Prosthetic Bodies and Marriage

I recently re-watched the first season of the sci-fi anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's an excellent piece of work. While the show is neither Christian nor Catholic, it raises interesting issues for Catholic theology. One such issue concerns prosthetic bodies and marriage.

A number of characters on the show are cyborgs, or humans with fully functioning prosthetic bodies. Most of their humanity, physically speaking, is in the approximate 3% of their brain that is still the original flesh-and-blood they were born with. Everything else is their prosthetic body and brain.

While this technology is far from real-life, very similar technology is likely to develop as the science of engineering artificial human body parts develops.

So the question then becomes whether marriage and the marriage act would be appropriate for persons with prosthetic bodies?

In Catholic ethics, intentional frustration of the procreative faculty of a given act (by artificial contraception, or by other methods) is considered an intrinsic and grave evil.*

Prosthetic bodies, at least as imagined by Ghost in the Shell, are certainly not impotent, as at least a few episodes of the series seem intent on pointing out. But they do seem contraceptive or rather to act as contraceptives, or at least to be sterile or infertile.

Sterility in itself would be no problem for a Catholic couple. But if the prosthetic body itself acts as a sort of contraceptive, this seems to change the game. I suspect for those of us who call ourselves Catholics, the morality of marrying and the marital act where prosthetic bodies are concerned will hinge largely on the question of whether those bodies are considered artificially contraceptive, or merely infertile or sterile.

Perhaps the situation is most analogous to that of women who have had hysterectomies.** In this case the  intent of the procedure in the first place would seem to play a role. If that is the case then erhaps that procedure, not the marital acts following it, would be the act which one could properly call right or wrong or should at least take the primary focus in theological-ethical discussions.

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* This doesn't mean all contraception is the worst evil ever (lots of things are grave and intrinsically evil in Catholic tradition), but it does mean that it cannot be considered in Catholic moral tradition to be a "good" thing.

** One might ask why I'm not noting vasectomies here--I considered it, but a good key difference is that as far as I know, while not all men in marital situations are expected to reverse them, vasectomies are not candidates as moral actions in Catholic theology, whereas hysterectomies can be for medical reasons.

To Men Who Style Themselves Chivalrous

To men who style themselves chivalrous, or somehow or other defenders of women, including the author of this post, in what are probably his better moments, if also his more prideful:

If the essence of chivalry ever really was in a darkened alleyway, walking home a mother, sister, friend, or lover, this is no longer the case.

Chesterton said that fairy tales describe what sane men do in mad worlds, and modern psychological novels describe what mad men do in sane worlds. We are the heroes of modern psychological novels, we are trapped in the setting of fairy tales, and there is no hope for us but in Christ. America is a mad world if there ever was one, and we, with our ability to presume false victory over our own impulses, are mad men. Our first duty is to guard our own hearts; if we don't do that, we can only do so much in guarding the hearts of culture.

Our first duty is to pray to God that we regain what is left of our sanity, to avoid losing our sanity to the surrounding psychology of the world. Only when we can begin to remove the planks in our souls can we proceed to remove the planks (and they are planks!) from the soul of our culture; this leaves us with nowhere to begin but prayer. A bunch of people with planks in their souls can do nothing to help each other without the grace of God. Once we've taken the vital step of acknowledging that we cannot do this on our own, we can move on to practicality, a step which I think we will all find remarkably simple, if somewhat uncertain.

As a first practical step I suggest that what we choose to think, what we choose to say, how we choose to conceive of women be guarded carefully, lest we give quarter to lust and concupiscence or anything else which dishonors. Any thought we have that so much as hints that a woman is lesser for being a woman, anytime we even remotely think of another human being as an object to be used, not a subject to be related to...we must take captive those thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. Furthermore we must cultivate a positive Love of all things in our hearts, so as to leave less and less room for these demons, be they personal or actual, to maneuver. And we must do this all without losing the spirit of prayer. Will this be hard? Yes. But virtue is our goal—avoiding sin isn't good enough to be called good.

The battlefield is no longer a darkened alleyway. This may be the case in special circumstances, but for most the bulk of the fight is spiritual, not physical, as much against oneself as against strange attackers. It is, and probably has been for awhile, in subjugating our passions to our spiritual needs, in subjugating our wills to those of Christ. If chivalry is really the middle ground that we have left between male chauvinism and the newer radical feminism, we cannot find it other than by following Christ, who, if chivalry is a virtue, was and is by virtue of that fact a chivalrous man.

Furthermore I suggest that if we are to take this positive meaning of the thing one called chivalry, and make it mean the defense of the honor or the rights of the other, that it is does extended to us as men and our honor. Indeed, in guarding our minds as men we guard our own honor as well as that of the other sex. At the same time there seems a special and qualitatively different mode of defense across the line of sex, but we must not pretend that only men are made to defend or that only women need defending from. But that is perhaps another conversation for another time.

Stupidly Contemplative Questions

Disclaimer: Chances are that if you're reading this, you're someone who has asked, or been asked, one of these questions. Chances are I have asked them of someone, and I definitely don't disrespect anyone for asking these questions. They can be helpful, but they're also stupidly contemplative questions. Explanation to follow!

It seems like sometimes we Christians like asking holy- sounding questions more than we like doing useful things. I don't mean questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, though certainly the outer reaches of Scholasticism are not always the most immediately relevant. But at least those people will speculate on, and get somewhere, and the obscure scholastic questions don't have the side effect of inducing needless guilt. I mean questions that can easily freeze us with how holy and scary and challenging they sound, like:

(1) "What are we doing to prove that we love God most?"
(2) "How can we share our faith?"
(3) "Do I know that I love God?"
(4) "How do I grow in God?"
(5) "How do I clean my room?"

Okay, that last one is a bit not like the others. It's a couple of degrees more removed from Christian living. But the questions share some things in common. At the outset, all such questions seem like insurmountable obstacles in themselves. With the possible exception of the third, they all bring to mind a few possible answers, none of which quite seems to be adequate right off the bat. And they all have potential to lead to a question-freeze, where you stand there stunned by how unholy or lazy in the Lord's work you are instead of actually doing something about it (or, if you prefer to put the emphasis on Grace, letting God work through you to improve your unholy lot.)

(1) This sounds like a reasonable question until you realize that the only answer that will satisfy a scrupulous person (remember that "prove" is the verb here) is to intentionally enlist in an order of monks or nuns whose only vocation is to seek bloody martyrdom under Shariah law while converting Muslims in one of the stricter Muslim countries. People with lax, or looser, consciences wonder what it is that they should have to prove to anyone else. And the well-ordered- conscience people are probably too busy proving it, insofar as we humans can, to answer the question or give it the time of day.

(2) This one actually does bear some real reflection, and I can't really do it justice here. So here, in its stead, is the injustice I will do the question: I think when people say this they usually mean verbally. I don't care what they mean, as long as they mean visually, and here I imply that the world sees with all five senses. I think what sharing our faith means is to communicate our belief in Christ as Redeemer of all through some sure and unambiguous sign which those regularly around us will "see." Even that's a rather vague sketch. While I like this question better than the others, I think its major freezing point is that it can be, like everything else, much more of a guilt trip than a question.

(3) To be honest, in my more cynical-theological moments, I tend to think number three is a question asked more for the fun of seeming profound and galvanizing people into a moment of crisis where they feel compelled to reflect, than it is to ask to actually help anything. And then we get to do the same thing I do when my room is really messy and I don't know how to start cleaning it: Spend a couple of minutes frozen in that question, then put off the real work for another week.

(4) This is another one of those famous challenge questions. I don't know about you, but when someone asks this one (including me, right now, to myself) I get images of a Rosary a Day and at least two Holy Hours. Mass at least once a week. And Adoration, which I admittedly dread trying to cultivate the habit of, because I know I'm going to have to work on my horrible attention span. But even the parts of this one I should like, being more theologically abstract, like reading the lives and works of the Saints...I don't really do. It's probably the attention span again. In terms of real-world problems this one is probably the closest, for me, to cleaning one's room. So many places I could start, but will I really feel good until it's all in place? 

(5) This one usually is more of an excuse than an actual question, but cleaning my room is a pretty good analogy for these questions, except that the spiritual room, for almost all of us, never gets acceptably clean until we're with God. In the end, though, these questions aren't that productive in themselves. I guess my big thing, my big beef with them, is that they seem to do more emotional harm and cause more mental anguish, at least for me, than they're really worth. And they provide a good out. Standing frozen by the questions for a couple of minutes is a great excuse not to act on them. With that in mind, I propose a remedy. I'm going to answer the questions. Each answer requires a bit of expansion, but said expansions will be simple. Format: "Question." Answer. Expansion.

