Voices from Younger Ch... Archives - Respectful Conversation

Lessons Learned

January 21, 2016/0 Comments/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

In this series of “Respectful Conversations,” each set of contributors is invited to use their third and final posts to point to issues that require more thought and that could use further conversation. There are any number of fascinating questions and implications that have arisen in my exchanges with Matthew that could occupy the time of Christian thinkers with far more time and talent than I personally possess. In the confines of this final post I can’t, however, begin to address even a fraction of these issues and won’t, therefore, try for comprehensiveness. I hope that any readers joining us at this point will kindly look back to our previous posts to get a sense of the flow of things.

Coping with the Inevitability of Disagreement

In this past month of conversation there is, nonetheless, one particular idea that I have been chewing on…in the attempt to stop it from gnawing at me.

And it comes, of all places, from the two strongest points of agreement that Matthew and I consistently reached: 1. That predictive attempts are largely folly and 2. the unlikelihood of the “fading of the present controversies.” We doubt the efficacy of prognostication but, when pressed, we both put our chips down on the side of the probability of ongoing and, indeed, rancorous debate. Matthew, furthermore, highlighted the necessity of attending more directly to the present state of affairs in U.S. Christianity rather than being caught gazing either longingly or warily down the road too far—I heartily concur.

I highlighted these convergences in my second post. And Matthew’s second essay mercifully helped further clarify the nature of my personal mental itch. I can’t, you see, escape the idea that the strength of these two points of agreement highlights a larger present reality within the wide and wild ranks of U.S. Christianity that could use some triage…and stat.

So I’ll devote my final post to the idea that has been plaguing my thoughts since the day our first posts when live. I owe Matthew a good deal of thanks for engaging with me the past few weeks as this summative hypothesis, which I have been nursing, draws as much on his contributions as it does my own.

My big-picture, far too simple, broad-in-scope, pipe-dream hypothesis is prescriptive, rather than predictive and is as follows:

Regardless of the future probability of outcomes in the debates around the “present controversies,” it is absolutely clear, as of today, that the apparent shifting tides of consensus will not be enough to eradicate dissent. I want to propose, therefore, that U.S. Christians ought to think about the form of our disagreements as much as we do the content. It is impossible to change the fact of Christian disagreement and diversity of interpretation—and if the history of the Church is any indication, we are probably in for, shall we say, vigorous debate for the long haul—but I would like to believe that there is room for improvement in the ways in which we disagree.

Drawing on the most salient lessons that I have personally taken from this series of exchanges, I’ll highlight some characteristics that I feel will be necessary for the very possibility of ongoing conversations amongst disagreeing U.S. Christians—both young and old.

But first, one brief but enormous caveat: I by no means want to be heard as suggesting that this post contains the key to bringing the in-fighting that has plagued the Christian tradition since its very beginning to a successful détente. I am neither proposing to have found the answer nor suggesting that the current state of U.S. Christianity represents a catastrophe unprecedented in Christian history. There are, nonetheless, certain characteristics of the “present controversies” within U.S. Christianity that present particular kinds of difficulties that warrant careful reexamination. And each new manifestation of inter-Christian debate should, after all, signal a chance to handle it better than we have before.

Lesson 1: While potentially useful as diagnostic tools, polls and surveys about religious affiliation are poor authorities for the task of Christian theology and should, perhaps, be shelved in times of intense disagreement.

For instance: in my previous post I did not mean to suggest that the possible correlation between the “rise of the nones” and popular perceptions of Christianity as anti-gay pointed definitively to causation.[1] I acknowledge, however, the possibility of interpreting my suggestion of correlation as an attempt to pin the blame for the declining Christian affiliation of Millennials exclusively on a more conservative sexual ethic. I stand by the suggestion that some Millennial disassociation with institutional religion has, at least, something to do with perceptions of Christianity as anti-gay. But Matthew correctly cautions that there is far more to the story than this.

I won’t belabor the point. But as I suggested in my previous post, this lesson cuts both ways. If Christian institutions taking a more conservative position on sexual ethics can’t be held solely responsible for the rise of dis-affiliation with Christianity, then the institutions that have taken a more progressive stance in the past few decades can’t, by extension, be labeled “unsuccessful” because of declining membership.

When it comes to survey data, differences of interpretation will undoubtedly continue to plague U.S. Christianity—specifically around questions like “what do U.S. Christians believe about _________,” or, “why are ___________ leaving the Church in such large numbers?” But Matthew’s point that the weaponization of these numbers represents a sure sign of a diseased culture war is well made.

With this in mind it would, I submit, behoove U.S. Christians—myself included—to take at least one step back from appeals to the latest denominational membership numbers or “religious landscape” survey data as proof positive of anything definitive.

Lesson 2: The possibility of finding healthier ways for U.S. Christians to disagree on these questions will absolutely depend on the intentional diversification of both conversation partners and conversation mediums.

This very blog series is, I think, one such attempt. By requiring longer-form pieces and multiple responses over a more sustained period of time, as well as by inviting conversation partners who will inevitably disagree but hopefully without resorting to name-calling, Respectful Conversations aims, it seems, for both of these measures. A twitter debate is, after all, going to have certain limits that are hopefully—though not necessarily—subverted in lengthier exchanges.

It, furthermore, bears mentioning that the corners of the Internet where Christians often congregate are no exception to the unending dross of banal and angry noise being broadcast online daily. Conspicuous Christian online presences tend, in my experience, toward either a) reactionary responses passed virally in an echo chamber on an unending loop or b) ad-hominem attacks directed at both “the world” and each other, rivaling and even surpassing the vitriol of any other Internet comment section. Any attempt—like the one made in this series—to subvert these tendencies through creative adaptations of available online mediums is, in my humble opinion, a worthwhile experiment.

That being said, I firmly believe that it is incumbent upon U.S. Christians with varying degrees of social privilege to work oh-so-very-much harder at broadening their purview of possible conversation partners in matters ethical and theological. Though I obviously can’t speak for everyone else involved in this particular set of exchanges, I, for one, have personally noticed the striking white-ness of these conversations. And I am, furthermore, worried that every time I wrote “U.S. Christianity” in one of my posts, I probably should have written “white U.S. Christianity” as a qualifier—I admittedly assumed, after all, a primarily white audience.

We do all streams of the Christian tradition a disservice when we assume that they are monolithic. So, while I’m not suggesting that there is such a thing as an essentialized “white Christianity” or a separate essentialized “black Christianity,” the absence of Christians of color in debates such as these is both unconscionable and, indeed, unrepresentative. Matthew and I, for example, are both straight, white, U.S., Protestant, Christian males. The divergence in our hopes for the future of U.S. Christianity is, indeed, a kind of diversity in that we have potentially opposing perspectives. But diversity of perspective doesn’t necessitate diversity of experience by any means, and it seems increasingly likely that folks that look like me will exert less and less influence on the future directions of Christianity.

U.S. Christian leaders—particularly the white male Christian leaders—presently holding tense conversations around these theo-ethical controversies would, I think, be better equipped for the inevitable future negotiation of difference by listening carefully to Christians outside their own narrow sub-culture. And I would be remiss in not explicitly stating that the persons most equipped to address the future of U.S. Christianity as it relates to generational shifts and the “present controversies” are, in my opinion, those who are most affected by them: the young LGBTQ Christians negotiating the often dire straits between a community that may malign them for their sexual/gender identity and a community that might deride them for their faith.

I think that the voluntary and un-coerced presence of LGBTQ Christians in any venue of conversation about “the present controversies” is a non-negotiable necessity for more just forms of Christian theological disagreement. It is, in my experience, easier to unpardonably collapse people into mere “issues” when they aren’t in the room with you. Disagree though we might, Christians should, as an absolute minimum, strive to talk with persons rather than about “issues.”

Lesson 3: Though there will never be an actual and absolute homogeneity of belief in any individual Christian institution, it is abundantly clear that there are Christian institutions in the U.S. going all-in for both “sides” of this debate. The possibility of future conversation will, I think, depend on the ability to acknowledge the reality of historic and present Christian diversity.

