Daily Archives: May 8, 2012

Blessings of Same Gender Unions and NC Amendment 1

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This evening, Episcopalians from Madison’s parishes gathered to discuss the proposed liturgy for the Blessing of Same Gender Unions that will be debated and voted on at General Convention 2012. In that liturgy, we read:

Dear friends in Christ,
we have gathered together today
to witness N. N. and N. N. publically committing themselves to one another
and, in the name of the Church, to bless their union:
a relationship of mutual fidelity and steadfast love,
forsaking all others,
holding one another in tenderness and respect,
in strength and bravery,
come what may,
as long as they live.
Ahead of them is a life of joy and sorrow,
of blessing and struggle,
of gain and loss,
demanding of them the kind of self-giving love
made manifest to us in the life of Jesus.
Christ stands among us today,
calling these two people always to witness in their life together
to the generosity of his life for the sake of the world,
a life in which Christ calls us all to share.

Our discussion focused on the differences between this liturgy and the marriage rite in the Book of Common Prayer, and it became clear as we talked that there was considerable uncertainty about the Church’s theology of marriage, and how this proposed rite relates to that theology. We also heard from some who struggle with how the church’s teaching relates to their own experiences and the relationships in which they live and love.

I came home to learn of the passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina, and read on facebook and twitter of the pain that creates for so many. I will admit my own conflicted nature, because I know that this is an issue that divides people, but also because I don’t think the Church has worked out its theology of marriage adequately. One of the things clergy in attendance at the meeting tonight seemed united on was our discomfort with acting on behalf of the state in signing marriage licenses. Until we’re clear on what marriage means for us theologically, it’s hard to make a case for how we should think about same gender unions.

I will say this about the resources provided by the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music. I find the proposed liturgy beautiful, well-conceived (at least for the most part), and perfectly adaptable for a marriage rite between heterosexuals as well as LGBT couples. What troubles me most is the theological reflection, which I find odd. It seems to me it ought to begin with the nature of God (relationship inherent in the Trinity) and in human nature–that God creates and calls humans to be in relationship with other humans.

The SCLM resources are available here and in the “Blue Book.”

The Death of Postmodernism? Inquiring minds want to know

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Blogger Tony Jones points us to a brilliant article by Alan Kirby: The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond | Philosophy Now.

Jones, a leader in emergent Christianity continues to fight battles with conservative Christians and deploys Kirby on his side. However, what I found most interesting in Kirby’s piece was the last paragraph:

This pseudo-modern world, so frightening and seemingly uncontrollable, inevitably feeds a desire to return to the infantile playing with toys which also characterises the pseudo-modern cultural world. Here, the typical emotional state, radically superseding the hyper-consciousness of irony, is the trance – the state of being swallowed up by your activity. In place of the neurosis of modernism and the narcissism of postmodernism, pseudo-modernism takes the world away, by creating a new weightless nowhere of silent autism. You click, you punch the keys, you are ‘involved’, engulfed, deciding. You are the text, there is no-one else, no ‘author’; there is nowhere else, no other time or place. You are free: you are the text: the text is superseded.

It’s a scathing analysis of contemporary culture and the contemporary self, with devastating implications for Christianity, beginning with his notion that the typical emotional state is “the trance” and the concluding riff: there is nowhere else, no other time or place. You are free: you are the text: the text is superseded.

And speaking of postmodernism, the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions recently passed. An assessment of its impact on science, philosophy, and culture by David Weinberger.