(1) "What are we doing to prove that we love God most?" We're confessing "Jesus is Lord." Physical martyrdom is unlikely to happen to you. Idolatry is not. A simple question, for a given thing X. If I had to choose between Jesus and X, which would I choose?

Unfreeze by resolving to choose Jesus. Every time.

(2) "How can we share our faith?" With outward signs that are not hidden. Live your faith. Don't be afraid to wear a Crucifix around your neck or keep a Bible or Rosary visible in the sight of non-Christians.**

Unfreeze by resolving to live ethically and share your faith when asked, as a baseline.

(3) "Do I know that I love God?" No. Now stop worrying and love God. Because it's a surer sign of loving God if you're focused on serving Him, rather than worrying about whether you love Him. If you are paranoid, ask people who, in your view, love God and can tell a Christian when they see one. What do they see in you?

Unfreeze by admitting you don't know, but you've got a pretty good idea that the answer to the question "Do I love God?" is yes.

(4) "How do I grow in God?" Treat God like you'd treat a Lord, but seek to know him better as you would a trusted friend. You can't ask God questions directly, but you would want to get to know a friend. You'd want to experience this person. So experience God.

Unfreeze by thinking of a couple of different (concrete) ways to grow in God (not just fellowship with other Christians), then sticking to them.

(5) "How do I clean my room?" Clean it. Pick something doable and start with that. Kind of like (4).

In other words, unfreeze by cleaning your room, already.

By the grace of God, may we, even if frozen in bad fashion by these questions, unfreeze by answering them, and then acting on our answers, that we might go forth and better serve God. Otherwise we might wind up so paranoid about whether we can answer these questions, that we never get around to answering them in word or in deed.

Which is the reason these questions were asked in the first place, even if they don't always get us where they're supposed to.

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* A portmanteau of "testimony" and "brag," that I first picked up from my friend Alicia on one of a few group trips to Christian Rock festival FreedomFest. I will decline to say whose bragimony she was referring to, save that it was none of our group.

** This is not an endorsement of violating workplace standards, as regards desk cleanliness or religious expression. But of course if your workplace can't tolerate an offhand mention of church...

Live Action, Defining a Lie and Bible Stories

It's about time I actually put down thoughts on the matter. Recently a conversation with a friend spurred me to want to read more, on each side of the issue.

For those not familiar, the debate basically concerns a sting operation Live Action did on a Planned Parenthood clinic. In said operation, two of their people entered said clinic dressed as a pimp and prostitute. It is clear as far as I am concerned that their stings have done some good in effect, but a question has arisen even among Catholic pro-lifers: did they tell a lie in the moral sense, that is, did they do something the Catholic tradition considers lying?

Before I continue further I ought to state my respect and admiration for what L.A. does. They go deeper and more proactively into what is, in actuality, a battle. As a man who (because he possesses a penis) is quite frankly too scared to get in the game on many fronts, I'm not going to sit here and say I think they should just back off of poor old Planned Parenthood, unless I think it direly necessary. And I don't, but I'll explain. Likewise, I should make it clear: I don't think that in any extreme deception-case, including the Live Action case, anyone will be going to hell for whatever deception they have committed. There's a big line between venial and mortal sin, and in my unprofessional opinion there's virtually no way, in any case, between their own views, right or wrong, and the situation's context, that L.A. crossed that line.

So why do we care? Because if we insist on being virtuous, that means examining ourselves even for the specks in our eyes if we ever hope to help heal the world. And if all boldfaced lies are wrong, then telling them--even in the service of the truths the pro-life movement offers--is also wrong, and a potential compromise to our witness. Now I won't be dealing here with the claims of certain people in the world that L.A.'s sting videos and even their official unedited versions are doctored. I don't much have the patience for that and, quite frankly, it may be a bit outside the scope of this blog. Maybe in the future.

Deception is not automatically lying. Visual deception, merely hiding something, is not telling a lie. Now it does muddy the waters some, and some extenuating circumstance does seem needed to justify it. But it's not the same, for the Catholic tradition, as uttering a boldfaced lie. Note that I will be focusing on verbal lying here; what exactly it means to "act" a lie seems a more malleable concept and in the Catholic tradition most "actions" that don't somehow equate to speech seem to get a free pass, even if deceptive, even from the more "conservative" side of the coin.

Definition: I tell a lie that is boldfaced if I state something with a high degree of clarity which is false. Thus a lie by innuendo, or a phrase commonly understood to be ambiguous, or an ambiguous phrase which is literally true, is not a lie.

E.g. checking the check-box next to "I have read and acknowledge the terms and conditions" on an internet form is hardly lying; someone correct me if I'm wrong, but its real culturally defined meaning is "I acknowledge your butt as legally covered by these terms and conditions," not "I have read with great care and concern each and every letter of these terms and conditions." Long story short: If the statement is such that a reasonable person might guess your employment of innuendo or ambiguity (even if you know they won't), the majority of Catholic theologians won't call that lying, even if they believe that what can be called a lie is always intrinsically wrong.

In the Catholic tradition the definition of a lie, in the sense that is a sin one may be culpable for, is one of two competing notions. The following definitions will help us explain. The word error as referred to here, will be taken to mean factual error. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, and let me know which thinker or authoritative source is saying it means moral error, so I can find out. The only ones I know of so far, for sure, for sure is the guy Tom who runs that Disputations blog and Steve Kellmeyer, though Dawn Eden took the opportunity to disagree with him in the comment box for his post which I shall reference later on.

Definition 1: I tell a boldfaced lie to person X in order to lead X into error.
Definition 2: I tell a boldfaced lie to person X, where X has a right to know the truth in order to lead X into error.


Now the weight of the Catholic tradition, including most authoritative speakers, seems to fall with Definition 1.  I also hold to Definition 1 but I have serious sympathies with Definition 2, and to give full disclosure I should prefer it; it would solve many problems for me about getting a coherent concept of "lie."

So I read and/or re-read some stuff. Including the following articles which I'll present as my highlights:

* Truth, Love and Live Action by Christopher Tollefsen (The Public Discourse)

Tollefsen suggests that Live Action's actions, ultimately, were not loving. By my reading he may be overstating his case on this one, though he raises the excellent question about whether having truth (facts) on the pro-life side is undermined by using tactics in which we speak untruth (against the facts). For my personal taste, philosophically speaking, Tollefsen didn't focus enough on the specific tactics but more on the general tactics of L.A.

* In Defense of Live Action by Christopher Kaczor (The Public Discourse)

Kaczor suggests that Tollefsen has overstated his case and offers not so much a defense of Live Action's specific actions, as a suggestion (which in my opinion is fully defensible) that not all deception is in and of itself lying and that we need not condemn their general tactics. Kaczor also offers the brilliant suggestion that Live Action phrase its statements as hypotheticals. Instead of saying what they did say, that they were involved in sex work, they could say "say I were X." Since the statement doesn't positively state a factual error or attempt to lead anyone into moral error, I'm not sure how it could fit the Catholic definition of lying. Whether they can still wear the pimp and prostitute costume is something I'll leave to the philosophers.

* Why Live Action Did Right and we Should All Know That by Peter Kreeft (CatholicVote.org)

Kreeft appeals strongly to intuition in this article. I must say I wanted to agree, intuitively. I didn't, but I wanted to. Those who know me well enough know I don't consider my intuition to be at all infallible. However, I felt that (intentionally or no) some of the language Kreeft used insinuated that I and others in disagreement with him had broken moral intuitions, which put me off more than his general method of argument did. Kreeft made the claim that "[p]hysical hiding and verbal hiding are two sides of the same coin," which I'm pretty sure is false in Catholic moral tradition, though the two are clearly related. As far as I know Kreeft has yet to write anything along more "logical" lines that might help convince someone like myself who takes the other position and isn't convinced by this piece; I hope he does.

* Fig Leaves and Falsehoods by Janet Smith (First Things)

Here Smith suggests that Thomas Aquinas's prohibition on lying is based on a faulty exception to his general rule that things not permitted pre-Fall (as in Adam and Eve) may be permitted exceptions post-Fall. She offers a number of examples from cases like lying (e.g. stealing and killing) which have examples of exception post-Fall which she believes may justify (by analogy) exceptions to what would have been a pre-Fall prohibition on lying.

* The Case Against False Assertions by Tollefsen and Alexander Pruss (First Things)

This was essentially Pruss and Tollefsen attempting to correct Smith on her argument about Aquinas's prohibitions.

I also read some other stuff on CatholicVote that basically followed on Kreeft's heels and that, quite frankly, I didn't find too much worthy of noting beyond that. One last thing worthy of note might be Edward Feser's blog post Live Action, Lying, and Natural Law, which probably most adequately represents my position on the matter. I got a lot more heated about the argument itself than I can ever remember getting about Live Action's actions in and of themselves.