I turn to this final lesson partially in response to a question that Matthew posed for me in his second post. Pointing to my previous suggestion that, while I hope that U.S. Christians can negotiate the “present controversies” without resorting to the extremity of heresy-izing one another, I could not personally affiliate with a “non-LGBTQ affirming institution,” Matthew writes:

I am interested to know how Sharp reconciles this hope with the conviction that he could not, in good conscience, align with an institution that refused to affirm gay unions in the way he deems fit. In that claim, he seems to grant that there is a point at which separation is justified, at least among individuals.

My reconciliation of these two suggestions is based largely on the fact that Christianity, from its inception, has included a fairly wide range of theological interpretations. There are admittedly Christians that, as is almost always the case, disagree with the following suggestion. But I personally think, for instance, that Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as the various and diverse range of Protestant denominations, all fall within the bounds of Christianity “proper.”

As with the example I provided in my second post of double-predestination Calvinists, I do not personally agree with a number of the particular theological interpretations officially advocated by various other institutional iterations of Christianity. Matthew rightly judges that I do indeed think that there are points, “at which separation is justified, at least among individuals.” I, furthermore, believe that institutional separation is, in fact, justified in some cases. Though I dearly love my Catholic brothers and sisters and strive to learn from them as much as I can, as a Protestant I think that the Reformation was, for instance, one such example of “justifiable separation.”

The denominationalism that has dominated Protestant history—waning though it might be—is, by my estimation, a helpful example of the distinction I have been aiming at. There have regularly been occasions when a group of Christians thinks that the prevailing interpretations of the faith are mistaken on a number of key points—the prerequisites for communal membership, for instance—and takes it upon themselves to form a new community that more faithfully represents the dictates of their consciences.

And there have been times when some previously established institutional bodies subsequently and effectively declare that the new fellowship of dissenters are heretics beyond the pale of “true” Christianity. In such cases, there are often obvious power dynamics in play such that the established institutional leadership fears the loss of control in dictating the legitimate range of Christian belief.

There have also, however, been times—generally after a sort of “cooling off” period—when the divergence of interpretations amongst Christians allows both for individual breaks with one Christian institution in favor of another that more accurately represents one’s own beliefs and an eventual ability for estranged institutions to suggest things like, “just because they are Methodists doesn’t mean they aren’t Christians!,” of one another.

When applied to the possibility of ongoing “conversation” amidst “the present controversies,” the difference looks, I think, like this…

Matthew and I both agree that it will be increasingly difficult for particular institutions—colleges, denominations, non-profit organizations, etc.—to maintain close fellowship within their ranks across the “affirming” and “non-affirming” lines. In-house conversation across these divisions might possibly, I think, continue in some of these spaces for a short while longer—and I know some brave congregations that are trying. But I think that Matthew and I are also in agreement on the likelihood that this possibility will not last indefinitely.

As these groups are forced to make their institutional positions clear, individual Christians will affiliate or dis-affiliate with these institutions based on their personal interpretations of the ethical demands of their faith.[2] The real question, I humbly submit, will be whether or not the two “sides” will be able to continue any meaningful conversation across institutional lines—or for that matter between individuals affiliated with opposing institutions.

I believe that the very possibility of ongoing dialogue between the coalescing “non-affirming” and “affirming” sides of U.S. Christianity is predicated on the ability to view one another as mistaken, but still Christian.

I will close, then, by answering Matthew’s previous inquiry as succinctly as I can: my conscience indeed dictates that I can longer personally associate with institutions in which my LGBTQ Christian brothers and sisters cannot participate as fully as I can. But I possess neither the desire nor the ability to say that these kinds of institutions are, therefore, excommunicated from the wide stream of Christian tradition. To be able to personally engage in ongoing dialogue with these institutions and their representatives will, however, depend on whether or not they can say the same thing about me.

[1] I personally, nonetheless, think that there is at least some correlation and that there are some minimal indications—beyond the Barna study—of a causal link. See, for instance, the Public Religion Research Institute’s study at: http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/02/2014-lgbt-survey/#.Vp7aaFMrKHo.

[2] This is less a prognostication than it is a description of what is already happening.

The Limits of Orthodoxy

January 21, 2016/0 Comments/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

Finding unexpected sources of agreement is a rewarding part of any good dialogue. But identifying crucial and important aspects of disagreement is equally thrilling, even if it is far less appreciated. Most of the time in discussions like this, people tend to get lost in confusion and miscommunication and never make their way to the happy shores of clear-eyed, uncompromising differences of opinion. Such disagreements, though, are often genuine sources of creativity and promise. Forcing ourselves to find new reasons to offer in hopes of persuading makes us return to and reevaluate our own commitments, and gives us again the possibility of changing our minds or renewing our confidence. Such unabashed differences are where Sharp and I have come to, I think, at last. While resolving them is (alas!) outside the scope of this essay, I will say one or two words about them.

First, though, I appreciate Sharp’s critiques, as they allow me to clarify a few of my remarks, out of which will come one of our central disagreements. Sharp has suggested that I have just escaped inconsistency in my rejection of using church attendance as a normative basis for making decisions about gay marriage. On his reading, I come “perilously close” to saying that the “bitter dividing of the mainline denominations” represents proof of their failed attempts to hold together traditional orthodoxy with gay marriage.

The confusion is an understandable one, and perhaps hangs on my use of spatial imagery—‘dividing’ and ‘hold together’—to describe two separate phenomena. The fact that the two points come from different points in the text is perhaps some clue that I meant two different things, even if not a sufficiently obvious one. I take the observation that the mainline denominations have bitterly divided over this issue as a given at this point—but I brought it up in a strictly descriptive manner, to explain why some moderate-progressives have made ‘unity despite disagreement’ a central plank in their approach to this issue.

The later claim that the mainline denominations have struggled to hold together traditional views of the core of the faith is, I think, more controversial. By it, I mean something different than the sociological divisions, and so I certainly don’t take the declining numbers or the divisions as evidence for its truthfulness. Conservatives who have left such denominations have frequently used the diminished orthodoxy outside of sexual ethics as part of their justification for leaving, so in that sense, numbers are irrelevant to the claim. Instead, what I had in mind was something like what the PCUSA struggled over in 2006, namely, whether they should enforce the adoption of revised, more ‘inclusive’ names for the members of the Trinity. Nor is the PCUSA alone. The UCC has long had a policy of replacing traditional forms of speaking about God with gender-neutral or inclusive terms. My concern about holding together gay marriage with traditional orthodoxy is a doctrinal one: it is about the way in which various intellectual positions hang together, or don’t, regardless of who is in the church or not.

Of course, it is possible to think that revisions in the doctrine of God are disconnected from the logic of gay marriage, and that there is nothing in the latter that requires the former. It’s not clear to me whether that is Sharp’s position, but he challenges me to be more attentive to those gay-affirming Christian advocates, including those who identify as “more theologically traditional.” (I did not intend to make them ‘irrelevant’: indeed, by acknowledging that fractious dispute is most likely our future, I think I tacitly acknowledged their existence and power within the church.) The question, however, is whether such “theologically traditional” organizations are internally coherent, and whether gay marriage itself has any substantive bearing on how the Church speaks of and understands God, such that to affirm gay marriage implicitly—even if the advocates do not themselves recognize it immediately—commits one to doctrinal positions that depart from traditionally orthodox formulations of God’s identity.

This is far too deep of a question to even begin to adequately take up in the time remaining. However, it is—I think—the heart of the disagreement over whether or not affirming gay marriage is compatible with traditional orthodoxy. While feminine pronouns and imagery have been deployed often on the edges of the tradition, they have never been given a central programatic position in the church’s inner life of worship, as contemporary advocates wish to see done. The question of the nature of the tradition, and the boundaries of what counts as ‘traditional’ is near the heart of whether it is possible for churches to become inclusive and remain orthodox.

