Monthly Archives: March 2014

The Freedom To Be Wrong

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A reflection by Sarah

“You think you’re never wrong, Sarah.” My mother would say that to me at least once a week for my entire upbringing. Upon remembering this, my first instinct is to retort, “I do think I’m wrong sometimes. I just don’t like to be. And Mom isn’t so keen on being wrong herself.” But that’s my pride talking, and it’s Lent, so I should probably spend some time praying about this attitude. Anyway…

I don’t think many people are comfortable with being wrong. One doesn’t have to look very far on the Internet to find evidence of this. Almost every popular news article, blog post, photo, or meme a person can find online will be followed by a string of angry, vitriolic comments aimed at the author/creator or other commenters. Civil dialogue is becoming a lost art, and there are many reasons for this, but I think one of the most significant is that no one wants to be wrong. And not only do we want to avoid being wrong, but in the process of proving that we are right, we pat ourselves on the back for our ability to crush, slander, and decimate those with whom we disagree.

I enjoy winning an argument just as much as the next person, and that’s probably not a good thing…but I don’t think intellectual vainglory is the only reason humans behave like this. I think more often than most of us would like to admit, we fear the possibility of being wrong. Or at least I do. Sometimes, being wrong comes with a high price–losing friends, respect from others, or even the ability to engage fully with one’s faith community. Rarely in life have I found a space where being wrong has felt totally safe. As a child, I found that wrongness carried with it the consequence of being pointed at and ridiculed, whether by a teacher or by other children. In church, I learned that being wrong meant being marked as a troublemaker. As a university student with a severe lack of self-confidence, I wasn’t sure I belonged there in the first place and was terrified that if I said something incorrect in class, my professors would think I was stupid. So despite my general tendency toward chattiness, regrettably I remained silent in several courses. Now as an instructor of university courses in theology and religious studies, I still feel a small twinge of anxiety mounting inside me if I accidentally make an incorrect statement and a particularly smug nineteen-year-old member of the class calls me out on it. I‘ve learned that it’s best to acknowledge my incorrectness and move forward rather than justify to the students why I made the error, but that doesn’t do much to alleviate the embarrassment when I receive my end-of-term evaluation report and see that a student has commented, “This professor shouldn’t be teaching theology because in class on April 26, she mixed up the definitions for dulia and latria.”

Because of my own experience with the fear of being wrong, I empathize with my students who display the same fear. When we’re discussing controversial theological issues in class, I strive to create an environment in which all voices are welcomed and respected, but that doesn’t stop some students from clamming up after hearing a self-assured freshman proclaim, “You’re a heretic and an idiot!” before I can call a halt to his impending diatribe. It is neither comforting nor helpful to get that sort of response from another student if, for example, you’re a young woman who has experienced mistreatment by men within a church community, and as a result you’ve come to the belief that women’s ordination would solve this problem within your Christian tradition. Every semester, I try to teach my students that discussing theological issues is not about winning arguments; it’s about exploring the questions and coming to a greater understanding of one’s faith…and that rarely is a person converted from heterodoxy to orthodoxy while cowering in fear and anxiously waiting out a sanctimonious theological tirade.

One of the greatest benefits I’ve reaped as a result of beginning this blog with Lindsey is that I now have a space where it’s safe for me to voice what I’m thinking and be sharpened by the constructive criticism we receive from readers. It’s okay for me to make mistakes, to be wrong, and even to be stupid…and I’m glad for that, because some days I feel as though I’m making more gaffes than a presidential candidate on debate night. Last week, I was reading a post from my friend Eve Tushnet’s blog, and nearly jumped out of my seat while shouting, “YES!!!” as I came across the following bit:

“So much of the ‘conservative’ Christian world seems terrified of anything which might be misinterpreted as saying gay sex is OK. The fear is always, always that we might say something wrong, and not ever that our silence might itself cause despair, scandal, and loss of faith. My favorite variation of this approach is, ‘Well, I know what you’re saying, but other people might misunderstand.’ I am pretty sure that ordinary people in the pews are already interpreting–and, I hope, misinterpreting–the huge echoey nothing they hear from their churches about gay or same-sex attracted Christians’ futures.

I know that I will say dumb stuff about this issue and mess up. So will everyone who speaks about it. The response to our acknowledgment of universal, unavoidable failure should be humble willingness to retract and at times repent, not unwillingness to ever act.”