There are of course some Biblical considerations. Hat tip to Steve Kellmeyer in his blog post "A Rose by Any Other Name" for pointing out what is, in my opinion, the best one. There are a few Biblical examples of
"praiseworthy" lying I will be considering here.

1. First is the example of the midwives in Egypt, who refused to kill boys on delivery at the command of the government. While the Lord clearly rewarded them, the text explicitly says they were rewarded for choosing God over Egypt. Unless someone's got some exegesis showing otherwise, I'm not ready to accept that God was directly praising their lying.

2. Second is the example of Rahab, who hid Hebrew spies with material vaguely on/in her roof, and lied to soldiers about where they were, saying they had gone out. This one seems more convincing. There's not enough evidence for me to conclude that God directly praised the act of lying here, though the spies did bestow protection on Rahab as a result, which was apparently theirs to give. But given that of the spies was being called praiseworthy, Rahab could perhaps have said something like "the spies have left my house," since being on or in the roof could hardly be considered being in her house, without lying. I'm not going to consider myself competent to exegete whether she was being praised for lying directly. This example bugs me more than the midwives as a person who holds Definition 1, if only because in this story it's a bit more plausible that Rahab is praised for lying.

3. The third example, which Kellmeyer introduced me to, was Nathan the prophet's story to King David. God sends Nathan to King David to convict him of what he has done in essentially murdering Uriah so that he might claim his wife, who he has slept with, without complication. To be honest, reading the story in its "plain interpretation," I'm not convinced Nathan intended the story to be taken literally. But King David certainly took it that way, at least for a couple of seconds, and that gives me more pause than anything else here; if a prophet of God can lie to make a point, than can't a modern, quite possibly prophetic organization, do the same? Of course, whether Nathan really meant the story literally is a matter for exegesis beyond this post. But it's more fun and tests the waters more to assume he did.

Now for the sake of argument I will assume Definition 2 of lying. In this circumstance we have still one major consideration about L.A.'s actions. Given the allowance for their deception given that the Planned Parenthood employees have no right to know what's up, do they still act outside of the authority which is proper to exercise such deception? I am tempted to believe "no," in which case they would under Definition 2 be fine, perhaps mostly because our current government could not step in to do similar work with similar ends because it has clearly decided that either its founding document (the Constitution) or its interpretive body of persons, is not really interested in upholding life for all. The other major consideration, and this seems more problematic under Definition 2 (which as you recall adds the qualifier that person X has a right to know the truth), is whether proactive stings on a pro-choice organization disqualify the boldfaced deception from being a lie the same way that, say, a Nazi at the door and a Jew in the basement could.

In the long run I come down on the "safe" side, that it is never okay to lie and that Live Action did something erroneous, though they were not culpable of sin. I do, however, believe that they could safely clear themselves of the charge of lying, at least as our current "safe" side advocates define it, with one or two modifications in specific tactic. I assent thus to the conclusion that appears the current teaching of the Church, that a lie told falling under Definition 1 is a lie in the moral sense. I want to accept Definition 2; it would eliminate anything that seems Biblically or intuitively problematic about Definition 1 (the Nazi example, Rahab and Nathan, or Kreeft's more extreme example.) But regardless of what level of assent the safe teaching requires (I'm not good enough on theology of authority to say; opinions seem to be variable), it is not infallible and neither am I, and I look forward to the ongoing resolution of this open question.

Last note: I am struck by how many people particularly on the more rigorous and less permissive side identify as Thomists. I suspect this is not a coincidence.

I invite any of the other keyboard theologians, or any readers, to add their thoughts.

The Bible Tells Us

The following is a reflection I wrote in the beginning of 2008 for the Faith and Leadership House of 2008-2009. With the caveat that standard Catholic modifiers now apply to everything I endorse, I still endorse what I had to say pretty much wholeheartedly. Anyway I dug it up, read it, and thought it worth sharing as a piece of blog.

The Bible Tells Us

The Bible, the Old Testament at any rate, tells us to stone people for all manner of offenses, including but not limited to sex outside the context of marriage. The Old Testament provides a few humanitarian measures on the matter, mostly attempts to account for rape, and the New doesn't seem to call for stoning on almost anything, but still: all these old laws. How do we decide which parts of the Law still apply, and in what way? (And this is not even thinking of which punishments should still apply?) If we choose one over the other, must we sacrifice the unity of Scripture to do so?

The Bible tells us to submit ourselves to the governing authorities. Does this command have any veto power over the others? What are we to do if we believe it is given to us in Scripture not to lie, and the governing authorities tell us to lie? For that matter, what if our parents tell us? Does that commandment have so much power that we should? Is this a situational thing? Common sense seems to say yes, to me, but common sense also tells me that dead people stay dead and virgins don't have babies. Christianity is not a common-sense religion.

The Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. But what if our rejoicing is their mourning, or vice versa? If both parties try and do the noble thing, they're still not following the command, because one is still mourning and the other is still rejoicing. So what is to be done? Do both parties alternate the mourning and rejoicing? If this situation even arises, does that mean one party has done something wrong?

It is not only a question of when the rubber hits the road, but what happens when the rubber hits the road. At what point do contradicting ethical orders, or even contradicting theologies--and I do believe they are in play in the Scriptures--overrule each other, and how do we decide which one gets priority if there is a conflict between two or more passages?

But wait! You might turn to me and ask whether the whole problem hasn't already been solved by Christ, the Incarnate Logos, Jesus of Nazareth, who boldly put forth a mere two commandments as the sum of the Law and the Prophets: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And who is your neighbor? Not the common sense answer, not just that jerk who puts up a 10-foot fence between your property and his or the nice old lady who keeps bringing you copies of Watchtower magazine. No, your neighbor is every man and woman: friends, enemies, short, tall, black, white, you name it, and to that end it strikes as logical that all our interpretations of Scripture, perhaps most when we see a conflict between two passages, ought to be guided by two principles: love of God, and love of humanity.

Of course, we believe that at least to a degree the problem has been solved, even if we don't know the solution. Christ establishes a new covenant. It isn't necessarily the case that every six-hundred-odd laws are still in effect. But as evidenced by the wandering writings of Paul on just about anything where the word "law" is involved, the matter is not simple, and at any rate, Jesus of Nazareth never gave us a chart of which verses trumped which. Whether he could have is a topic for another day!

Even at our most theoretical and uninvolved as Christians (and may I say in particular as an amateur Christian theologian) we are forced to get our hands dirty. Inevitably, it seems the case that one piece of the Inspired Word of God trumps another. And perhaps that is part of the point. Christianity is not a clean religion. It is not common-sense. If even the biggest theologians of a faith must get their hands dirty to do their work, what does this say for the lesser? If we're not getting our hands, hearts, and minds dirty as Christians, it means we might have to reexamine whether we're really going for the gold.

Thankfully, because we believe in a New Covenant it is allowed to us to talk somewhat of these things being a mystery, of not having everything handed to us on a silver platter, but handed to us nonetheless, of the world's issues having been addressed to some degree at least, and Sin in some sense atoned for, even though we don't really know why or exactly how. But when we get into specifics about what to believe, what to do, and what the Bible tells us--and to decide what orthodoxy meant, thousands of early Christians already had to do this, and imagine doing it without a defined canon!--when we get into the question of what the Bible tells us, of what we ought to believe and do, we get our hands dirty. We do have one agreement among us, at least, as a house; this is that God dirtied a hand for us in a very personal way. I suggest that it is our job, an imperative as Christians, to get our hands dirty in turn: by figuring out what we ought to believe and do, and by believing and doing it.

But not necessarily in that order.

Under What Circumstances: #1

Is it acceptable to punch someone violently?

I'm not asking if it would be legal, I'm asking if there's a circumstance that would make it moral, or even obligatory, civil law aside. Note that the qualifier of violently is added to ensure we are not speaking of merely jovial and fraternal punches, which are a trivial case to my mind.

Let's play "construct the example" here. I'm not trying to argue for a non-Catholic ethic, and "punching people is intrinsically immoral" is an option, but I'm going to want a defense of that.

Dan Indulges in Dark Theological Humor

The Dutch did not bring their kleats to the slippery slope. (See the Groningen Protocol if you don't believe me.)

But it's not like anyone else wants onto this slippery slope. Oh, wait...

Well, at least it hasn't made its way to the United States yet. Crap, I guess we lost that one. And where I live, too. Darn.

What's left now but to run out the clock on being European and see just how horrific things get before someone in the public arena stands up for life?

Apparently, more horrific than they have.

All aboard for the train of tenderness, folks! Next stop is the slippery slope! Hope you brought some good climbing gear.

Christ Jesus, and Mary and all the other Saints in heaven, pray for our world today.

Thoughts from Theology on Tap (10-22-2010)

Warning: I'm writing this, and I'm not a sacramental theologian. My thoughts are somewhat scattered; this should be taken as a slightly frustrated set of thoughts, and not as a well-structured argument. Please do not attempt to engage this as if it were argument.