One way to frame the question is, ‘how many steps from the doctrine of God is the doctrine of marriage?’ The church’s view of marriage is not determined in the first place by the categories of love, inclusion, harm, suffering, or self-expression. It is normed in Scripture by the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ bearing witness to the love of the Father through sacrificing himself for the Church. If gender does not matter theologically for *our* marriages, then why does the gender of the Incarnate Lord matter? And if Christ’s maleness is fungible, able to be replaced without loss by any other gender, then why should we view his instruction to pray “Our Father” as in any way binding on us? Surely, that too can be dismissed as an accident of history, an archaic relic of a patriarchal culture that had assumed a gender binary where there need not be on. To put the point differently, it may be that the grammar inherent in the gender asymmetry of Genesis 1-3 is assumed throughout the entire revelation, and that it is not annihilated in Christ but is redeemed and restored. If so, then denying that grammar its central, organizing role through embodying forms of life that run against it, invariably will impinge upon our knowledge and understanding of who God is.

These connections are elusive, and need far more work to unpack them than I could possibly provide here. But they are the kind of structural ties that I was alluding to in describing marriage as an ‘architectural doctrine.’ They are forms of reasoning about marriage and God that evangelicals do not often practice, as we tend to think that theological arguments can be settled through exegesis alone. But they are levels to which doctrinal approaches to marriage much eventually reach, if we are to fully see what hangs on our doctrine of marriage and what forms of life we allow within the church to embody it. Some Christians have taken to describing the difference between the traditional view and the revised view as ‘cosmological.’ Showing marriage’s proximity to the doctrine of God is one way to unpack that claim, and to explain why those who affirm gay marriage are simply incoherent in their attempt to affirm traditional views of the Trinity.

It is not enough, then, to simply look at the bitter divisions of the past as instructive on this score. Some of those divisions have been compatible with seeing each other as Christians. Others have clearly not: heresies are a real feature of the Church’s life, and while they have served an important role in invigorating and furthering orthodoxy, that instrumental purpose has never sanctioned one’s knowing participation in one. Nor is it enough to assert that the “legitimate possibilities of the gender of one’s spouse” do not put us near the boundaries of the tradition. It is on this question where the disagreement lies, and it is this question to which we would need to devote all our time and energy to understand and resolve.

Respectful Disagreement on the Possibility of “Agreeing to Disagree”

January 11, 2016/0 Comments/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

If nothing else, Matthew’s first essay demonstrated that we share a justifiable reluctance to offer definitive predictions about the direction that future winds may blow. Make no mistake, I—and I would be willing to bet we—hedge on pronouncements on the shape of things to come out of self-interest: wagering aloud is one thing, committing forecasts to print is quite another. And the Internet would, no doubt, be all too happy to oblige in one day pointing out how wrong we were.

I think our agreement on this point, however, goes at least a bit deeper. If I read him correctly, Matthew would, I think, agree with my suggestion that the epistemological wall of the future calls into question not only the practical advisability of prognostication but also, indeed, the intrinsic legitimacy of such endeavors. This would be a very different kind of discussion if there were, for instance, only one of us who thought that predictive attempts are more or less doomed from the get-go.

Inadvisable though it perhaps was, we acknowledged the folly of it and logged our guesses anyway. So before diving into the specifics, I want to thank Matthew for his first contribution and for his willingness to go a couple of rounds with me.

The Similarity in Our Wagers

I’ll begin by highlighting our areas of agreement—addressing the aspects of Matthew’s essay that I affirm.

Neither of us foresees an eminent “fading of the present controversies.”

It is in disagreeing with the suggestion that the “generation gap” represents a sure sign that the “present controversies” will simply “fade away,” that Matthew and I reach our strongest point of agreement. Chalk it up to the “crown and glory of our youth” that we unite most consistently in rebellion against a popular perception. We both, it seems, believe that the growing “acceptance of homosexuality” amongst younger American Christians doesn’t, by any means, point to as rapid a disappearance of controversy as some might think. I pointed to some broader demographic trends as demonstrative of the possibility of ongoing battles. And Matthew rightly noted that the survey data misses the fact that those Millennials who have held on to a more traditional Christian sexual ethic up until this point may, indeed, be better positioned to articulate their reasons for holding what is an increasingly unpopular view. Matthew convincingly suggested that it seems likely that the Millennials currently holding onto a more traditional sexual ethic will continue to argue their position all the more fervently. We both, furthermore, alluded to the power dynamics within conservative Christian institutions as another contributing factor in the possibility of future strife.

We also both, to varying degrees, questioned the utility and advisability of using polling measures as absolutely indicative of shifts in generational ethos. I clearly relied more heavily on these very surveys as one indicator of the present milieu. But, nonetheless, I hope that my wariness about the limits of their predictive and normative validity came through in my essay.[1]

We agree that there is a potential generational shift occurring in political theology.

I also appreciated Matthew’s hypothesis that the, “the most important and interesting generational gap is not over the substance of sexual ethics, but about political theology,” as well. The dubiousness of polling measures aside, it seems undeniable that there has been a decline in the popularly held, appropriately vague, loosely Protestant, widespread U.S. civil Christianity, as well as its alleged minimum of ethical consensus—if there ever was such a thoroughgoing historical agreement in the first place. The very idea that the U.S. could be conceptualized as a “Christian nation”—whatever that actually means—seems, mercifully, less and less a rhetorical trope these days. Add to that a generation of Christians that is, in my experience, acutely wary of a Religious Right style, theocratically inflected, sort of politics and political theology does seem to be a place where there will be more than just a “generational gap”: we may very well be in for a decisive generational break.[2]

I think that Matthew and I are in agreement that whatever happens with the future of Christianity in the U.S., the hopes of achieving even a minimal religious and social-ethical consensus in the electorate or of the possibility of legislating the “kingdom of God” into existence, will not be as great a temptation as for past generations. I agree with Matthew’s observation that the most prominent present day Christian conservative reform movements, “have not mobilized politically as past evangelical movements have done,” and would add that the notable relative absence of publicly cozy associations between current Christian leaders and those in the highest political offices is further indication of changes in the generational landscape with respect to political theology. Try, for instance, to think of any current U.S. Christian leader who would be able to conspicuously associate with the highest U.S. political leaders as intimately and for as long as either Billy Graham or, earlier, Reinhold Niebuhr. Or who could receive civil commemoration at the level of a Martin Luther King Jr.—as controversial as he was during his life and as long as his posthumous ascent to near universal regard actually took.[3]

There are obviously still Christian leaders and thinkers and laypersons that are politically active. And we should be careful not to reduce the scope of the political purely to electoral politics. But I still think it is safe to question the likelihood that there will be a Christian leader from the Millennial generation who will be on multiple successive presidents’ speed dials—well, perhaps more appropriately, on their iMessage.[4]

There is one more significant point, I think, on which we agree. But I’ll save that one for the end of the post, as I find it illustrative in a summative sort of way.

The Difference in Our Evaluations

While our tentative predictions about the current generational shifts afoot in U.S. Christianity are, in fact, quite similar, our interpretations of the present and future implications of some of the purported changes are starkly different. The most substantive, and at times obvious, difference in our first postings has to do, I think, with our divergent understandings of the legitimate range of possibilities for Christian theology. Before attending to my concerns with Matthew’s position, as I understood it, let me state more explicitly what I think is our most fundamental disagreement:

I articulated a hope that Christianity will become increasingly more open to theological positions that affirm the moral legitimacy of same gendered sexual relationships. Matthew thinks that any such position is, in fact, an inherent theological impossibility within the bounds of Christianity. A Christian ethic that does not maintain a strict gender binary as requisite for marriage is, in his view, a contradiction in terms due to its position as “an architectural doctrine,” the removal of which amounts to “a theological heart transplant.”

Some legitimate concerns…

With the clear divergence in our personal theological positions in mind, I want to briefly address some of what I think are Matthew’s most pressing concerns with “more progressive” positions.

For starters, I will grant the legitimacy of Matthew’s worry over the zero-sum-game stakes of much of our present culture warrioring. And though I have no personal right to say whether the LGBT community ought to grant mercy to Christian groups that hold more conservative views of sexual ethics, I, for one, harbor no gleeful hope for the marginalization of conservative Christians.

