live with and love others who do not share our presuppositions.\u00a0 Grand scale legislative, lobbying and litigation tactics will always result in the construction of public arguments that undermine our most important truth claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most of my readers probably know that U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has issued his ruling in the California Prop. 8 case. The most troubling aspect of Judge Walker\u2019s opinion\u00a0may be paragraph 77 of his factual findings:\u00a0 \u201cReligious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful . . . harm gays and lesbians.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Paragraph 77 lists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-and-policy","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-lz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}