Went to Theology on Tap tonight. Lots of good discussion. The priest who gave the talk that night was discussing the Eucharist and the Mass. Now one thing he'd said struck me wrong, which was that he almost seemed to suggest that the Eucharist being an object of adoration was wrong. (Someone, much to my relief, asked about this, and I was delighted by his clarification which seemed to suggest that he was more against people going to Mass just to adore the Eucharist and ignoring the fact that (a) it was also to be received, and (b) the Mass is not merely to be observed and wondered at but also taken part in. There was a lot of spirited debate because he said some things (not all of which were correct, or correctly phrased, in my mind) that seemed to denigrate the Tridentine Latin Mass. People of course stood up in defense of the TLM, and there was a lot of debate about things that in my mind don't hold so much water either way--things like how many of the faithful want, or would want, a TLM if it were offered at their parish, etc. Those things are important, but not the most important thing, I don't think. And I don't want to give the impression that I think only the TLM defenders were contributing to discussion that may or may not have been entirely fruitful. Lots of things the speaker said seemed questionable and were very hard to interpret charitably coming from where even I am coming from--and I am no Traditionalist.

At one point I have written in my notebook, from sometime in that whole exchange:

I wonder:

Would this be such a problem if were simply willing to fall in love with Jesus?

By "this" I think most of what I meant was "all this liturgical business about the N.O. vs. the TLM, etc. etc." I'll get back to that later.

Now to give some background, about a week ago a Deacon gave a talk on everyday spirituality. Somehow or other this connected with something G.K. Chesterton once said about St. Francis, in his biography of the same, which I remembered only imperfectly at the time but which I quote in full below:

The practical reconciliation of the gaiety and austerity I must leave the story itself to suggest. But since I have mentioned Matthew Arnold and Renan and the rationalistic admirers of Saint Francis, I will here give a hint of what it seems to me most advisable for such readers to keep in mind. These distinguished writers found things like the Stigmata a stumbling block because to them a religion was a philosophy. It was an impersonal thing; and it is only the most personal passion that provides here an approximate earthly parallel. A man will not roll in the snow for a stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their being. He will not go without food in the name of something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. He will do things like this, or pretty like this, under quite a different impulse. He will do these things when he is in love. [...St. Francis] was a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really and truly a lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical vocation [...] as Saint Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ. (Italics mine, copied from an electronic copy on this webpage)

Chesterton recognized that the oddity in much of Francis's behavior was that it was something one did when one was in love. So I'm trying to adopt this quality, to make it my own, to cultivate the quality of being in love with God and with the world. Going to Mass is one definite way of doing this, and surely a huge expression. If one believes that Christ is truly and specially present at the Mass, and one is in love with Christ, surely one goes where one's beloved will be? Would I not do this for another human being, if I felt I were in love with her? Why not, then, for God?

Quite frankly, I'm not a Traditionalist. Though I do consider myself pretty conservative, and my ballot will probably wind up backing that up. But I'm not really a TLM kind of guy. I have some Sundays--not all--that I like Holy Rosary's 11:00 AM Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, but that's not the TLM. I'd be lying if I said my reasons for the other Sundays got much holier than "some Sundays I like a folksy Mass" or "some Sundays I want a slacker Mass that lasts forty-five minutes and is said in words I understand immediately." At the same time I know some people prefer to meet Jesus in the TLM, and that's their deal. I'm not going to intrude, and it bugs me when other Novus-preference people want to, because they call it the Catholic Church for a reason. It's universal.

Anyway, I said I'd get back to that original note I made. So here goes:

Is it naive of me to believe that maybe if we all--that means people who are more liturgically 'liberal' and those who are more 'conservative'--simply focused on loving the Eucharist, with only a secondary focus on those technical details which pertain strictly to licitness, that much of this logistical debate would go away? That maybe a Church-wide revitalization of that reverence could be--even if saving the liturgy could help it--part of the process that catalyzes us to save the liturgy in the first place?

Of course, Legitimate concerns about validity of sacraments go strictly under reverence for the Eucharist and for God; an invalid Mass is not proper reverence. Legitimate concerns about licitness are also quite pertinent but sometimes get overstated in my book. Thus, I risk undervaluing them here because sometimes I think they just lead us to legalistic conversations and debates about pastoral needs that nobody in the audience or anyone speaking can verify. Maybe the new translation will help some. I hope it does, and maybe I'm overthinking the debate that happened tonight. It was certainly helpful and informative, and I don't mean to suggest that debates like that are useless. But I'm not entirely sure it was the most productive debate we could have had, and it seems like maybe the one guy's question about whether we should adore the Eucharist was the main point at which the more debate-like questions actually worked towards deepening our understanding of what happens at the Mass.

Of course I have relatively useless theological things I like to debate all the time, so maybe I've got some work do to, too.

Those are some thoughts Theology on Tap brought out for me tonight.

In Which I Respond to John Meunier's Question

John Meunier has a good question up which I think is kind of a good one if we're at all trying to navigate the postmodern wilderness that is the world.

I invite anyone reading this to make their own response to my response, or to Meunier's question, here or on their own blog. (But if not here, please let me know where because I want to see it.) I of course invite the other KBT to respond with their own posts if they want.

[Later edit:] The question is "If you had the opportunity to preach to a crowd of nominal Christians or non-Christians in an informal setting – like John Wesley’s field preaching – what would you preach?"

Here's my response:

Ask yourself this question: "Am I good?" And if you answer yes, justify it. Without appealing to grace or any coherent and concrete concept of goodness that does not change with culture and goes beyond just what we think it is. 

If you justified yourself, you probably don't really believe in good at all, at least, not good with a meaningful meaning. Maybe you're good thinking that goodness is relative, something that's not inherent in anything, or something we have to make for ourselves, but I'm not. It's not meaningful meaning if we can change it as we please.

If you couldn't justify yourself, then I guess you'll need some help to be good. Christ can help you with that. Sorry state that I'm in, you should see what state I get into when I close myself off to Him. And if you're at all interested in being good, even if you already think you're justified on that front or that all I'm saying is twiddle-twaddle, you owe it to yourself to see what kind of change Christ might make in you. 

So really, just try and live like Him. Try and fall in love with Him, even if--right now--you don't know what you believe about Him. 

I think you'd be surprised to see the difference.

Catholicism and the "Modern Notion" of Consent

So bear with me. There's this "modern notion of consent" that we've seen some objections to, the one that had been given in the book Yes Means Yes, a group of feminist essays about dismantling cultures which aid and abet rape. In particular it seemed to run up against understandings about what it meant for a husband and wife to have a 'marriage debt' to each other. And a few weeks ago I finally got it formulated for myself as to what I don't like about the modern notion with respect to the Christian view of marriage. (In particular, a feminist friend of mine, and Eric, and others, have all served as sounding boards for my formulations.) I'm going to pull pretty heavily from commenters Eric, Nick and CJ to try and establish certain points. So enjoy.

Eric had said:

Your first question was what I meant by saying there is no analogy between modern "consentual sex" and marriage. I said this because your first post had a comment along the lines of "I would agree to such-and-such a statement in the book, provided its in the context of marriage." If you look up "marriage debt" you will see why there is no analogy.

The statement you're speaking of, I believe, is:

Obviously my stipulations about the proper and moral context of this initiative differ from that of secular feminism, but within a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity, regardless of whether we're complementarians or egalitarians, is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union, which the serious thinkers on the subject in the Christian tradition has already taken seriously, but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy?

I need to write shorter sentences. I'm going to "trim the fat" a little, but I'm leaving the original there in case I trimmed something essential by mistake. (Please, someone let me know if I trimmed something essential.

[W]ithin a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity [...] is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union [...] but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy?

I am in agreement that the modern notion of consent can't be applied here. Perhaps I spoke hastily or was slightly mis-phrased. What I do maintain is that reading Paul's injunction that a couple not deprive each other except by mutual consent does not imply that persons must, whenever asked, consent, except for the reasons Aquinas lists. Aquinas obviously has some major concerns about concupiscience--concerns with no small reason--but seems to overstate the case. The natural reading of the text seems to me, again, a guy with no Greek lexicon, to indicate that a marriage ought to have a healthy sex life unless there's some reason not to--not that every request must be met unless there's some reason not to. That said, I definitely don't think it's good for 'deprivation' to last longer than a few days without mutual consent; at that point I'd call it borderline; much further and I'd be willing to go as far as sin. I will say I think it's more important that two persons in a marriage have the same understanding of marriage debt, and that this understanding be consistently applied regardless of gender, than that every person who calls themselves Christian or Catholic has that same understanding. That is where I draw the line; if there is still disagreement, we will have to agree to disagree about this.