I will also grant that there are problematic implications in some traditionally liberal appeals to evolutionary views of human history. Especially, for instance, in the un-interrogated colonialist assumptions inhering in descriptors like “backwards.” Absolute self-confidence that one’s position or that the views of one’s group represent calculable “progress” is a dangerous game—even, or perhaps especially, when there is an arguable measure of truth in the notion that some things have gotten better. The question of what qualifies as progress, or improvement, or betterment, is an intractable difficulty with such narratives.

I fully, furthermore, concur with Matthew’s suggestion that “is it true?” is a stronger criteria of evaluation for an ethic than either, “is it popular?” or, “does it work?”

…and some problematic suggestions.

I am confident that Matthew personally believes that the move by progressive mainline denominations in the past several decades to try and articulate a pro-LGBT Christian sexual ethic, indeed, represents a theological untruth. But I feel that, while holding up the criteria of truth as a defense for a more conservative view of Christian sexual ethics in the face of shifting social mores, Matthew edges toward leveling the charge that, “it simply hasn’t worked,” at Christian denominations who have historically taken a less conservative approach. He comes perilously close, in fact, to suggesting that the, “bitter dividing of the mainline denominations,” represents proof of their “failed attempt,” “to hold together the affirmation of gay unions with the traditional core of the faith.”

I cannot personally speak broadly for any of those involved in these attempts, but I’d be willing to bet that many were motivated by a belief that holding “together the affirmation of gay unions with the traditional core of the faith,” is not only possible but is, in fact, true. If the decline in popularity of a more conservative position and the probability of ongoing divisiveness in the conservative Christian world over these questions are not an accurate measure of the truthfulness of a more traditional Christian sexual ethic, then the denominational schisms of the mainline ought not be gestured toward as evidence of the untruthfulness of a more progressive stance. As Matthew pointed out, whether something polls well should neither be celebrated nor mourned for those seeking truth.

What, then, would qualify as evidence of the untruthfulness of these attempts or of their inability to hold together the affirmation of gay unions with the core of Christianity?

There is, furthermore, a strong thematic emphasis in Matthew’s first post on the idea of a smaller, more sincere, true Christian remnant in the future—pictured as holding out against the shifting tides of the surrounding culture. As evidenced, for instance in the following description:

Instead, our increasingly fragile social position will winnow away those who are not substantively committed to the faith, and the deep hope of the gospel will become more deeply embedded in our own hearts. The glad light of good cheer among the faithful remaining will grow brighter in such circumstances, and conservatives will announce the word of grace while holding firm to their convictions about the shape that grace takes.

In this narrative, the future battles over these controversies will largely demand negotiations between two key players: 1. The “faithful remaining” Christians, with their more conservative sexual ethic and 2. everyone else—essentially, the increasingly secular, pro-LGBT, broader U.S. culture. The section of his essay expressing the tenuous hope for the boon of grace to conservative Christians from increasingly victorious LGBT rights advocates, for example, paints this very sort of picture. This scenario subtly sidesteps, however, the question of the ongoing role of Christian LGBT advocates and “affirming” Christian denominations and organizations within this very debate—not to mention the pro-LGBT Christian organizations that position themselves as more theologically traditional.[5]

Due to the acute disparity in their respective agendas, the foregrounding of the debate between conservative Christian institutions and broader secular LGBT advocacy groups may be warranted. But the prominence of this prospective David and Goliath scenario heightens my suspicion that the first post was written with an assumption that the various pro-LGBT strands of U.S. Christianity are not only illegitimate but, in fact, largely irrelevant.

In Matthew’s first post, the most conspicuous fear about future developments seems to be the increasing marginalization by the surrounding culture of the strands of U.S. Christianity that maintain a more traditional sexual ethic. While I think that he is justifiably apprehensive about this possibility, I think the future of “inter-Christian” diversity around these questions is more complex than the particular emphases of his first post might suggest.

Which brings me, actually, to my final point of agreement with Matthew’s post.

The Limits of Christian Diversity?

I think that, like our convergence around the projection that the “present controversies” will not soon “fade away,” Matthew and I are in agreement on another aspect of the broader future outlook for the shape of these debates within various iterations of U.S. Christianity. When he suggests, then, that, “I suspect the ‘generation gap’ will not be wide enough to avoid the ongoing balkanization and fragmentation of the Protestant world,” I am afraid that he is absolutely right on this one. Like Matthew, I have a hard time imagining, for instance, that it will ultimately be “feasible for institutions to somehow leave room for both positions.” I don’t foresee any individual denomination or congregation escaping this with the “agree to disagree” approach in place for the long haul.

But while individual Christian institutions will likely be hard pressed to sustain a wide diversity of perspectives on these questions, I like to imagine that the broader Christian tradition might. If historical precedent is any indication, there have been divisions both as bitter and as polarizing as these throughout Christian history and many of the warring factions have been able to still conceive of one another as Christians.

Are there outer limits to the possibilities of diversity on theological and ethical positions still classifiable as within the realm of the Christian tradition?

Probably.

But I don’t think that differences of opinion on, for instance, the legitimate possibilities of the gender of one’s spouse put us very near the boundaries.

I personally believe that a lot of Christians are woefully wrong about any number of things—double-predestination Calvinists, for instance. But being wrong and being “beyond the pale” are, in my humble opinion, two decidedly different things.

[1] I believe that I successfully avoided the kind of “weaponization of polls” that Matthew pointed to in his essay. If the reader, however, disagrees, rest assured that it was not my intent for them to serve as any kind of ultimate authority.

[2] Which is not to suggest, however, that 1. all of the religious right were theonomists; 2. that there weren’t many streams of U.S. Christianity that concurrently offered alternative political theologies, or 3. that there will be Millennial consensus on what should replace it. I will, however, go so far as to say—and I think Matthew would agree—that the most prominent and loudest versions of the political theology advocated by the “Religious Right” is not likely to be replicated by “the next generation.”

[3] If there are any names that would even come close, I would all but guarantee that they don’t belong to anyone who is also a “Millennial.”

[4] My apologies to Android users.

[5] See, for instance, The Reformation Project: http://www.reformationproject.org/

Response to Isaac Sharp

January 11, 2016/0 Comments/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

It’s a rare chance for me to be the ‘senior’ member in a discussion, but if Isaac Sharp is correct that role has been unintentionally afforded me here. Would that it supplied additional reasons to affirm my points. As it is, I’ve always argued that reasons are an inherently equalizing force, which leaves us where we started. But Sharp’s observation of younger ages of the ‘conservative’ side is a welcome indicative of my general point: conservatives on such questions are not going away any time soon.

Sharp has done a good deal of work laying out the sociological evidence for the ‘generation gap,’ work that I appreciate and largely agree with. His qualification of what such empirical data supplies is also welcome: this is just the kind of modest, description of the state of affairs that we need a great deal more of. Sharp’s willingness to say in four words what I said in far too many—“[We] have no idea” where we are headed—is refreshing and important. Temptations to triumphalism beset everyone when it comes to demography, and Sharp’s willingness to avoid feeding that sort of atmosphere is both gracious and wise. His acknowledgment of the geographical limitations of the discussion is also salutory: for as much anxiety as North American Christians have about their own peculiar situation, we need as many reminders as possible that the future of Christianity may not hinge upon us or our internal diputes.

But the most astute observation that Sharp provides is his analysis of the likely condition of conservative Christian institutions going forward. Indeed, Sharp has cleanly articulated a point I was aiming at but said less elegantly. His summation that we will have “increasingly smaller and older Christian institutions that have clarified that they will continue to uphold the “traditional” teachings on sexuality and will…continue the debate as a minority position in a broader culture that disagrees” distills my own thought about the likely future as effectively and efficiently as anything I have read. Ongoing contestation, but on a plane in which conservative institutions have diminished presence and power, is the best bet about this subject I know. Among the many dangers for the church, and for society, that lie before us is the prospect of a conservative Christianity that retains its convictions with a more belligerently hostile, anti-modern edge than it even now has. Confidently retaining convictions in the face of disagreement is the mark of a mature mind: whether evangelicals will be able to arrive there remains to be seen.

