Through a Glass Darkly

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’s opinion may be paragraph 77 of his factual findings:  “Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful . . . harm gays and lesbians.”  Paragraph 77 lists 18 findings in support of this proposition, including 77(i) – (p), which identify statements by Catholic and Orthodox Church bodies, as well as by various protestant churches, concerning  homosexual practice and sin.

This section is troubling for several reasons.  First, it highlights some ways in which the Church has acted wrongly towards homosexuals in the rhetoric and tactics that often have been employed in the culture wars.  Indeed, it does not even scratch the surface concerning a deplorable history of violence and hatred for which the Church ought to sincerely repent.  Contrary to Judge Walker’s conclusions, however, I don’t believe the harm necessarily inheres in the category of “sin.”

The opinion surrpetitiously establishes a conflict between faith and science by suggesting that a social-scientific definition of “harm” must trump any theological concept of harm.  Judge Walker, it seems to me, clearly wishes to pour out moral approbation on Christianity for employing the category of “sin” in private sexual matters.  To do so, he assumes a metaphysical stance that waves away any concerns beyond the here and now.  But when Christian churches issue pastoral statements about sin, they assume an anthropology that extends beyond the world we presently inhabit.  The very concept of “sin” implies a metaphysic in which the “harms” and benefits people experience, or may in the future experience, extend far beyond what seems evident in this life.  The deepest and most honest Christian response to arguments about sin and “harm” must be that the short and temporary wound caused by a rebuke of sin yields eternal good. 

A related concern is that Judge Walker mischaracterizes Christian sexual ethics by characterizing “sin” as only a sort of legalistic, negative, irrational divine command.  The Christian tradition, however, is rich with ethical and theological reflection about human sexuality and the family, which extends far beyond a blind emphasis on rules.  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 creation, and the establishment of a unique community of worship.

Of course, we cannot expect a federal district court judge to involve himself or herself in such deep theological questions.  And here, I would suggest that the lobbying and litigation tactics of the Prop 8 proponents were devastating for Christian mission and witness.  Precisely because the secular law cannot deal in theology, arguments in support of Prop 8 had to be made on supposedly “neutral,” secular and “scientific” grounds.  The rich Christian theology and ethic of family and sexuality had to be compressed into an unrecognizable lump of consequentialist mush.  The result was all too familiar:  religion loses when it compromises its metaphysical claims.

My initial feeling after reading Judge Walker’s opinion, then, is a stronger belief in Hauerwas’ axiom that “the Church must be the Church.”  Our beliefs and ethics are rooted in metaphysical claims that are revealed more than they are empirically self-evident.  We need to learn to live as an ekklesia in a culture that does not share most of our metaphysical presuppositions.  And we need to learn how to live with and love others who do not share our presuppositions.  Grand scale legislative, lobbying and litigation tactics will always result in the construction of public arguments that undermine our most important truth claims.

A wide range of Christian churches in Kenya have issued a joint statement opposing Kenya’s proposed new Constitution, which is being voted on in a referendum on August 5. They argue that the new Constitution would expand abortion rights, and they oppose provisions that would allow Muslims to use khadi courts “for matters such as law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in proceedings in which all the parties profess the Muslim religion and submit to the jurisdiction of the Kadhi’s courts.”

I claim no expertise in the dynamics of the Kenyan Constitutional process or in Kenyan culture. I have to confess, however, that the issue of khadi courts generally seems more difficult and subtle than the Kenyan Church opposition suggests. Is it in the interests of religious liberty to require religious people to use government provided courts rather than also having access to the judicial system of their religion? Is a conflict between secular Western and Islamic views of justice inevitable in any democractic state with a Muslim population that desires to employ internal community / religious justice mechanisms?

I also have to confess a worry that America’s religious-cultural wars have been exported to the Global South through the influence of American fundamentalism on Kenya’s evangelical Christian groups. At least one Kenyan religious leader and civil rights activist, Rev. Timothy Njoya, feels the same way. Watch the clip below from about 2:00 to about 7:00 to get a flavor for Njoya’s views.

But then again, Njoya suggests that Kenya’s evangelical Christians should read Thomas Payne’s “The Age of Reason” — a strange choice to say the least — and makes some other outlandish claims. Moreover, it is not only Kenya’s evangelicals, but also the Catholic and Anglican Churches in Kenya, as well as Njoya’s own Presbyterian Church of East Africa, that oppose the new Constitution. And, if an amendment to the U.S. Constition were proposed that would allow abortion whenever it is “permitted by any other written law,” I would expect opposition from an equally wide range of Churches in the U.S., not only from fundamentalist groups.

I’d be very curious to hear from Islamic law and religion scholars about their views on this dispute. I’d also be curious to hear from anyone with more knowledge than myself of Kenyan politics and history about whether the opposition of these Kenyan churches has deeper historical and cultural roots that overshadow the influence of American culture war politics.