Now Nick had written, regarding the modern notions of consent:

The modern notion of consent operates in this framework: "You can only *use* me when *I* gain something from that *use*". That's prostitution. Pope Leo XIII called it "legalized concubinage."

I actually agree with what Nick is saying about the modern notions of consent; they do seem to (mostly) boil down to a mutual use. I think one big concern of the Yes Means Yes people is to correct hatever imbalances there might be in perceptions of the importance of male vs. female enjoyment of the act itself. That in itself is fine. I should hope the Church doesn't teach that one is more important than the other. And I don't at all think it would be Christian or loving to be unconcerned with how much one's spouse enjoys having sex. As a general pattern it does seem like the ideal presented by the Yes Means Yes crowd veers more in the direction of consenting mostly if not almost only when one is seeking pleasure. I should note that nowhere in the book have I actually read that said--but the overall tone suggests that consensual and pleasure-seeking sex is the ideal. And I sort of agree with them on that, but not really. I'll get back to that.

Nick went on to say:

The Catholic notion of "consent" (so-called) operates in different framework: "Through Charity (in which *I* love God and neighbor selflessly), *I* give myself to *You* in order that *You* grow in holiness and maturity as Spouse." (1 Cor 7, esp v3-5) Now, in a fallen world this is not easy for most of us, but it's a clear ideal, which the One True Church promotes and guards.

Yes. This goes along with what CJ had said in his response to Eric:

[S]ex within marriage must be understood [...] active consent, while not getting us all the way there, does reclaim some of that essence. It is an active giving and an active receiving. Yes, there is a marriage debt. But that marriage debt in light of the Christian Gospel is not to be fulfilled in the way we view, say, the ten commandments. These are, in fact, marriage debts owed by Christ's Church, his bride. But she is not to fulfill them because she has to, but because she wants to.

I actually agree with this, for certain definitions of "want." Of course forcing someone to go to Mass and take communion against their will would be wrong, but to convince them to will such so even if they didn't particularly desire it would not be. I definitely don't want to do service when I do in the sense of actively desiring it, but I do in the sense that I actively will it. Clearly there is a space in which we can will something, without wanting it in the colloquial sense, though in the sense of going to Mass or making love with our spouses desiring it is certainly the ideal.

So, as I see it, the things that are wrong with the 'modern notion' of consent seem to be:

1) It's tied up too much with seeking of pleasure in a hedonistic sense.
2) It does not, at least not prima facie, allow for consent to a reasonable sexual life with another person in the future.

So the overall tone of YMY, as I said above--and I have said this, and I may be wrong--but to me it suggests that consensual and pleasure-seeking sex is the ideal. And like I said, I sort of agree. I agree if we mean the pleasure of contemplating God, the pleasure of the proper union of spouses, the pleasure of two persons given to each other in Christ. In other words, pleasures that transcend the hedonistic. As for criticism (2), consent seems very much an immediate and for-the-moment thing in modern thought, and there is truth to this; a lack of consent for a sexual act makes it wrong. But in Christian marriage there is a sort of implied consent which does not imply one's consent whenever asked, but more of an agreement not to deprive one's partner of that facet of the relationship; there does seem to be an implicit agreement that one will consent in the future, sometimes, but not all of the time.

So with all of this in mind--here's my moral heirarchy. Here's what I'd call "good, passable, ehn, bad, worse, abhorrent" with respect to different uses or misuses of the 'marriage act'--specifically, here, the act within the Christian context of marriage. I think this does apply more or less to other marriage as well, but I can only claim to speak most fully about what I see as the ideal coming from my perspective as a Catholic.

Good: Husband and wife with a healthy sex life, because they want (desire) to have one.
Passable: The same, but because they want (will) to have one.
Ehn: The same, but just to pay their marriage debt. So, really, probably not as healthy as it could be.
Bad: Either a lack of sex that constitutes "deprivation" on the part of one partner or the other, without mutual consent for prayer. Here's where we cross the line into sin, as we've clearly violated a Scriptural mandate. (Again, I can't know for each couple when this line is crossed.)
Worse: Coercion on the part of one partner or the other under threat of sin.
Abhorrent: Marital rape.

I'm not sure if there's a giant difference between my descriptions for "passable" and "ehn." So I'm not sure exactly how else I'd construct Christian marital consent; obviously this was not a rigorous process for me, and quite frankly I don't know if it's something I want to try and construct with much more rigor unless I find myself breaking into academia and studying Catholic sexual ethics as part of my living. So there it is, for now at least.

Anyway, Hope you all have enjoyed this ride as much as me. Comments as usual are welcome. This will probably be the last Yes Means Yes post for quite awhile.

More Yes Means Yes: Comments, Etc.

So I've actually finished reading Yes Means Yes now. There'll be some more reaction-posts coming, but there are some comments that have been made that warrant a further reaction. If you want this post to make the maximum amount of sense you should probably go back and read the initial post on YMY and then the follow-up post where I discussed some of the questions/comments a friend had left on the first post. Please note that I am pulling comments from both threads; if you're wondering why nothing of Eric's comment on the first post is here, it's because the second post was intended to address that. I'm going to save some of Eric, Nick and CJ's commentary especially for another post, because I think their comments were helpful to me in probing what this "modern notion of consent" is that we dislike, as opposed to the general notion of consent that I would argue should be agreed upon by Christians. Still to come on the YMY front: I'm going to attempt to respond to a particular essay in the book that has yet to be mentioned on this blog. I'm also going to attempt a post about "modern notions of consent" that seem so controversial. If I have the energy and the development on this front I might also attempt some post about what a Christian model of sexuality might actually be, because I'm not satisfied with the feminists' model, as a Catholic, at least not the Yes Means Yes crowd's model. Commenters will be addressed in alphabetical order.

Commenters' words will be in bold.
My responses will be in normal text.

Enjoy!

Stuff CJ said:

Dan, good reasons why women shouldn't initiate? If that's the way the cookie crumbles in the relationship, far be it from me to limit the way God's love works in people; however, while most of these radical feminists will probably scoff at my suggesting this, I have rarely met a woman who doesn't wish for the initiate from a real man (I think you know how I mean this) and not just these p[r?]etty boys we find in today's society. Physical archetypes would be the reason I would cite, but many people find the interpretation of physical realities woefully close-minded (though still living by the die-hard line of scientific method and empiricism).

Either by socialization or by biology, there's bound to be truth to what you're saying. Not sure if it's quite as scientific and empirical as you claim. The main trap I now consider it part of my project to avoid is considering female sexual desire as lower than male. (I don't think you're doing that.) Note that I don't necessarily consider either desire to be really, really important, but that I am simply saying they seem to be equal in importance if the persons are equal in dignity.

Plus, I'm still not sure how to apply such a concept in modern times.

I think you lost me a little. Which concept don't you know how to apply?

Yes, I know Dan, I really need to proof these things before I post them.

Yes. Yes you do.

Stuff Eric said:

Marriage does necessarrily include the physical. If two people "marry" with no desire to have sex (or to do so without children) they are entering into something of a sham marriage.

I do agree with you on this point (and, I should note, not just you but the Church) but I feel like we need to discuss this in such a way so as to leave room for, well, not calling the marriage of Mary and Joseph a sham. (For any non-Catholics who might be reading this, this is an issue that Catholics such as Eric and I have to deal with that you might not, because Catholic Tradition insists that Mary and Joseph's marriage had no physical intercourse.

What I said is that the physical union of the spouses is not the ultimate end, or the high point, of marriage, no matter how many spiritual analogies modern Catholic sex educators use.

Agreement. But then what is its ultimate end? I'm not tied down to one answer to that question.

Regardless of whether or not you happen to like the language of debt, it's clear that sex in Christian marriage is not necessarrily consentual in the modern sense, even if it should not for that reason be forced (though it does not mean one can use force or coercion, it is in fact a serious sin to deny one's spouse).

I agree that it's not consensual in the modern sense, but I should expand on that later. Regarding "serious sin:" Do you mean that anytime one's spouse asks, it would be a sin to deny? Or do you mean it would be a sin to deny for a significant period of time, unless one was doing so for some purpose considered legitimate? The Pauline passage--on my admittedly naive and un-scholarly reading--doesn't seem to force a reading that every request must be met on pain of sin. It seems, prima facie, at least as reasonable to read it simply as the admonition that all marriages have a healthy sex life. Nonetheless the Pauline passage does point to an irreconcilable difference between Christian views and the modern views of sexuality, which I'll get to in a later post.

Cho's scenario does not make sense in the context of marriage, because a spouse giving in to the other even though he/she doesn't really want it is not necessarrily a bad thing in marriage, whereas it is in the logic of modern sexuality. I don't say of course that it's an ideal in marriage, but it is something of a duty as far as I understand it.