Questions for Further Exploration

Sharp’s helpful overview, though, raises important questions that deserve further scrutiny. Tying together this discussion with the ‘rise of the nones’, for instance, is an interesting connection. But it leaves me with more questions than I have answers. For instance, Sharp seems to indicate that the traditional account of gay marriage is causally responsible for the abandonment of traditional Christianity. These are the sorts of demographic and social arguments on behalf of a point of view that I think we ought be wary of, as they cut a variety of different ways depending on which demographic standpoint we are willing to stand from.

That aside, though, I also would simply need more information that the abandonment of traditional forms of Christianity has been shaped determinatively by this particular issue. Barna’s work is, while enormously popular, has always struck me as so commercially oriented that it should be treated with a wary eye—and there are good substantive reasons to call it into question. Still, even a reputed academic sociologist has argued that conservative Christians are disproportionately viewed negatively for their treatment of gays and lesbians. Should the point then stand?

Causality is notoriously difficult to identify, but if the doctrinal position of traditional churches was uniquely responsible for fragmenting religious beliefs, we might expect to see rapidly expanding youth movements in progressive, gay-affirming churches. But the Episocopalian Church USA, to pick one, has hemorrhaged its membership during the same period that the ‘nones’ have grown. We would need more fine-grained analysis to know whether those declining numbers have been compensated for an exploding number of millennial Episcopalians. (I’d note that none of this is an argument for or against the normative positions about marriage.) But the prevalence of untaken alternative religious options would provide strong reasons to be skeptical of the thesis that gay marriage is substantively due to the rise of the nones.

A full analysis of why the nones might be a phenomenon is well beyond the purview of this essay. However, alternate explanations are readily at hand: the fragmentation of faith in the conditions of late modernity, the exhaustion of a moralistic therapeutic deism, the consummation of a religious atmosphere that has emphasized individualism over forms, the pervasive effects of a consumeristic mindset that hollowed out the salability of traditional religious life….these, and doubtlessly many more such reasons, are in play when it comes to the broader shape of religion in our world. Whether and what role gay marriage plays in the shaping of our religious environment writ large is a crucial and, I’d suggest, undertheorized area of research.

But I also would want to raise questions about Sharp’s final paragraph. There, he write:

I do hope that Christians can delicately navigate the “present controversies” by avoiding the extremities of attempts to effectively excommunicate those viewed as heretical on the one hand, and an irreconcilable schism on the other.

A few interests come to mind. First, I wonder why Sharp thinks that these ‘extremities’ are so bad. We tend to assume that because of the New Testament’s obvious emphasis on unity that it should be maintained at all costs. But, the church has always had to draw sharp doctrinal lines, if only for the sake of not confusing the world on the nature and shape of its own witness to the truth. Certainly something is lost within the possibilities that Sharp lays out: but might not something also be gained? And if not, might not division be demanded of us anyway sometimes?

Second, I am interested to know how Sharp reconciles this hope with the conviction that he could not, in good conscience, align with an institution that refused to affirm gay unions in the way he deems fit. In that claim, he seems to grant that there is a point at which separation is justified, at least among individuals. Why is affirming gay marriage important enough that Sharp views it as a necessary grounds for division on his part, but denying gay marriage is treated in this final paragraph as justifying “attempts to effectively excommunicate those viewed as heretical”? If good conscience won’t allow Sharp to align with those institutions that are conservative on the question, is there some name or label that he does want to apply to such churches that succinctly expresses his opinion of their views? My aim is not to bate Sharp into saying something stronger than he might want. Instead, it simply strikes me as interesting that Sharp goes all the way by suggesting that he can only align in affirming churches rather than opening himself to aligning in churches that attempted to maintain both positions. I suspect, and would be interested to hear Sharp’s thoughts, this is grounded in a skepticism that such ‘solutions’ are simply untenable. But then, that simply means that both gay marriage advocates and conservative Christians should share the burden of ‘heresy’ and schism.

But these questions are only meant to be suggestive, and to open up further discussions. I am grateful for Sharp’s thoughtful contribution to this symposium and delighted to discover so many points of agreement. In the face of such divides, that is worth holding on to indeed.

Current Trends and Future Prospects

January 4, 2016/1 Comment/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

I’ll start with a simple observation that, though perhaps unrepresentative, is nonetheless striking: without exception, every previous sub-topic of conversation in this series has (ahem) a “more senior” author presenting the more “progressive” line of reasoning and a younger author articulating the more traditionally “conservative” position.[1] The conservative/traditional-liberal/progressive binary—and the requisite oppositional side choosing that goes along with it—generally, in my opinion, does more harm than good. This project, as I understand it, represents one kind of attempt to subtly subvert this very problem and to hopefully make space for some more nuanced reflections on what is and will undoubtedly continue to be the most divisive religious debate of our time. The contributors were, however, clearly chosen with the intention of having a discussion between people with opposing perspectives and the fact that they have consistently diverged along the lines of seniority is, at the very least, intriguing if not ironic.[2]

I make the preceding point by way of an entrée into the conversation at hand, specifically in response to the leading question’s suggestion that, “Due to a perceived ‘generation gap,’ some Christians wonder whether present controversies relating to faith and LGBT issues will ‘fade away’ as a younger generation moves into positions of influence in both faith-based and secular institutions.”

In the interest of sticking as closely as possible to the proposed topic I intend, then, to approach the leading question in two distinct ways: descriptively—detailing some current trends in Christianity which are relevant to the relationship between LGBT persons and faith traditions—and prescriptively/prospectively—articulating what I personally think should and might in actuality happen in the future.

The Zeitgeist

The “generation gap”

Our esteemed contributors aside, various polling measures seem to increasingly suggest that there is, in fact, a divergence in the views of younger American Christians from their older counterparts when it comes to the question of whether, “homosexuality should be accepted by society.”[3] Pew Research’s most recent polling notes, for instance, that, “a majority of U.S. Christians (54%) now say that homosexuality should be accepted,” and goes on to say that:

While this is still considerably lower than the shares of religiously unaffiliated people (83%) and members of non-Christian faiths (76%) who say the same, the Christian figure has increased by 10 percentage points since we conducted a similar study in 2007. It reflects a growing acceptance of homosexuality among all Americans – from 50% to 62% – during the same period.[4]

The upward trend in the “acceptance of homosexuality” by American Christians is attributable, according to Pew’s analysis, partially to “younger church members.” Their influence is demonstrated by the fact that:

Roughly half (51%) of evangelical Protestants in the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) say homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with a third of evangelical Baby Boomers and a fifth of evangelicals in the Silent generation. Generational differences with similar patterns also are evident among Catholics, mainline Protestants and members of the historically black Protestant tradition.[5]

According to Pew’s data, the trend of younger Christians expressing more acceptance of homosexuality than previous generations falls in line with trends in the broader American public.

What, then, ought we make of this particular data set? I would argue that there is obviously something to the idea of a “generation gap” between younger American Christians and older American Christians when it comes to the “acceptance of homosexuality.” But that this particular trend does not, by any means, tell the whole story.

Before moving to the prospects for the future of “LGBT issues in American society in general and in Christian churches in particular,” I want to first point to what I believe are two other important current trends in Christianity and in the broader culture as they relate to the “present controversies.”

The rise of the nones

While younger American Christians are polling at higher levels of “acceptance of homosexuality” than their older counterparts, their peers are polling at lower levels of “religious affiliation” than ever before.[6] Pew’s research into the “rise of the nones,” is documented in an article titled, “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious.”[7] The article suggests, for instance, that:

Millennials – especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted – are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts.