Within our past two months of blogging, I’ve seen the content of that first paragraph playing out in spades, but not just from conservative Christians. Friends with a traditional sexual ethic have told me, “I’d be more willing to support your writing project if you would state in most of your posts that you agree with the Church’s teaching that gay sexual activity is sinful. If you don’t start doing that, people are going to start doubting what you say about your own commitment to celibacy.” People on the opposite end of the spectrum seem just as concerned about not saying anything that could be construed as lack of support for those with a modern, liberal sexual ethic. Some friends have said, “You should make a statement of loving acceptance for couples in relationships like mine. Otherwise, people will see you as just another hateful, judgmental, Side B blog. You wouldn’t want anyone to see you as self-righteous.”

We can’t stay true to ourselves while making everyone happy, but we can try to foster meaningful conversation among people who really care about these issues, no matter where they stand ideologically. But in order to do that, we need the freedom to be wrong. We need to know that we can write from the place we’re at right now, even if that means two years down the road we look back at some of our posts and say, “Golly ned, that was a problematic statement.”

I’m grateful to have learned since my days on the other side of the university classroom that being silent is far worse than being wrong, and–thanks again to my struggle with pride–I’m still in the process of accepting that retractions, apologies, and repentances are all part of being human. I’m well aware that many of our readers think that we are wrong, or that I, personally, am wrong about one thing or another. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a positive thing. Your challenges are good for me, and my responses are probably good for you too. The expectation that everyone (or anyone) who discusses issues of sexual ethics is going to do so in the most perfect, kind, non-alienating, and theologically orthodox manner 100% of the time hinders dialogue. Sometimes, I wonder how much more productively we might be able to talk about this if everyone involved would drop the pretenses and accept that God and the Church are strong enough to withstand all our blunders.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

This video ends with a hug!

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Within the past two weeks we’ve been discussing celibacy, marriage, language for describing celibate partnership, the value of listening to diverse stories, and much more. To give ourselves a break and our readers a chance to catch up, we are taking a day off from our usual kind of blog entry. Today, we would like to share with you a short video titled “The Power of Empathy.” We think it’s good to get a refresher every once in a while on the differences between empathy and sympathy because none of us is the perfect listener. It can be easy to forget that when a person is experiencing something difficult, he or she might just need to hear, “I’m glad you were able to share that with me.” Both of us are fixers by nature–when someone has a problem, we want to find a solution and make it better. We appreciated the reminder that attempting to remedy the problem and searching for “silver linings” aren’t necessarily the most helpful or welcome approaches. We hope you will enjoy this video as much as we did. Our favorite part is that it ends with a hug!

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Whose story counts, anyway?

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A reflection by Sarah

In semesters when World Religions is part of my teaching load, the question “Who has the right to claim a particular religion as his/her own?” emerges regularly. When it does, students are always quick to draw lines regarding who should and shouldn’t be allowed to identify with one religion or another. My Muslim students insist that the terrorists who planned and carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001 weren’t truly following Islam. Likewise, my Christian students passionately declare that members of Westboro Baptist Church and the Ku Klux Klan aren’t true Christians. One student will assert, “Only people who follow the teachings of [holy text] are the real followers of [religion],” and the others begin nodding vigorously. I’ll ask my usual follow-up: “Who determines how to interpret [holy text] properly?” For the better portion of the class period, we’ll discuss who has ownership of certain religious texts and terms. Can Mormons rightly claim the label “Christian” while believing that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as three separate personages rather than an undivided Holy Trinity? Is it appropriate for a white American who has never visited India and has no Indian heritage to become a self-proclaimed Hindu? What are the boundaries of these terms, and who gets to decide in the first place?

On the day this discussion arises, each semester, without fail, I spend my evening commute pondering an unrelated, yet similar question: who has the right to claim the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, genderqueer, and so forth? Whose story counts as a legitimate expression of an LGBT experience? This question may appear unnecessary, even ridiculous. On some level, I’m inclined to believe that it is both. But nevertheless, I feel the need to ask it.

Over the years since coming out, I’ve experienced a lot of people in a lot of different contexts telling me, “You aren’t really gay/a lesbian.” A young gay man I knew in college said this to me on the grounds that I was neither “butch enough” nor “femme enough,” and he couldn’t see me ending up in a same-sex relationship long term. My mother uttered those words to me when I was in my early twenties, using the fact that I had dated a boy all four years of high school as evidence for her claim. A number of priests have stated this upon seeing me in confession, asserting that in using the terms gay and lesbian, I am labeling myself by desires rather than by my identity in Christ. One even told me that use of these words marks me for Cesar instead of God. An acquaintance in graduate school informed me that he would not be convinced I was a lesbian unless I was willing to recount having a previous sexual experience with a man, thereby proving I am not attracted to men. And with some regularity, I hear from other members of the LGBT community (and sometimes allies too) that if I’m celibate, I’m not “one of them.” In other words, being celibate means “denying” my sexual orientation. My story doesn’t fit normative expectations, so according to some, I shouldn’t be allowed to use the terms “gay” and “lesbian.”