Yes. I'll try and give some more nuanced thoughts on the subject later. I do think--and I don't know if I said this in my first post--but I do still think it's worthwhile for Christianity to speak to situations that aren't marital, if only to see if--as a temporary measure, not as a solution--we can help move them further from being screwed up. Many of the reasons Cho gives in her testimony for having said yes were pretty awful reasons, and might have been even worse in the context of marriage.

I don't think it helps anything to praise consentual fornication, simply because it does not pile on other sins.

I'll take progress where I can get it. I don't intend, however, to praise it as if progress automatically meant a lack of sin. In this case, 'those other sins' refers to one of the few things condemned by the Church as being never, ever, okay. I don't praise consensual fornication. But it's closer to Truth than rape.

In fact, it may in some way be worse because it stabilizes the sin. Someone who is able to maintain a reasonably stable sex life because they've embraced the rules of consent may be much further from seeing how damndable the whole situation is. In fact, it may in some way be worse because it stabilizes the sin. [...] It seems to me that people in this situation are only questionably better off morally, and in terms of the possibility of conversion may be much further off.

I do share your concern. In some ways it reminds me of Lewis's caution in The Four Loves that sometimes love is most dangerous when it most approximates the love of God, and yet is not that love. Certainly there is the danger that in trying to reach into an incredibly sinful situation we might accidentally simply decrease the sin and make the lesser amount of sin seem more acceptable than it is.

That said, I would prefer the situation of consent to the situation of rape because the latter seems not only worse in degree but also in kind--there is a perversion there of sinning not just against one's own body but also against the body of another, in a way not present in simple fornication. The question that must be immediately answered, for me, is not which situation we prefer--it is what we say and where we stand when someone says "no" to the proposition of sex--or even when they answer in a nonverbal "no."

I did not say feminism created this problem on its own, but that it helps to create the grey areas that make it possible. Obviously the wickedness of man's heart is reason enough for any sin, but we now have a social space in which this sin can be normalized and even embraced as a "lifestyle."

Eliminating those social spaces is tricky. I'm not sure any one culture has ever done it.

I don't necessarrily reject every possible idea which has ever been called "feminism" [...] by some liberal definitions of the word, I am a muslim. [...] I see no reason to constantly redefine the term in such a way that it becomes completely disconnected from the historical movement which gave it its name.

Hence my irritation with modern redefinitions of fundamentalist to include anyone who takes religion seriously.

I'm quite certain that we don't agree completely about what being "just Catholic" means, but I'm also quite certain that we don't disagree in any way so big as to make us opponents in any fundamental sense.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I take a slightly more minimal approach. But it is good to remember that we are together on the fundamentals.

Stuff Nick said:

From the "traditionalist" standpoint (hehe), there is a reason why Popes over the last few centuries have (repeatedly) spoken out against the idea of the State taking over Marriage (in order to confine it to the secular realm). The problem is that it strips Marriage of it's Sacramental character and thus cuts off it's ultimate ends, which are supernatural (Mat 22:30).

Interesting.

A secular marriage becomes ordered towards what currently benefits society, with it's ends limited only to the present - which is likewise "guided" by the ever changing wind of "popular opinion."

This would seem to flow logically.

But it seems like some of the societal ends do still matter, or at least, that the stability is--even if it is only an "in the meantime" solution--better than instability.

This is one of the core reasons why separation of Church and State is impossible for the Christian, and without this foundation any dialogue with "others" (e.g. feminists, Protestants, "Republican Party Catholics") is ultimately futile. Without that foundation, you're conceding 'home field advantage' to the lost, confused, or even downright evil 'opponent' - and at that point it's an up-hill and no-win game for you.

I am not at all married to our Constitution; I should much rather see a state reordered to human dignity and the law of God. However, it seems rather pessimistic to assume it is simply "an up-hill and no-win game" to venture out of one's "home field." Certainly it makes things more difficult, but I think the consistency of Catholic moral philosophy can serve as a witness even when we're not in the home-field, if we really say not only that "I agree with you about XYZ," but also "You're wrong about ABC, because really, this is the way things should be." (ABC doesn't mean artificial birth control here, but it could!) Of course, for this witness to really work, we've got to be living as a people with hope in the Resurrection, and living the philosophy we preach.

When the ultimate end is to assist their partner in attaining Heaven, things such as rape, grey area, even consent, 'drop out' of the equation because they inherently oppose that ultimate end. The modern notion of 'consent' is inherently wrong because it is not formed by Charity (Love), because it is based on selfishly consenting only when the person consenting sees them self in a position to gain ("take") and not as an unselfish fulfillment of duty. Consent formed by Charity is only possible in the Sacramental context, but at that point it resembles nothing of what the secular reader can make sense of.

There is truth to many of the nuances Dan is speaking of, but they need to be re-framed into the Christian framework and not left 'hanging' as if applicable to the secular view of marriage.

Yes. At the same time, being able to speak Catholic truth into situations that aren't immediately Catholic, and in a way which encourages conversion, would be a useful endeavor if we can manage it.

Stuff Shawn said:

As the only female commentor as of this moment, I will say that intimacy (which, from my angle, is the point of relationship in general, and marriage specifically) is certainly not limited to sex/intercourse (nor is intercourse a requirement for intimacy). Arrogance and entitlement are intimacy killers. Consent and desire will both be augmented by a move toward intimacy, which is fed by respect, self-sacrifice, and having your beloved's back...emotionally/physically/spiritually.

You, being a non-Catholic, are in an intellectual sense freer than I am to take union as being the end of marriage. I, being Catholic, am free to take it as being an end of marriage. I do however think intimacy is bad phraseology for anything that is supposed to be "the point" of marriage specifically. I assume when you say intimacy you mean intimacy that is found in a sense of marital union--otherwise, if you just wanted intimacy, why wouldn't you just go monastic? A faith community is plenty intimate. Something about marital intimacy must be different. So if you meant to say that intimacy itself was the point of marriage specifically, I would have to say I think you're wrong on that point.

From where I'm sitting, many of the less savory components of "feminism" are essentially self-defense or at worst reactionary.

To be honest, most of the things I dislike most aren't even the reactionary things, they're the things that comes from a worldview that's very much outside of Christianity.

The sad part is that women felt the only way to be as valuable as a man was to be like a man. This should make us all sad..."femininity" was sacrificed on the alter of not being second class. Tragic.

To a degree, I agree. I don't think most women have actually made that switch in its entirety (or if they have, our culture is doing a poor job of showing us this shift.)

Feminism has had some unfortunate fall out, but it was necessitated by oppression (generally at the hands of men, often those who used religion and "headship" as a cheap crutch).

From where I'm standing, with my admittedly naive readings of Paul, it looks like headship exists, and that it does seem to be the husband's. That seems to be a reality that we've all got to deal with if we're seeking to be historically Biblical Christians. The question is what it means. I lean more complementarian on that than you do, but I have no fully formed opinion on it except that it definitely includes a strong sacrificial component.

To sum up my thoughts, I'm tickled pink (yes, it's a girlie color, and I LIKE it!) to hear men (primarily, so far) having this conversation. It gives me hope for a better future, where we all embrace the unique ways we were designed.

I suppose my big question would be whether a belief in uniqueness of the sexes puts any serious limitation on straight-up egalitarianism.

In general, some of the assertions you made in comments about abortion and dogma are not necessarily Catholic positions; I feel that at least for the present conversation I've addressed those sufficiently here.

Yes Means Yes: Initial Impressions

Yes Means Yes is a book of essays written by feminists which attempts to provide a remedy to some of the underlying assumptions and models of sexuality and persons that can provide cultural sanction for the practice of rape, especially in the united states. The essays aren't necessarily confined strictly to that objective, but everything discussed is at least of tangential relevance to that critique. All citations here are from the 2008 edition (for a visual description, the one with the red, black and yellow cover,) and will be given in the format of ("Essay," Section writer, page number), thereafter (Last name, page number).

This is the first of what will hopefully be many blog posts in which I am giving my theological and personal reactions, from where I come from as a Christian, to the issues and ideas raised by this book. This post just has some initial impressions.

Hopefully I can present a charitable enough picture of what this book has to say that whoever reads this will be able to make a good decision about whether or not to read it for yourselves. I don't necessarily recommend that every Christian I know read this book; many conservatives and even a few liberals would term it crass and crude in places, and rightly so; so I urge persons who are contemplating reading this book and think they might be offended to ask themselves first if being offended will help them grow, or just make them miss the point. And, among many other things, the book is quite obviously about sex. So use your discernment there.