The subtitle of the article—“Modest Drop in Overall Rates of Belief and Practice, but Religiously Affiliated Americans Are as Observant as Before”—is, however, particularly telling.[8] Americans, it seems, are only sort of “becoming less religious,” as, “the vast majority of Americans (77% of all adults) continue to identify with some religious faith.”[9] The study, furthermore, highlights that:

Indeed, by some measures, religiously affiliated people appear to have grown more religiously observant in recent years. The portion of religiously affiliated adults who say they regularly read scripture, share their faith with others and participate in small prayer groups or scripture study groups all have increased modestly since 2007. And roughly four-in-ten religiously affiliated adults (41%) now say they rely mainly on their religious beliefs for guidance on questions about right and wrong, up 7 percentage points in seven years.[10]

It seems, then, that what is actually happening is that the phrase, “the rise of the nones,” is a description of the phenomenon of the increasing number of predominantly younger Americans who have become less religious, when defined by institutional affiliation and “traditional” measures of religiosity. Or, put more succinctly:

As older cohorts of adults (comprised mainly of self-identified Christians) pass away, they are being replaced by a new cohort of young adults who display far lower levels of attachment to organized religion than their parents’ and grandparents’ generations did when they were the same age.[11]

Again, I’ll reserve my projections of the implications of these trends for the second half of the essay. But for now, suffice it to say that: just as there is something to the idea of a “generation gap” within American Christianity on LGBT discussions, there is also something to the fact that younger Americans are increasingly disassociating themselves from Christianity altogether. There are, it would seem, more American Christians who favor the “acceptance of homosexuality” than ever before, and younger Christians tend toward this position in higher numbers than older Christians. But…there are fewer and fewer younger Americans who identify as Christian.

Christianity going south

Though these conversations are all primarily focused on the U.S. context, any discussion of the “future of Christianity” must, I would argue, first reckon with the broader global realities within the capital-C Church.

In that light, when zoomed out further beyond simply the U.S.A., the lens shows a decidedly different picture. Again, I’ll turn to Pew’s comprehensive data to paint a brief picture.

In a 2010 report, they suggest, for instance, that, “there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion,” and note that, “the number of Christians around the world has nearly quadrupled in the last 100 years, from about 600 million in 1910 to more than 2 billion in 2010.”[12] In light of massive population growth, however, the estimated number of Christians in 2010 represents nearly the same percentage of the total world population (32%) as in 1910 (35%).[13]

It is, rather, the change of the geographic distribution of Christians throughout the world that proves most interesting. Pew’s data suggest that:

Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world’s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole.[14]

It should also be noted that the U.S., as of 2010, still has the highest percentage of the world’s total Christian population living in any one country (11%). And the percentage of Christians relative to the total overall population (69%) is significantly higher in the “Global North” than in the “Global South” (24 %). Pew highlights, however, that, due in part to the massive growth of Christianity in places like sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, Christianity has, quite literally, gone south:

A century ago, the Global North (commonly defined as North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand) contained more than four times as many Christians as the Global South (the rest of the world). Today, the Pew Forum study finds, more than 1.3 billion Christians live in the Global South (61%), compared with about 860 million in the Global North (39%)[15]

I include the 2010 data about world Christianity and its distribution merely as a word of caution: our discussions of present and future social-ethical debates specifically within the U.S. Christian cultural milieu are warranted as we do, after all, live and move in that context. But we ought not assume that trends in U.S. Christianity are necessarily representative of Christianity as a global whole.

Christian Futures

What do these domestic and global trends mean, then, for, “the future relative to LGBT issues in American society in general and in Christian churches in particular”?

Honestly?

I have no idea.

That’s the thing about summative interpretations of cultural and religious trends: there are too many factors in play at any given moment to get a complete picture of the current state of affairs, much less of what will happen next. Tracking the prospective path of an individual human actor is hard enough, but precisely mapping the larger future course of groups of individuals—like religious traditions—is nigh impossible. Our constant epistemological situation involves the absolute limit of never being able to say with certainty what will happen next or, as some might call it, the “human condition.”

But I’ve been invited to speculate.

And so, I’ll wager a couple of guesses about what might happen with future generational shifts in “American Christianity,” before closing with my take on what I think should happen with respect to Christianity and its relationship to LGBT persons.

Some Projections

For our purposes, the most pressing question is whether or not the “present controversies relating to faith and LGBT issues will “fade away” as a younger generation moves into positions of influence.”

In light of current trends and in combination with personal, admittedly anecdotal, interactions with members of “my generation,” I foresee any of a number of possible outcomes with respect to the “present controversies.”

1. The more “conservative” Christian institutions in the U.S.—be they congregations, denominations, Christian colleges or other religious organizations—will continue to be the last major sites of this particular battle in the on-again-off-again culture war and, partially in response, a younger generation of LGBT persons and their friends will continue to disassociate themselves with Christianity bit by bit over time leaving leadership in the hands of those who take a more “traditional” line.[16]

This situation would, I think, be most probable if the “rise of the Millennial nones” becomes the most dominant trend in the U.S. religious landscape.

The continued disassociation of younger generations from U.S. Christianity would also, for instance, appear consistent with the findings of another well publicized though less recent study. In 2007, David Kinnaman, president of the research organization The Barna Group, published the book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity and Why It Matters, detailing the polled perceptions of Christianity among 16 to 29 year olds. A Barna press release at the time of the book’s publication summarizes one of the most consistent results of the study:

Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is ‘anti-homosexual.’ Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a ‘bigger sin’ than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.[17]

The “present controversies” would, in this hypothetical situation, continue but would proceed largely at the borders of U.S. Christianity rather than internally. In this case, we would have increasingly smaller and older Christian institutions that have clarified that they will continue to uphold the “traditional” teachings on sexuality and will, then, continue the debate as a minority position in a broader culture that disagrees.

2. As a younger generation of Christians becomes more and more accepting of LGBT persons—or are indeed themselves LGBT—the nature of the “present controversies” will become increasingly localized and, at times, more intense. Particularly when it comes to diverging from institutional leadership that supports a “traditional” sexual ethic.

This scenario would, I think, be most possible if the upward trend in the “acceptance of homosexuality” by younger Christians outweighs the rise of continued institutional religious disassociation. The “present controversies” may, in this case, slowly move from the center stage position they now hold to more particular sites of contestation, but they show little sign of waning.

Take, by way of example, the fact that my undergraduate alma mater Carson Newman University, a small Christian liberal arts college in Tennessee, recently made national news due to their institutional positioning on some of these very questions.[18]

A local news channel ran a story highlighting the fact that Carson Newman, along with several other Christian colleges and universities, applied for an exemption[19] from title IX regulations—allowing for, among other things, the possibility of discrimination in enrollment decisions based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Outside sources as diverse as Cosmopolitan Magazine[20] and George Takei[21], of Star Trek fame, went predictably ballistic. I was most struck, however, by the deluge of social media reactions from those inside the institutional orbit, from current and former students to professors and donors. The torrent of posts and comments included both dismay over the fact that the Carson Newman that they remembered would discriminate against any student who sought enrollment and shock and anger at the fact that they applied for the exemption in the first place—sometimes in the same post. Other alumni circulated an open letter asking for Carson Newman to revoke its waiver request.[22]

If Carson Newman is any indication, the “present controversies” have the possibility of continuing generally apace and, indeed, intensifying in particular circumstances, especially in instances where there are large numbers of self-identified Christians who both hold increasingly more LGBT-affirming positions and continue to associate with Christian institutions that, for whatever reason, gesture toward discriminatory practices.

Some hopes

I’m running out of space and will, therefore, keep my prescriptive suggestions brief.

It isn’t my job herein to articulate the full rationale behind the following suggestion, but I’ll “show my hand,” nonetheless: I hope that all iterations of Christianity, both in the U.S. and abroad, will eventually be able to come to a place where they can articulate an LGBT-affirming sexual ethic. And to personally identify with institutions that cannot would, at this point, be a profound violation of my own conscience.

Despite the real “generational gap” in the U.S., I don’t, however, think the total “conversion” of world Christianity to a pro-LGBT position is particularly likely in the near future…if ever. I think it is in fact possible that institutional Christianity will, on the whole, become less LGBT friendly as time moves on, especially if LGBT persons and their supporters wash their hands of Christianity altogether.

That being said, I do hope that Christians can delicately navigate the “present controversies” by avoiding the extremities of attempts to effectively excommunicate those viewed as heretical on the one hand, and an irreconcilable schism on the other.

