NEWS FLASH: Tonight’s meeting of the St. Stephen’s Martyrs has been canceled since the Edina Country Club is closed this week for remodeling. So this topic will be discussed at next week’s meeting.
The Martyrs, a men’s group, decided to continue last week’s discussion about Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment that would ban, constitutionally, same gender marriage in the state. So tonight’s next week’s conversation will take place after watching an interview with Lewis Smedes, a former professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, where he taught for more than twenty-five years. He was educated at Calvin College, where he also taught, Calvin Theological Seminary, and the Free University of Amsterdam. Smedes, who died in 2002, was an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and most noted for his books on forgiveness.
Christianity Today, in an article that was published after Smedes’ death, quoted the President of Fuller Theological Seminary, Richard Mouw, as saying:
More than one of his former students has said that while his class lectures were unforgettable, it was worth coming to class just to hear his opening prayer.
This was a man of prayer with impeccable credentials as an Evangelical Christian, who loved Jesus and spent most of his life reflecting on ethics in relation to being a follower of Jesus. Many people can relate to his background and his struggle to understand the issue of homosexuality in the life of our various churches.
Not everyone, of course, will agree with his conclusions, which changed over time and are described in the video below. However, I hope that most of us will at least be able to appreciate these words of his near the end of this interview:
I know that a lot of churches besides mine are really wrestling, in all good conscience, with this issue. . . . I just want to say that my heart goes out to you in your wrestling because I know how hard it is.
Last spring there was a wonderful thread of comments in response to a post on Osler’s Razor about the pros and cons of the Episcopal Church. At the end of that thread, I added something that I called “Haiku for the Anglican Way,” which is:
What makes sense of things:
scripture, tradition, reason,
intertwined with love.
There’s an interesting post on Mockingbird – a blog that intertwines theological musings with popular culture – about a new science fiction series called Terra Nova. The basic premise is that humanity, having turned the earth into a wasteland, has been given a second chance. Colonists are able to travel back in time to resettle a prehistoric earth, where, yes, there are dinosaurs.
It turns out, of course, that the colonists are the same imperfect and broken human beings that they we have always been. Nevertheless…
Don’t we all wish we had second chances? Don’t we all fantasize at some point about having a flying Delorean to go back in time and stop ourselves from doing stupid or harmful things? How convenient would it be if, theologically speaking, we had a space-time rupture that took us back to the garden to stop the snake before it got to Adam and Eve? The drama that plays out in Terra Nova is this overwhelming sense of pressure to survive and make the best of this second chance. If they screw it up this time, there is no third chance.
The gospel is more than a second chance, it is infinite second chances. Instead of getting the slate cleaned once, it is a perpetually cleaned slate. The disciple Peter once asked Jesus: “How many times do I give my brother a second chance? As many as seven?” Jesus responded, “not seven times, but seventy-times-seven times,” a figure of speech meaning always give a second chance. In Terra Nova, humanity has one more chance to get it right. In Christ, humanity will never get it right – and yet we are still promised “a new heavens and a ‘Terra Nova,’’’ a New Earth. The gospel is better than a second chance.
So who knows – I wrote a post last year about Glee, Religion, & Suffering, and the show became one giant commercial for the Theology of Glory (that said, I still watch it!). Terra Nova is only up to episode 4 or 5, so it’s hard to peg the show’s trajectory. But it has promise. And dinosaurs. So either way, I’ll still keep watching!
Before the first presentation in the debate at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis over Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment that would ban, constitutionally, same-gender marriage in the state, the audience was asked to indicate by raising a hand if they were inclined to vote against that amendment next fall. I was sitting in the back corner of the room of 170 people (not counting, obviously, 50 people who had to be turned away at the door). It seemed to me that most of them, including those who were being turned away at the door, were in their 20s. It definitely seemed to me that the number of people who raised their hand, including me, were in the majority that afternoon.
Across the room was Mark Osler, a friend to me and to St. Stephen’s, who teaches law at St. Thomas. He was impressed by the second presentation, which offered reasons to oppose the proposed marriage amendment. It also inspired Professor Osler to write an op-ed, “May our debate about gay marriage be constructive,” which appeared last weekend in The Star Tribune. Here’s a taste of that op-ed:
If you are going to do any good, you have to engage in a conversation with those who either disagree with you or have not yet made up their minds.
Too much of our public “discourse” is not that at all — it is people of like mind chastising their opponents, who are not there. If you find yourself in a group of people waving signs and yelling at an empty building, you are not changing anyone’s mind.
That building will not vote.