Not long ago, Lindsey and I received an email from a reader stating the following: “You people have no idea what it means to be gay. If somebody doesn’t support my right to have sex, they aren’t a real gay person. You’re trying to get people to think we can all be gay and not have sex. You’re going to make all of us be held back in the world.” Sometimes, people go so far as to tell us that we’re actually anti-gay. We’ve also received Facebook messages like this one: “Despair to all gay, anti-gay persons. Verily I say! DESPAIR to all gay, anti-gay persons!” I can’t say I was surprised by either message because I’ve heard such claims and exhortations time and time again. Lindsey and I hear almost weekly from people who consider us hypocritical for supporting legal recognition for same-sex couples while not calling our own relationship a “marriage.” Those of us who feel called to celibacy, celibate partnership, or mixed-orientation marriage have to defend ourselves against this judgmental rhetoric constantly. Our supporters, regardless of their own sexual orientations, face these claims—and sometimes the associated dangers—as well. A few weeks ago as I read Nate Craddock’s response to the death threat he received, tears filled my eyes and my heart began to ache. I wondered, how could someone who has undoubtedly endured rejection, bullying, and discrimination of all kinds be so quick to subject others to the same cruel treatment? Doesn’t this person realize that many of the same folks who have harassed and degraded him or her probably do the same to all LGBT people, regardless of life situation?

The idea that only a certain type of LGBT person’s story actually counts is troubling. It contributes to the “us vs. them” mentality that is already far too pervasive in the conversation about LGBT issues in the Church. It harms relationships amongst LGBT people and the few conservative straight Christians who are genuinely interested in the LGBT Christian experience. It vilifies and even dehumanizes members of the LGBT community who hold to a traditional Christian sexual ethic (or support those who do), casting such people as enemies of gay rights, who don’t know what it’s like to experience discrimination or judgment within the Church and society. It assumes that celibacy and mixed-orientation marriages provide some magical form of protection, and that we who choose these ways of life are motivated by self-loathing and fear of the Church. Forget the possibility that some of us might have chosen our vocations freely and find them sustainable, fulfilling, and joyous. And perhaps most strikingly, it leads the LGBT community, a community that prides itself on acceptance of all kinds of diversity, dangerously close to becoming just another elitist clique, where some people are welcome and others get the door slammed in their faces.

Not long ago, a group of students at Wheaton College made headlines for protesting their school’s unwillingness to host LGBT speakers who have reached more liberal conclusions on questions of sexual morality. I commend the students for speaking out on this issue because I believe all stories are worthy of being told and heard. It’s entirely fair to ask why a speaker like Justin Lee would not be permitted to engage students with his story while speakers like Wesley Hill and Rosaria Butterfield are welcomed. After reading several reports, I do not think the students were trying to suggest an interest in hearing only from LGBT Christians who will present modern interpretations of scripture and sexual ethics. It seems what they wanted was appreciation for diversity. I think the LGBT community could learn a great deal from these students and their protest. Willingness to hear just one type of story places an arbitrary limit not only on LGBT experiences, but also on the broader experience of being human. It doesn’t matter whether the story being silenced is about a lesbian couple whose church wouldn’t baptize their son, a gay man who feels called to a celibate vocation in a Roman Catholic religious order, or a woman who chose to marry a man even though she knew that in general, she wasn’t attracted to men. To silence one type of story is to place the freedom to tell any story in jeopardy.

What makes us so uncomfortable with hearing stories different from our own? I’ve been pondering that over the past few weeks of blogging. I don’t have the answer to this question, but I’ve wondered if perhaps, “Your story threatens me,” actually means, “There are people who aren’t willing to listen to my story, but are willing to listen to yours. I’m afraid they will use yours to try and squelch mine.” I could respond flippantly, “That’s not my problem. I’m just telling my story.” But truthfully, it is my problem. When one of my brothers or sisters is being silenced, mistreated, and abused, it is my responsibility to take a stand against these injustices. If someone does use my story against another person, does that obligate me to stop telling it? Not at all. But at the moment I close my mind to that person’s experience of life, I become a rank hypocrite. Christians, myself included, need to do better at listening to other people’s experiences, regardless of whether we agree theologically.