[1] If the high school and undergraduate graduation dates listed on online C.V.s are reliable, then Justin Lee, James Brownson, David Myers, Kathy Lee, Julia Stronks, and Kathryn Brightbill are older than their corresponding partners Eve Tushnet, Mark Strauss, Christopher Grace, Micah Watson, Adam MaCleod, and Chelsea Langston—if only by a few a years. The one outlier is the fact that Mikael Pelz is younger than Adam MaCleod. But both Adam and Mikael are younger than Julia Stronks, so the observation still stands.

[2] Well, that is, until now. If I am accurately gauging the purpose of my invitation, then Matthew Lee Anderson and I will buck the trend, as I am his junior by a few years.

[3] I want to note the complex implications, and indeed limitations, of polling and surveys for the construction of both individual and collective religious identity. This isn’t, however, the place for a full discussion of the relationship of polling to American religious identity. For a fascinating analysis of this very topic, though, see Robert Wuthnow’s recent book, Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation’s Faith. http://www.amazon.com/Inventing-American-Religion-Surveys-Tenuous/dp/019025890X

[4] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/

[5] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/

[6] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/

[7] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

[8] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

[9] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

[10] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

[11] http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/

[12] http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/

[13] http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/

[14] http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/

[15] http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/

[16] These projections focus largely on “more conservative” iterations of Christianity in the U.S. as these are, I think, the sites of the most intense contemporary controversy around these questions. That being said, the evangelical/conservative-mainline/liberal dichotomy is, in my opinion, an increasingly unhelpful construction. And I would, furthermore, argue that, to the vast majority of the “younger generation” of Christians, the words “evangelical” and “mainline” mean very little if anything at all.

[17] https://www.barna.org/barna-update/millennials/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity#.VocaLJMrKHo

[18] http://www.local8now.com/home/headlines/Carson-Newman-University-granted-exemption-from-discrimination-laws-360521761.html

[19] http://thecolu.mn/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CarsonNewmanUniversity.pdf

[20] http://www.cosmopolitan.com/college/news/a50616/carson-newman-university-exempt-from-title-ix/

[21] https://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei/posts/1431828530179929

[22] https://baptistnews.com/perspectives/an-open-letter-to-carson-newman-university/

Will the controversies ‘fade away’?

January 3, 2016/1 Comment/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

Prophecy is a game that should be reserved for either fools or saints. It offers few benefits to the writer beyond the opportunity to make semi-serious claims without any accountability. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought of the things itself” is not counsel likely to generate keen and penetrating insights about the future: but then, as the invisible openess of the path ahead of us is the most opaque of all dimensions to our discernment anyway, perhaps it is a word that we need most.

Still, prognosticating about the shape of the world has been an inescapable feature of our culture war politics for the past thirty years. It is not to our society’s credit that painting wild visions of the future has frequently replaced substantive argument, and has demonstrated the narrow scope of our interests and horizons. And this by both sides, if I may say so. Progressives have banged on about how those opposed to gay marriage are on the “wrong side of history,” an empty phrase that narrows the scope of who is making ‘progress’ to those in the developed world and falsely indicates that history itself has moral salience. Conservatives, at the same time, have warned of the demise of Western society and made much of the fact that religious communities that approve of gay marriage are shrinking quickly while conservative churches, and the churches in the global south and in Africa that have opposed gay rights, are growing. For both sides, polls are a presented as a reason to believe—which somehow overlooks both that the crowds demanded the crucifixion of our Lord, and that if we were consistent about our method we all have good reasons to become Muslim. The weaponization of polls and of history is one of the marks of a diseased culture war—and avoiding perpetuating such a practice may be one of the paths we must take out of it.

Besides, generations are fickle things. While there is little doubt these days about a ‘generation gap’ on matters pertaining to human sexuality, a backlash against the slow-moving effects of the sexual revolution may be at store for us at some point in the future. Such a reversal is perhaps not likely; but then, I suspect few people at the start of this millennia would have ever imagined a liberal huckster like Donald Trump might become a serious candidate for the Republican nomination, either. The world and its development is a far weirder, less linear place than the grand narratives of decline or progress convey. Besides, it is the joy and crown of youth to rebel against expectations. Today my own generation (‘millennials’) has turned aside conservative sexual mores; but if one thinks a (broadly) traditional account of sexual ethics is in fact true, then why should they not expect a similar repudiation at some point in the future of the liberal progressive reduction of sexual ethics to ‘consent’? As G.K. Chesterton once wrote with his typical puckish verve:

“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called “Keep tomorrow dark,” and which is also named…”Cheat the Prophet.” The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.”

The future is not for predicting, then. The purpose of such visions is to evaluate our lives today, to determine how we should act now in order to bring about the ends that we deem valuable and good. The future is a conditioned: it is predicated upon ‘ifs’ that themselves demand careful scrutiny and evaluation. As it is unknown, it can generate only questions for us, not answers or reasons. Reflecting about the future forces us to attend to what are we today, and what we do now to become the people and society we want to be.

I turn then, with some fear and trembling, to explore some of the questions that the purported ‘generation gap’ on matters LGBT places before us. Specifically, I wish to explore precisely what it might mean that controversies “relating to faith and LGBT issues” might “fade away.” Second, and more presumptively, I wish to take up the question of mercy within the culture wars as an important aspect of diminishing hostilities. And finally, I turn specifically to the churches to identify the limits and possibilities of unity that this generation might represent.

The Reasonable Recalcitrance of Belief

Will a ‘generation gap’ on LGBT issues lead to the end of controversies about such matters in the future? How we answer depends, it seems to me, upon what the ‘gap’ is about. It is likely, for instance, that the aging donor base of the Religious Right will not be replaced by ‘millennials’, and that their nihilistic politics will come to an end. In the best case, conservative evangelicals will jettison the resentment that has motivated them and order themselves toward a substantive, thoroughgoing account of the common good that minimizes the role of legislation for the sake of social and cultural persuasion. On this account, the most important and interesting generational gap is not over the substance of sexual ethics, but about political theology. Most of the rigorously conservative millennials I know have little interest in carrying on the Religious Right’s political dispositions and rhetoric. Many of the most vibrant and populated reform movements within the evangelical world—one thinks of The Gospel Coalition, with their 10,000 person conferences—have been uncompromising in their traditionalism, even if they (thankfully) have not mobilized politically as past evangelical movements have done.

But one might also expect the generation gap to include substantive doctrinal changes, so that the number of people and institutions in America that continue to hold that marriage is between a man and a woman will decline to the point that they are irrelevant. Yet here there is a danger for progressives in believing too strongly in their own rhetoric about history. Doubtlessly many millennial evangelicals have shifted on these questions, fueling the widely received narrative of a ‘generation gap.’ But the pertinent question is where the floor of support for traditional marriage is. If half of millennial evangelicals—if—currently think homosexuality should be “accepted by society,” whatever that means, will that number someday reach 60%? 70% 80% The numbers make a difference: 40% of a religious group as large as ‘evangelicals’ is not an insignificant number for American political life, especially when that segment is not distributed evenly geographically but is concentrated in few enough places to elect representatives.

Indeed, it seems to me there are good reasons to think that more conservative millennials will continue to hold to traditional views than people might think. The gender-binary at the heart of marriage is an ‘architectural doctrine’ of the Christian faith: it permeates the whole of Scripture, stands beneath the traditional naming of God as Father, is necessary for explaining Christ’s relationship to the Church, and generates an indispensable role for Mary in salvation history. Excising the doctrine would be nearer to a theological heart transplant than cosmetic surgery.

Conservative Christians have also watched carefully as progressive mainline churches have attempted, and failed, to hold together the affirmation of gay unions with the traditional core of the faith. Churches deliberating about these questions now would need some reason why they should expect their experience to be different; gay marriage cannot have the character of an ‘experiment’ within the conservative churches, as it did have 50 years ago.

And socially, many millennial evangelicals who have not changed their minds already are vastly more acquainted with the arguments for and against gay marriage than they were five years ago, and have been quickly growing accustomed to the pressures that come from being in a minority. Why should we expect those who have survived the bombardment of the past five years with their beliefs intact to change their mind in the future? All this provides some reason to question the narrative that the ‘generation gap’ will be wide enough to avoid serious divisions and disputes within the conservative Christian world. After all, people have been trying to excise the belief in creation from conservative Christians for over 100 years, with far less success than might be imagined by some.