That said, there's a lot of stuff I like in what I've read so far. Now I definitely don't share my religious framework with a lot of these writers, and (as a consequence) there are many things in the book that are problematic from a Catholic perspective. But many of the critiques of the culture, at their core, ring true, and (when I think about them) strike me as stupid just like they strike the secular feminist movement. One thing, right off, just in case there's any misconception at all: I do not believe these women are man-haters, and neither should you. They are not. However, I believe that a number of the assumptions that they make and a few of the resulting assertions are problematic from a Christian and, especially, Catholic perspective.

So I'm going to start with my worst initial impression, then move on to the good ones, which have arisen from the book as well as from discussions with the friend who lent it to me.

The idea contained in the first proper essay gave me my worst impression of the book. It was the idea that "an improved response to rape requires a broad-based approach, and involves challenging the entire right-wing agenda: the wars on sex, on women's bodies, on the poor, on people of color." ("Offensive Feminism," Jill Filipovic, 25) The part of that sentence I object to is probably obvious. I think it's safely said that at the least the "[war] on women's bodies" includes attempts to restrict access to abortion; I'm not sure what exactly these people would think of people like me who willingly converted to a religious perspective which, to some degree, teaches activism not just against abortion but also contraception. Now my friend has pointed out that the emphasis on autonomy signified in this passage can be limited by a religious perspective. I believe this; my issue with Filipovic's assertion stands. I realize that my religious perspective means that, for the movement which spawned this book, whatever response I make is likely to be a lower and less-improved response.

There's one other big impression that I had reading this which should be mentioned, because it's going to show up again. Earlier in her opening essay, Filipovic sates that "feminism and anti-rape activism challenge the dominant narrative that women's bodies aren't their own, they insist that sex is about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm, and they attack a power structure that sees women as victims and men as predators" (Filipovic, 20). I'll sign my name to this sentence, depending on how we interpret that first "and". Do we mean activism that is feminist and anti-rape, or just activism that is either feminist or anti-rape? I kind of hope she means and, not or. If she means or, Christian challenges to rape must by definition be excluded from anti-rape activism on the basis of belief in a Creatorship of God which extends to ownership (even if persons also own themselves), to say nothing of what Christianity teaches about the point of sex.

Let's assume I can sign my name to that sentence, though, and move on to the deeper issue brought up, which is a dichotomy that Filipovic makes between sex being "about consent and enjoyment, not violence and harm." No matter what the secular feminist response to sex is, the Christian response can't be either of those. Obviously we can't seriously advocate, as Christians, a sexual model that promotes violence and harm. But we also can't speak about it just as a thing about consent and enjoyment. For the Christian tradition consent is a necessary condition for the morality of such an act, but it is not sufficient. Enjoyment certainly is a good bonus of sex, but it's not the point; in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant sexual ethics it is subordinate to unity, in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ethics subordinate to unity and to procreation. Some of the older (and more disgustingly spread, even if somehow not disgusting) models of sex have massive potential to aid and abet violence and harm that can be done to women. So what model should we be working for in Christian theology?

But let's get back to the consent piece, because it brings me to the first thing I really like and one of the big themes I've come to embrace from this movement.

The introduction to the book is a testimonial of a woman (comedian Margaret Cho) whose first time having sex was with a man who didn't quite get a no from her. But he didn't get a yes, either. Cho's description of the event should appall we who call ourselves Christians: "Before I knew it, he was on top of me. Then he was inside me. No ceremony, no foreplay, no warning, no consent. It never came up" ("Foreword," Margaret Cho, 2). Cho goes on to describe the various times and reasons that she has had "sex I have said yes to, and sometimes even initiated--that I didn't want to have" (Cho, 3).

As a key part of their solution to these problems of female sexuality, rape, and pressures to have sex, the Yes Means Yes movement has, appropriately enough, suggested that "if we established a model of enthusiastic consent instead of just 'no means no,' it would be a lot harder for men to get away with rape. It would be a lot harder to argue that there's a 'gray area'" (Filipovic, 21). This is the idea that I'm pretty enthused about, the idea of establishing a model of consent that is more active than passive.


There are a host of other little observations that are made in this book that I agree with. One essay, "An Immodest Proposal," asks the question of what the world would look like if women took more initiative in a sexual sense. Obviously my stipulations about the proper and moral context of this initiative differ from that of secular feminism, but within a marital framework, if we truly consider the husband and wife equal in dignity, regardless of whether we're complementarians or egalitarians, is there any good reason not to treat the two as having an equal weight not only in consenting to their bodily union, which the serious thinkers on the subject in the Christian tradition has already taken seriously, but also in initiating it, in asking for that special bodily intimacy? (If anyone thinks they have one, they're free to tell me. I'll respond as best as I can.) Another essay, entitled "Beyond Yes or No," talks about an improvement of communication between partners about what they do and don't like and enjoy as far as sex goes. Again, I have reservations with endorsing the same contexts for such things as the author of that essay, and I definitely don't endorse everything that they do as legitimate sexual practice, consent or no consent. But, in such a degree as a given practice is actually in-line with our dignity as persons and Divine intentions for sexuality, I don't see anything wrong with a husband and wife actually discussing what they like and don't like. Even the most conservative Christians shouldn't balk at this--Karol Wojtyla devoted the entire last chapter of Love and Responsibility to biological discussion and talked of the desire to satisfy the other person in terms of pleasure--not as a replacement of unity, but as an outcome desired by Love in a marital context.


Those are a lot of initial impressions, I know. I hope to continue posting these things; in the future they're going to be on an essay-by-essay basis. Look for more on the themes of the Christian response to sexuality, the 'commodity' model of sexuality that the feminist movement much despises (and with good reason), and places where I think Christianity plays nice--or doesn't--with secular feminism. Pray for me in this endeavor!

[This post has been edited to fix a horrific typo I noticed just now, after several years.]

Sacred Laws in a Secular World

While I'm on a roll tonight, I figured I would bring up another sore point that has been on my mind recently. I think that most Christians have this view of law and society that doesn't really work. A very notable case to me is the idea of pornography being legal.
This was brought up to me by a friend--he said that he was in church, and the pastor said he wished that pornography was illegal. My friend does not use pornography, but he told me that he is glad pornography is not illegal because it reflects the citizens having rights to free speech.
Where does a Christian realistically draw the line between trying to make laws that fit their desired moral structure and trying to make laws that really represent the opinion and the desires of the populace? It's easy to argue that fornication is not the best idea ever. However, is it right to stop members of society from fornicating if they don't prescribe to the same world view as I do?
Let's move into two larger issues here. Abortion is a huge topic today. Most Christians I know would agree with me: I hate it. It diminishes the value of birth, the value of the human construction, the sacred protection of a baby within the womb, and a lot of other things. But as we know, not enough people in this country have a problem with it for us to make it illegal. I have a huge issue with abortion because it also involves murder, so that makes this particular topic a little bit more straightforward for me.
Here's the second larger issue: gay marriage. I don't think it's right, but I am also, for the sake of society, willing to accept the possibility of it becoming legal. I have a couple of gay friends, and I love them--but I would never wish that they would get married. I feel that strongly about it. However, if I were in the position to pass law regarding it, I would probably end up making it legal because that is what represents the desires of the populace best.
It seems like as Christians, we have a couple of hard things to remember when it comes to our country. First off, it's not my country, nor is it your country, nor is it the gay couple's country, nor is it anyone else's country. It is, collectively, OUR country. That means that our own impressions of morality and ethics (which, through the Word, are often correct) cannot be forced upon members of society just because we think it's better for them. That sort of law only creates division, hatred, and more lawbreakers.
In addition, it means that if we want to actually do something about the country we share, we can't simply go around trying to get laws passed. It's worthless. You have to change the minds of the people using love and truth, hand-in-hand. It's a lot less simple, but it's the only way I could see going about it.

Christian Ethics vs. Marijuana

This post is prompted by some recent experiences I've had around marijuana. I whole-heartedly believe that the body is the temple of God and that it needs to be taken care of and respected. I also believe whole-heartedly in the enjoyment of alcohol. And on a third note, I believe whole-heartedly in the call to be sober. So, then, we know how alcohol falls into this place: don't have too much, but enjoy yourself. Too much is throwing up, losing your train of thought, headaches, all that jazz. Where does weed fall into this category?
I have heard some people argue that "there is no way to smoke weed and stay in moderation," but I have found that statement to be entirely untrue. So it is possible to stay within that parameter. In addition, it is possible to ingest the plant without any health risks associated (except maybe for the high-fructose corn syrup that the brownies are made of). So we are able to stay within the parameter of keeping your body healthy. Why is this such a hot topic?
I am not writing this post to provide a solution, but only to bring up the question. I think that for myself, abstention from marijuana makes sense because there are commands in the Word to obey your civil authorities. But what if I'm in Amsterdam? I have a feeling that if I were to go and peruse weed in Amsterdam, Christian friends would not be happy--even though it isn't illegal, isn't necessarily unhealthy depending on how you do it, and I wasn't necessarily high out of my mind. So what gives? Why is this different than alcohol? Thoughts are appreciated.

