tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2827071479314474893.post6436995575247240512..comments2024-01-31T22:47:47.791-08:00Comments on Anglocat on the Prowl: Confessions of a Continuator: The Canard of ComplementarianismAnglocathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03218740053628978255noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2827071479314474893.post-67604732969127434952012-12-26T04:52:34.405-08:002012-12-26T04:52:34.405-08:00One piece of your commentI didn't address was ...One piece of your commentI didn't address was tradition. As an Anglo-Catholic, I am by and large one who believes in it, but with a caveat: tradition can become stifling and oppressive as the world changes around it. The best, least controversial example is the defense of Christian churches of slavery, but think also of the RC defense of monarchy as the reign of Pius IX demonstrates. <br /><br />So tradition is a source of wisdom, but needs to be tempered by reason, just as Scripture is not an unfailing guide when read for specific solutions to modern problems (think of what I like to call "the West Wing Conundrum"--what to do about the harsher biblical pronouncements: see http://jwirenius.livejournal.com/40962.html )<br /><br />So reason comes into play, and mediates between these sources of wisdom and learning, in the Anglo-Catholic viewpoint, at least. (Can't answer for the Evangelical viewpoint, as it isn't mine).<br /><br />All this is meant to add further light, not heat!Anglocathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03218740053628978255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2827071479314474893.post-15290458147287313922012-12-25T08:06:01.175-08:002012-12-25T08:06:01.175-08:00Rick,
No apology necessary; I'm always glad t...Rick,<br /><br />No apology necessary; I'm always glad to hear from you. In reading your irenic comment, I realized that I failed to make one thing clear: I do not believe that complementarianism is generally *deliberately* cruel (it can lead to or provide a pretext for deliberate cruelty as some of the instances cited by Peter Ould and linked by me a few posts down demonstrate, but that's a different matter). Rather, I think that it has a cruel effect--it tells the person whose own life experience doesn't fit the norm, that their experience is a delusion, or an example of false consciousness. It might have better if I had described it as a rationale that supports pastoral failure--not meeting people where they are.<br /><br />I agree, by the way with your point (1) above, but would note that taming desire is, in my opinion, best done for a larger purpose, and not deprivation for its own sake. So, for example, I admire greatly the monks and nuns who are called to celibacy and embrace that call, s part of a rule of life. (I was taught by Catholic brothers and priests, and my cousin is a Dominican nun, and I see the beauty in their lives, as well as in those of the Anglican monks and nuns I have come to know.)<br /><br />I think I agree with about two-thirds of point (2) and about half of (3)--that is, I admire tradition, and agree about its validity, but would adapt its teaching to new facts, Charles Gore-style. Here, that would be expanding its range to include those whose very nature is drawn to partners of the same gender. Just as it Paul's rather grudging concession that "it is better to marry than to burn " recognizes that not all heterosexuals are called to, or cut out for, celibacy, I think the same fact must be recognized as applicable to our GLBT brothers and sisters. If not, then the Church has literally nothing on offer for them but a warping and a deprivation of their God-given desire for sacred love in order to fit a teaching that came to be in an era that did not understand homosexuality as an orientation, rather than as an indulgence or a ritual practice. I would prefer to see tradition expand to share its benefits with those who seek them.<br /><br />A very merry and blessed Christmas, Rick, to you and yours, and thanks for your comments through this year--I appreciate our exchanges, and hope they'll go on into 2013.<br />Anglocathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03218740053628978255noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2827071479314474893.post-80267172960026491292012-12-24T09:12:21.866-08:002012-12-24T09:12:21.866-08:00"Ultimately, complementarianism is a way of a..."Ultimately, complementarianism is a way of asserting dominance and compelling obedience by shaming others into not fitting in with the cultural presuppositions of the ancient world."<br /><br />This sentence struck me, if only because, from my modest acquaintaince with ancient literature, it has always seemed to me that the polymorphous sexuality of the world into which Christianity came was such as to make our own seem tame.<br /><br />Into that world came a Christianity teaching a considerably restricted range for sexuality, set out in the New Testament, and extensively expounded in the works of the Fathers and the early saints. I know, of course, that Protestants don't accept the authority of Tradition, and Protestants and Catholics have long differed since our first great divergence on sexually, divorce and remarriage, emerged in the Reformation. <br /><br />Still I admit some distress when I hear the old notions of chastity and marriage characterized as "cruel" (and I note, with appreciation, that your take on this is considerably more measured than that of others', who revel in the "Pope's Christmas Attack on Gays"-type headline). But if the exhortation to chastity is cruel today, surely it was crueler in the first centuries of the Christian era, when the mores of the Church were considerably different from those of the predominant culture.<br /><br />When I write I rarely expect anyone to be persuaded of anything I say. At best I hope to show that there is another side whose adherents are not necessarily so crazy as they might appear. Therefore, I write here only to suggest that (1) there is not necessarily hatred or cruelty in the teaching that there are other ways of taming desire than trying to satisfy it, that (2) the ancient Christian teaching on chastity and marriage, however foreign to most modern sensibilities, was an integral part of the early Christian way of life, and that (3) there may be some value in at least one Christian communion continuing to assert that those values may be more condusive to human blessedness than our contemporary re-consideration of the sexual standards of Greco-Roman antiquity.<br /><br />And I will finally apologize for being "controversial" on Christmas Eve. Hope you and yours have a blessed, happy and safe one. rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.com