I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about ethics, human socializing, and (the loss of) faith. It got me to thinking afterward, lost in myself and semi-oblivious to the day’s lectures.
I have heard by now many stories that go along these lines: 1) I accepted I was gay, which 2) led to a crisis of faith, which 3) led me to abandon that faith, but after a time I 4) reconciled my faith and sexuality, and 5) came back to some form of Christianity. But my journey has been that: 1) I accepted I was gay, which 2) led to a crisis of faith, which 3) led me to reevaluate my philosophical assumptions, which 4) led me to a different (and admittedly liturgical-emergent) form of faith, but 5) textual criticism, historical and early Christianity, and philosophical problems led me to 6) uneasily abandon the forms of that faith that were known to me. Casting about, it doesn’t seem as if those who share similar stories to mine typically end in happy reunion with religion. I am not opposed to reuniting with my mother-religion, and I am very much in the middle of my story, and I am going to be spending a significant amount of time this semester seeing whether such a reunion is possible. But to use technical jargon, this is a semi-decidable problem: if the answer is yes it is possible, then my search will at some point return a yes, but if the answer is no, because the search space is (nearly) infinite, I will never return an answer, neither yes nor no. That is, if the answer is in fact that such a reunion is not possible, I could search – futilely – forever. I do not think that there is a solution to this problem (there isn’t in the theory of computation), which is why I have a time limit, at least for the time being, on how long I will spend on this matter before moving on with my life. No doubt if I don’t find anything in the allotted period (this semester), I will come back to look at times, but I do not want to waste my life on what may be an infinite loop, so there needs to be a time when I, however tentatively or temporarily, make an end.
But I wonder, and I wonder very much, about not finding anything by the end of this semester, but only exhausting the commoner paths to Christianity. At times I am laid back about it – and increasingly so. At times I have apprehensions – but less and less. Time will tell, and life will go on, and will be good, and the Bottomless Pit (which is one name I have come to call the object of my periodic existential fits) will be vanquished. And if God is real and God is merciful and good, don’t I have to walk the best I can and trust in his mercy in the end, since none of us are all that good ourselves? I don’t much fear leaving what I know, only to be surprised by a loving God, and to say without hesitation ‘My wonderful God’ at the end of all things.
For ethics, I suppose it shows how few secular gay friends I have, but I am continually surprised at what seems to be the commonly accepted sexual behavior among secular gays. Although a discussion of those reasons would be rather lengthy and I will not go into them just now, I still think fidelity, monogamy, and abstinence are the most fruitful, and philosophically defensible ways to live. And because I know my reasons for this (unlike other things such as religion) I think it is somewhat less likely that I would significantly change my mind.
Sexual ethics are an interesting thing. We are sexual beings – or most of us are (I have met one or maybe two gentlemen who I genuinely believe are asexual). And because both sexuality and emotion are part of our biology, and are themselves intertwined, one can’t very well separate the two. I see those who are gay and trying to live without acting on their sexual orientation often making one of two mistakes: getting emotionally involved and invested in people of the same sex, which not uncommonly leads to a sexual misdeed; or becoming increasingly emotionally detached and guarded from the outside world, a sort of numbness that does in fact avoid misconduct and a lot of temptation, and closeness and intimacy, too. The best solution to this seems to be monastic living, which allows regular, intense (I would even perhaps go so far to say sexually-grounded or sexually-rooted, though not sexually active) fellowship guarded against misconduct by strong communal taboo and agreement. But such a life is not practical for most people, and I do not see any Christians seriously suggesting that those who are gay should adopt a monastic life.
While I do respect those seeking a celibate life, I still don’t understand how one accepts what this says about God. For I do see much good come of healthy spousal intimacy (and likewise much ill from unhealthy spousal intimacy), and, for those of us who are not asexual, much bad from prolonged spousal isolation. So for what does God demand permanent homosexual chastity? For to say that he is not interested in the benefit of human beings means that he is cruel or capricious, neither of which is appealing or worthy of worship. And I am suspicious at the reasoning and (lack of) evidence for inherent harm in homosexual relationships (and further, for such case to be made ethically, gay relationships must also be shown to be worse for the person’s well-being than the alternative of permanent celibacy). Perhaps then there are other considerations to take in hand that are more important than personal human benefit, such as the development of virtue (or congruence with the divine character, same thing), or treating others with justice and mercy. But homosexuality does not violate justice or mercy, and for it to violate virtue, one would have to state that heterosexuality-itself is a virtue, and this seems to me rather wrong. For then those who are inclined toward the opposite sex are inherently more virtuous. But even assuming this were so, why should heterosexuality-itself be a virtue, bound as it is to particular biological realities, when the other virtues (justice, self-control, self-discipline, mercy, truthfulness…) could conceivably be applied across any physical or biological system? I do not see any way of coherently incorporating an understanding of an ethic of heterosexual-expression-only into a larger system of ethics. And so like other issues in the Christian Scriptures (including items such as slavery or banking) while it may at first glance appear a straightforward command, I think the matter of the morality of homosexuality is complex and can and should be properly contextualized and understood holistically within the framework of all ethics. And in the end such a view creates a more coherent system of ethics in general and Christian ethics in particular. (And in the latter case, it creates a nuanced understanding of the interplay of Scripture, experience, context, and authorial intent.) This was part of what drove me to a Side A position (that gay sex in circumstances equivalent to heterosexual marriage is not a sin).
But virtue development is something I do find important, along with chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage, and these I do not see highly extolled in gay culture in general and even, to my great consternation, among a majority of Side A gay Christians. (An active concern for virtue development I also find astonishingly lacking in heterosexual marriages too, by the way.) Though there are some gay Christians I do have a respect and occasionally even a fondness for, there are a great many whose position I find only personally convenient, and the depth of their religious and philosophical (and even sexual-moral) convictions shallow. They were, the vast majority of them, raised in the church and found that the church’s position in their lives was inextricable, and that settled the question of the nominal place of Christianity in their lives (if the question was even raised).
How’s all that for cynical and blunt?
Besides, I can’t exactly call myself a Christian at the moment. And I don’t.
On the matter of the church’s position in people’s lives, I often find myself thinking that it exists simply as a facilitator for socialization, itself a complex thing I will not dare to try to consider in detail here. As a theist and a good friend of mine has put it, most people have three places in their lives: work, home, and church. Each of these serve their own purpose: productivity, relaxation and safety, and socializing. For this reason, the church could persist in a variety of forms so long as it is meeting this particular need in human life. But what is the third place for those of us without church? I don’t know. But I don’t like dishonesty for the sake of convenience, and so may find myself seeking out a new third place.
And I’m still thinking on all this.