At the heart of whether or not we expect controversies to ‘fade away’ is a question about our commitment to reasonable discourse, persuasion, and a political order that is built on something more stable than the will of the majority. The sort of social upheaval on LGBT questions we have undergone the past thirty years has doubtlessly narrowed the ranks of conservative Christians; but we should want the kinds of controversies that we have experienced the past twenty years to be resolved, not simply to ‘fade away’ because those who held to certain views are simply dying off. Such an approach both overlooks the possibility that far more millennials will remain conservative on these questions than we might now expect, and risks fostering (more) resentment and alienation among those conservatives who remain, inasmuch as it replaces the exchange of reasons and the aim of persuasion with the promise that ‘history’ will simply sort things out.

Mercy and the Marriage Debates

Can there be mercy in the gay marriage debates? It is a question that has haunted me for several years, even if it is not one for traditionalists to answer. It may not even be the kind of question that I can fittingly ask, as doing so might subtly hint at some lingering privilege, as though mercy is the kind of thing that conservative Christians deserve. Yet ask it I shall, as if our cultural disputes about such issues are to diminish, it is an important question for LGBT advocates to consider.

Shortly after the Supreme Court announced their ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, it became clear that disputes about gay rights were going to continue to rage on, partly because conservatives were clearly not going to go quietly into their dark night of defeat, and partly because legalizing marriage for the LGBT community is only a partial victory. Those sympathetic with the LGBT movement quickly began looking for ways to further roll back what many of them clearly think is a discriminatory regime. Most prominently, conversations sprung up about whether or not tax exempt status should be extended to religious colleges who refuse to hire or admit practicing gay faculty and students. The push has taken concrete political form in the “Equality Act,” an anti-discrimination bill introduced in July that, if enacted, will probably engender more conflicts between religious individuals and organizations and gay rights.

The social effects of such political efforts depends in large part upon the line of reasoning that is used to support them. If opposition to gay marriage and gay rights continues to be treated as no different from racism, then the conflict between gay rights and religious commitments will continue to be a zero-sum game. Such an approach by the LGBT community is understandable: after all, they have a deep and pervasive narrative about the unjust persecution and stigmatization they have received from the hands of conservative Christians. But the question before them is whether they wish to exact an eye for an eye, and narrow the range for public expression of traditional sexual ethics as much as possible, or if they will take a more lenient and capacious approach than they themselves once received. If ending discrimination in America requires—as one LGBT group sounds its mission—stamping out “religion-based bigotry”, conservative Christians will be required to either take their lumps in silence or carry on the kinds of political controversies that we have seen. But in neither case will the good of ending unjust discrimination against LGBT individuals be common for American society: it will come only at the cost of the freedom of conservative Christians to have the form of community life that they deem fitting.

At the same time, framing the question as one of mercy requires something of conservative Christians, too. It demands the recognition that mercy is what is required, that the behavior of our own community throughout history toward LGBT individuals has been less exemplary than it should have been. Mercy may not be merited if conservative Christians learn nothing at all. If conservative Christians now object to the use of the law to punitively encroach upon their way of life, we should seriously reflect about our own use of similar methods in the past. It may be that quietly accepting our marginalized future is an appropriate form of political contrition, and that any purging of our past may not be complete except through such penance.

But in the meantime, whether or not the controversies abate is in largely up to the victors to decide. Whether or not they wish to extend mercy to conservative Christians, to forgo the claim that religious objections to gay unions are no different than racism and so preserve robust protections for religious individuals and institutions, is largely in their hands. Whether conservative Christians deserve such magnanimous treatment is certainly an important question; but then, it may not be mercy if they did.

The Divisions we Must Sustain?

What should we say about the church? Among the many lessons that conservative Christian churches have incorporated over the past decade is that they have earned an abysmal reputation for responding to LGBT individuals within their midst. The psychologically dubious, hostile rhetoric of early 1980s evangelicalism has been mostly eliminated from the mainstream of evangelical life. In its place is a fragile but promising attempt to announce a message of welcome and grace without compromising the teachings of Scripture.

At the same time, progressive Christians who have witnessed the bitter dividing of the mainline denominations have turned toward maintaining unity. In addition to arguing outright that conservatives should approve of gay unions, they have defended the idea that gay marriage is a ‘disputable matter,’ an issue closer to the ethics of food consumption than the doctrine of God, and hence one upon which good Christians should simply agree to disagree about while getting on with life together.

These changes are already at work within the Christian world. And I see every reason why graciousness and kindness will continue to take root within the conservative world. Such loving welcome will not be promoted for tactical reasons, as it sometimes has. Instead, our increasingly fragile social position will winnow away those who are not substantively committed to the faith, and the deep hope of the gospel will become more deeply embedded in our own hearts. The glad light of good cheer among the faithful remaining will grow brighter in such circumstances, and conservatives will announce the word of grace while holding firm to their convictions about the shape that grace takes.

And yet, it is likely that these changes will not satisfy anyone on either side, but will be suspiciously treated as window-dressing over more fundamental problems. It is possible, for instance, that many LGBT activists will look at efforts by conservatives to be more welcoming and hospitable as a pretense, an attempt to ‘put a smile on hate’—as one phrase sums up the skepticism. Similarly, conservatives may treat ‘agreeing to disagree’ as a halfway house toward full-inclusion and the stigmatization within the church of conservative opinions.

For this reason, I suspect the ‘generation gap’ will not be wide enough to avoid the ongoing balkanization and fragmentation of the Protestant world. Unless conservatives follow the progressive position and minimize the importance of traditional sexual ethics, then they will have every reason to maintain divisions on this particular question. Wolfhart Pannenberg, who was no American fundamentalist Baptist himself, once distilled the conservative position by arguing that any church which approved of gay marriage “would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” Besides, such doctrinal elevation has turned sexual ethics into a litmus test within the conservative Christian world: while the many millennial evangelicals have become affirming, advancement within conservative institutions depends upon being a traditionalist. That will ensure institutional continuity for far longer than people might expect, even if the size of those institutions decreases.

The question, then, is whether it is feasible for institutions to somehow leave room for both positions. Whether it would work, pragmatically, is dubious—but would it still be faithful? The question is pertinent to both sides of this dispute. Should those who are progressive rest content worshiping next to those they think are papering over their bigotry and hatred with religious dogmas? Or vice versa? These are the sort of questions that Christians will continue to face; I see little reason to think that we will come to different answers than previous generations.

Conclusion

It is entirely possible that in challenging the relevance and importance of polling for understanding the future of the church conservatives might be falling prey an irrational optimism that is purely wishful thinking. At the same time, recalcitrant belief in the face of majority opinions is sometimes commendable. Socrates was compelled to drink hemlock, and he is remembered as a hero for his dissent. (We are less likely to remember those who were deluded.) The question is whether a traditional account of sexual ethics is true; if it is, those who are conservative have every reason to carry on with their convictions even at the expense of their own cultural relevance and power. And to that question, the polls that tell us right now which way the historical winds are blowing are perfectly irrelevant. If such shifts become a reason for hope or despair for the people of God, we build for ourselves a less sure foundation for our communities than the faith that we have received.

Topic # 7: Voices from Younger Christians (January 2016)

December 31, 2015/0 Comments/in Voices from Younger Ch.../by Admin

Conversation Partners:

Matthew Lee Anderson, Mere Orthodoxy Blogger
Isaac Sharp, PhD candidate, Union Theological Seminary

Leading Question: Due to a perceived “generation gap,” some Christians wonder whether present controversies relating to faith and LGBT issues will “fade away” as a younger generation moves into positions of influence in both faith-based and secular institutions. As a member of this younger generation, how do you view the future relative to LGBT issues in American society in general and in Christian churches in particular?

Lessons Learned

The Limits of Orthodoxy

Respectful Disagreement on the Possibility of “Agreeing to Disagree”

Response to Isaac Sharp

Current Trends and Future Prospects

Will the controversies ‘fade away’?

Topic # 7: Voices from Younger Christians (January 2016)

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