Six days a week, I write with Lindsey as we use this blog to share our own varieties of LGBT experience. My story, and our story together, might not fit within the boxed set of expectations that other people assert as “normal.” But I am who I am, we are who we are as a couple, and we aren’t going to stop writing because there are people in the world who aren’t willing to give us the time of day. I am a celibate, partnered, lesbian woman who attempts to be a faithful Christian and fails daily. I am, as a prayer in my tradition says, the chief of sinners. I am a teacher, a doctoral student, an extrovert, and a gentle person who can easily turn into a bulldog if I learn that a friend or loved one is being mistreated. My life isn’t perfect, but there’s nothing I’d ever consider trading for what I share with Lindsey—every aspect of it, celibacy included. That’s my story, and it might not resonate with your own LGBT experience, but I hope we can leave enough room under this umbrella for both of us.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

A temporary vocation?

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While Sarah was working on an academic research project last week, we were shuffling through some photocopied archival materials that included surveys of young people from the 1930s-1940s who had decided to leave a particular lay Christian social action movement after having been involved for varying lengths of time. One of the survey questions asked, “Why did you decide to leave?” Though almost every former member had expressed continuing dedication to the movement’s purpose and goals, Sarah noticed that the vast majority cited “temporary vocation” as the primary reason for separating from the movement. It seems that most who left had joined anticipating that someday, they would be moving on to more “permanent” vocations or perhaps other “temporary” ones.

The phrase, “temporary vocation” has never sat well with either of us. Our own understanding of the term “vocation” is a lifelong commitment to a particular way of serving God and others. Because of this, we find it curious that people frequently suggest, “Maybe celibacy is a temporary vocation for you two.” We can understand why the idea of being called to lifelong celibacy, especially within the context of a relationship like ours, might seem perplexing from an outsider’s perspective. We are also aware that this suggestion usually comes from people with the best of intentions. However, today, we would like to offer some thoughts on the problem that arises when one refers to vocations as “temporary.”

When someone suggests that our vocation to celibacy might not be permanent, the question, “What if your Christian tradition’s teaching on sexual morality changes?” sometimes follows. Most people in our lives know we are part of a church that holds to a traditional sexual ethic, so it’s reasonable to infer that our own sense of call is in some way related to our tradition’s teachings. It is true that we have drawn upon the resources present within our Christian tradition to discern our vocations, both individually and together. At the same time, our decision to embark on the journey of a celibate partnership is voluntary. We did not make the choice to live celibacy as a result of feeling backed into a corner by the Church. We have committed freely to living life together in this way. Therefore, if the teachings of our Christian tradition on sexual morality ever were to change (and we do not believe this will happen), it would have no impact upon our chosen vocation. We are not attempting to cultivate a celibate vocation because of fear that we have to or else face divinely imposed consequences. We are doing so because we want to—because we believe celibacy is an important part of God’s plan for us.

Speaking of “temporary vocation” implies that vocations in general do not require dedication, commitment, and willingness to live into God’s call during the hard times. Last week, we wrote for the first time on the vocation of marriage and prepared for that topic by asking married people to educate us on their ways of life. Writing that post got us thinking about two different messages we’ve heard about marriage: 1) it’s a forever commitment, and 2) approximately half the time, it ends in divorce. On the one hand, it’s likely that few people enter a marriage thinking, “Maybe this is a temporary vocation.” Neither of us has ever known of a person advising a newlywed couple that they should consider the possibility of marriage being temporary. Maybe we’re letting optimism get in the way here, but most people we know who are married or anticipate getting married someday accept that the vocation to marriage is intended as a lifelong commitment. On the other hand, even if most individuals don’t view marriage as a “temporary vocation,” it’s clear that our society does. Both of us have family members and friends who have experienced divorce and remarriage, so we are not suggesting that divorce is always a morally unjustifiable occurrence. But it’s true that now more than in decades past, it has become acceptable to end a marriage—a lifelong commitment—for virtually any reason: personality conflicts, financial hardship, impotency, one spouse’s irritation with the other’s pet python. In a sense, marriage is becoming even more of a temporary than permanent vocation in the eyes of American and some other western societies.