He continues with lots of helpful advice for his more liberal friends based on his years of teaching advocacy. Insults, for example, are not helpful. But reaching out to individuals who disagree with you, arguing toward the principles that they profess, and assuming that those principles are genuine, is actually fruitful.
Interestingly, another friend and colleague of Professor Osler, Teresa Collett, wrote an op-ed, “May debate over marriage include facts,” that recently appeared in The Star Tribune as a counterpoint to his. The witness to the rest of us, I think, is that the friendship and the conversation between them is able to continue in the midst of a disagreement about the question at hand.
Of this I’m sure, without us doing the same thing in our own contexts, no one’s mind is going to change about any of this. But there is both time for these kinds of conversations to take place over the next year and, for some of us, the genuine principle that requires us to love our neighbor because of the words of Jesus. As Jesus taught in one of his most interesting stories, that neighbor might turn out to be someone who’s very difficult to love because of deep-seated theological and cultural differences. Yet that kind of love has the power to change the world.
Minnesota Public Radio’s Midday program recently featured the debate that took place last week at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis about the proposed marriage amendment that would ban, constitutionally, same-gender marriage in the state. As I mentioned in the previous post, this debate was sponsored by the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy as the first discussion in a new series called “Hot Topics: Cool Talk.”
The first hour of the program, which you can listen to here, included a 20 minute presentation in favor of the amendment by Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and a 5 minute rebuttal by Dale Carpenter, University of Minnesota professor of civil rights and civil liberties law. The second hour, which you can listen to here, offered the reverse with a 20 minute presentation in opposition to the amendment by Professor Carpenter and a 5 minute rebuttal by Ms. Gallagher. It’s worth the time to listen to both.
Providing a forum that brings together people of faith for a conversation about difficult issues is a noble and necessary effort that seems to be an extension of the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. Surely that must include the neighbor who disagrees with us about the current political questions that face us as a community. These divides are present within our churches, too, and how we listen to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ matters a great deal.
There’s already a lot of controversy among Minnesota’s Roman Catholics about the hard line of their bishops not only in favoring the amendment but also in requesting that parish priests form committees to work for its passage at the ballot box. You can get a taste of that controversy here and here.
The Episcopal Church in Minnesota, which I serve as a parish priest, trends in the other direction. My hope, however, is that we won’t make the same mistake and assume that people in the pews are of the same mind. As a very liberal colleague of mine said at our recent clergy conference, our churches need to be sanctuaries, where people on both sides of this issue feel safe enough to share their points of view. Let’s not allow the hostility outside of our walls to be present within them.
The Rt. Rev. Andrew Waldo, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina and formerly a parish priest here in Minnesota, wrote an op-ed that appeared in Columbia’s State newspaper a few days ago. Although it was written in response to another contentious issue, his words are also relevant to this one:
[The Episcopal Church] has a long history of theological diversity and respect for those with whom we disagree, and we can all benefit from the challenge of addressing these questions openly and in a spirit of mutual charity. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that is too often hostile to disagreement and unwilling to engage in honest dialogue with those who have different views. Our churches are not immune from this, and all who follow a loving God have each to ask God to forgive us for any roles we may have played in that hostility . . .
It’s not always easy to love our neighbor. Nevertheless, Jesus holds the principle to be part of the greatest commandment that people of faith are called to follow.
Living in the metro area of the Twin Cities provides incredible opportunities to participate in cultural and intellectual events. Several times a year, I invite members and friends of St. Stephen’s to join me in some of these activities that might strengthen us on our journey of faith together. This series, called “On the Road with the Rector,” is something that I always look forward to. The next event is a discussion on Thursday, October 13, about Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment that would ban, constitutionally, same-gender marriage in the state. This is free, open to the public, and sponsored by the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas. It’s also the inaugural discussion in the Murphy Institute’s new series entitled “Hot Topics: Cool Talk,” which seeks to foster dialogue on current political issues in a context divorced from the heat of a political campaign. People of faith, I think, should model that kind of dialogue.
One side of the debate about the same-sex marriage amendment will be presented by Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. The other side will be presented by Dale Carpenter, University of Minnesota professor of civil rights and civil liberties law. Moderating the conversation will be St. Stephen’s own Tom Berg, University of St. Thomas professor of law and public policy and Murphy Institute co-director emeritus.
Following this discussion, a reception will be held in the Board of Governor’s Room. So please register online to let them know that you will be attending.
Discussion of Minnesota’s Proposed Marriage Amendment Thursday, October 13, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Room 235 (second floor)
University of St. Thomas School of Law
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403