It makes sense that if many people are coming to see marriage as a way of life that does not require an everlasting commitment, some might also have trouble seeing how celibate vocations demand just as much dedication. We have seen firsthand that the general population does not view consecrated religious life as a permanent vocation. A friend of Sarah’s, whom we will call Molly, spent over two years of her time in law school discerning a vocation to a particular Roman Catholic religious order. Upon graduation, Molly became a postulant and started her journey toward taking vows. During this time, Molly’s mother insisted that in a year, Molly would come to realize that she wasn’t actually called to be a nun. However, Molly came alive inside the monastery. She loved the community’s spiritual life and looked forward to one day working in the Catholic schools operated by the order. A year later, Molly entered the novitiate and took the name Sister Maria. Her mother maintained that she would be better off married and would eventually come to see this before taking vows. Not long ago, Sister Maria made first vows, and her mother is still waiting for her to leave this vocation and return home. Decades ago, this would not have been a typical reaction from a parent whose child entered a Roman Catholic religious order.

Proposing that the vocation to celibate partnership (or at least the celibate aspect of it) is temporary is much the same as stating that other types of celibate vocations are also temporary states of life. We do believe that in certain circumstances, people can commit to celibacy for a defined period of time. This was, in fact, the situation for most young people who were part of the Christian social action movement that Sarah was researching last week. But we think it is far too easy to assume that celibacy is a lifestyle one can choose to end at the drop of a hat (or the drop of one’s pants). One doesn’t need divorce papers or an annulment in order to stop living celibacy. Leaving a religious order is quite an involved process, but doesn’t exactly require the division of assets, attorney fees, custody battles, etc. that often come along with legally ending a marriage. And in the eyes of many, choosing not to continue in a celibate vocation that doesn’t entail religious vows is as simple as saying, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” But this isn’t the case for people who understand celibacy as a vocation and not just sexual abstinence.

The two of us exist in an almost completely uncharted territory somewhere between monasticism and marriage. Celibate monastics take vows to God and to their communities, making their commitments to this vocation visible. Married people in some traditions take vows to each other before God and their faith communities in a formal ceremony, making their vocation known to the world. As there is no exact analog to either for celibate couples like us, it is challenging to put the commitment we have made to each other into words. Because of this, people tend to classify us incorrectly as a couple living a unique sort of marriage. And perhaps that is why we’re often assumed to be living in a “temporary” celibate vocation.

To suggest that celibate vocations like ours will not stand the test of time is to question the robustness of other kinds of vocations as well. We believe that all vocations require steadfastness and acceptance that life will not always be easy, pleasant, or ideal. All vocations have the ability to grow if nurtured and the ability to wither if left improperly attended. The phrase “temporary vocation” may seem innocuous, but we see it as little more than shorthand for, “a way of life I can leave when its demands become too great.”

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.

Saturday Symposium: Forced Language

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Hello, Readers. Thanks for another awesome week of discussion and email feedback. The points you’ve raised this week have given us many new ideas for posts. We would like to remind you that if you have a specific idea for a topic you would like to see us address, you can send that through our Ask Us! form. We hope the weather is nice where you are–we are eager for springtime!

It’s time now for a new “Saturday Symposium” question.

How this works: It’s very simple. We ask a multi-part question related to a topic we’ve blogged about during the past week or are considering blogging about in the near future, and you, our readers, share your responses in the comments section. Feel free to be open, reflective, and vulnerable…and to challenge us. But as always, be mindful of the comment policy that ends each of our posts. Usually, we respond fairly quickly to each comment, but in order to give you time to think, come back, add more later if you want, and discuss with other readers, we will wait until after Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: This week, Lindsey offered a reflection on The Language Police. We also released a post that discussed how married people define marriage and gave one reason (of many) why we do not conceive of our relationship as a marriage. Both of these posts touched on the issue of language: how people describe themselves and how we use language to describe other people, even if that language isn’t their preferred set of words. We ask our readers: has there ever been a time when you have felt that certain words, terms, or language in general has been forced upon you by others? What was your reaction to this? What do you think is the best way to respond when other people try to assign language to you that doesn’t feel appropriate for your circumstances?

We look forward to reading your responses. If you’re concerned about having your comment publicly associated with your name, please consider using the Contact Us page to submit your comment. We can post it under a pseudonym (i.e. John says, “your comment”) or summarize your comment in our own words (i.e. One person observed…). Participating in this kind of public dialogue can be risky, and we want to do what we can to protect you even if that means we preserve your anonymity. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Sarah and Lindsey

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.