Dignified

I think many of us in the Christian tradition have some working idea of what human dignity is. All of creation, humanity in a sense qualitatively different from the rest, is stamped with the imago dei, or the image of God. Thus each creature of God has intrinsic worth, and, because humanity bears the image of God in a unique way (perhaps more special for the Incarnation) each individual human life is treated as having that same human dignity. This is a fine notion of what dignity means.

But there is another notion of dignity that needs to die.

I mean this strange dignity that means people looking dignified, or looking proper. Somehow we wound up on this planet with two things: Very physical and animal characteristics, and souls that yearn for God. We are spiritual beings, but also material beings, and so we will, at some point, do some material things. And there's this weird idea that we can look dignified while we do it. Think about when people are told to be proper.

Take eating. Who really looks dignified eating? We can chew our food with our mouths closed, but we are chewing. We are still material things devouring other material things. And don't even try to think about how that food gets processed. I was no biology major, but it's not really a dignified process, for the food or for our bodies, wonderful machines they are.

Following that, is there really a dignified way to use the bathroom? I'm certain some people have tried using the bathroom in a dignified way, and I'm nearly as certain that all of those people failed. And-—even in the context of fully Christian marriage—-is there really anything dignified about sex? It's a union, sure, but it's an animal union as well as a God-ordered one. It can't possibly look dignified to anyone. What about death? Sure, we see pristine looking and well-preserved loved ones at casket viewings. But, to quote a one-time character from an episode of Samurai Champloo, "Death leaves no beautiful corpses." Death of course can leave corpses that have some beauty, but the same corpses serve as reminders, the nearly certain fact that we will all die, and that the person who was there has passed on. Neither the act of dying, nor the earthly remains it leaves behind, are dignified-looking things.

The pattern seems to be that all we're really doing is covering up the 'undignified' part. But by design or due to the intrusion of sin, any mere attempt at looking dignified is ultimately just an attempt to dress up us soulful animals so that we look less ridiculous than we are.

Peter Kreeft, in his Fundamentals of the Faith (1988 edition, p.67) and on this webpage, states that:

Death is a crass, crude, vulgar, and materialistic problem. It needs a crass, crude, vulgar, and materialistic solution, like the resurrection of the body. What set the ancient world on fire was not faith in faith, a psychology, a philosophy, or an ethic, but the astonishing news that God became man, died, and rose from death to save us from sin and death.

The Word of God stepped down to the level of the strange combination of soul and animal. He embraced all the indignities that come with being human. Historically Biblical Christian tradition teaches that this did not include sex, but the fact of eating and using a bathroom should be enough, to say nothing of the Crucifixion. There's nothing that looks dignified about Crucifixion. Actually, forget the Crucifixion--what's so dignified about the Resurrection? Even if the Risen Christ was literally aglow, Christ still had the holes in his hands. Would that really be an appropriate visual at the dinner table? I doubt it.

So if even God gave up looking dignified (and sometime during the Passion, this definitely happened) to help rescue and redeem us from Death, it seems like the societal notion of looking dignified, as a general principle, has no real hold on us. But what does?

Returning to what I said before:

Because humanity bears the image of God in a unique way (perhaps made even more special by the Incarnation?) each individual human life is treated as having that same human dignity.

What if we tried on the basis of our worth as creatures of God to set our standards for what actions should be hidden and which would not? Certainly this might make things a little messier, introduce a little bit more context, and force us to judge on more than mere appearances. On the other hand, if we start with the notion of each individual human life--that strange unique mixture of soul and animal, and consider the implications of its dignity and worth for how it ought to live, and how it ought to be treated, we might just start to get a picture of how to put to rest all unnecessary stifling of laughter, put in proportion all table manners, and excercise reverence for God and not sanctimony. If all we do is try to hide our indignities, we'll never be dignified. If we start by realizing our status as creatures of God, we actually have a shot.

In the Meantime

These are some thoughts that started about a week ago when a TV show I was watching reminded me I was single. That was not a good day.

I don't know what my vocation is. Either it's marriage or it's some sort of consecrated single life (Holy Orders in that case, probably.) Anyway, I realized that day that I wasn't happy being single. I'm not sure why that is. Could be because I'm called to marriage, or it could be that I'm so afraid of turning into this guy* that I can't stop watching myself whenever I make a new friend of the female persuasion. Maybe I'm called to the Priesthood, but I'm really in denial (some of my reasoning for discerning away from the clerical state doesn't quite seem to hold up, to me.) Some days (not today especially) it's enough to make me want God to just slam one door shut, and open the other one wide. Just some kind of obvious sign. That'd be great.

Sometime, when I find and fulfill my vocation, I have a feeling that dealing with the fact of sexuality is going to get a lot easier. Because then I'll have a state I can accept, and live with; no more nebulous single-hood.

It'll come in God's time. In the meantime, please pray that I would be less neurotic when I meet women, and know when to relax and when to be vigilant. (Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility was a huge help in the way of a philosophical framework for living; book recommendations on the subject are good if you can think of any.) But if nothing else, prayer for discernment--in the immediate and in the vocational sense.

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* If this is your first XKCD comic, you might not want to browse the site. Sometimes it's a little less spiritual and a lot more offensive than that one. But that comic itself should be fine.

How I Am Still a Protestant (and How I Am Not)

Warning: This post may be long. If you want the list for things I protest specifically in Catholics, see 1a,b and 3. If you want the list of things I see wrong with Protestant theology, see 1c and 4. But if you have the time, the whole list might be good because I'm sure some tendencies have crossed the Tiber to cross-contaminate one tradition or the other. While I'm sure some of them also have some of these issues, I'm not familiar enough with the Orthodox tradition to list anything specific to them here. If anyone has anything to add that I've missed, please tell me. I'm already thinking of stuff but I kind of want people who read this thing to have first dibs on the stuff that I've still missed as of this writing. I will give credit for suggestions in comments or e-mail.

I have remarked often both to Catholics and Protestants in my life that post-conversion I would still have a Protesant's theological mind. I think there is a good deal of truth to this. The question remains, if I am (like Peter Kreeft has said) striving to be more Protestant than the Protestants, against what do I protest? Surely I can't be more Protestant than Protestants without protesting something.

As a "newly minted Catholic" (as an atheist friend hilariously called me the other day), I am still a Protestant in the sense that I stand in protest against things that are not in line with the teachings of Scripture and the teachings of Christ. I am not a Protestant in the sense that I recognize the authority of something besides Scripture to interpret Scripture (at least in certain situations) without the possibility of error; this was, perhaps, the biggest thing, that a Protestant may protest, and a Catholic may not.

I daresay that it along with its logical implications (anything this authority declares to be true about the Faith, or declares to be apostolic teaching) are the only things I am really bound not to protest. A good portion of the things that Protestants were, at least in their minds, protesting in the first place, I am still not only allowed, but all but bound to protest, as someone who, at least in his mind, has some decent knowledge of theology. Thus I must protest:

1. Inefficient pastoral practices and outlooks related to things like Church discipline, or how the Church sees the world.
1.a In particular for the Catholics, it seems plain on the surface that more reform is needed in the area of how priests are disciplined for serious crimes against children, and in particular when and how they are handed over to police. I do acknowledge that lots of reform has been done, in part thanks to the current Pope Benedict XVI in his later CDF years, but I am still hopeful for more, especially on a local level.
1.b Also in particular for Catholics (related, sadly again, to the pedophilia issue): Some church officials have been too much whine, not enough work on the issue. I trust that many of them (especially current CDF head Cardinal Levada, and I really do trust this) will be working where they can see it necessary for reforms and to prosecute as much as they can within the current system of Canon Law.
1.c. In particular for Protestants, the sometime practice of "church splits" where a church splits over some doctrinal issue that really isn't that big. We're talking about something like drinking wine, or worship styles, more than something like gay marriage.
2. Bad liturgy. Lex orandi, lex credendi after all. Theologically questionable worship lyrics also go here, but they also occur plenty of the time when there's no liturgy proper happening.
3. Bad theological practice, including for Catholics:
3.a. Seeing the Protestant traditions in an uncharitable light, or not giving Protestants enough credit as Truth-seekers.
3.a.1. Treating all Protestantism as necessarily unhistorical. Most notable exceptions coming to mind: N.T. Wright and Justo L. Gonzalez, both of whom have studied Christian history considerably and yet somehow haven't come to endorse the Roman Pontiff as a theological leader.
3.a.2. Leading into the next point, acting like the Biblical cases for well-known Catholic doctrines (e.g. the Eucharist in John 6 and 1 Corinthians, or the Perpetual Virginity in the Lukan Anunciation) are so painfully obvious that nobody could possibly resist them but for fear of the Truth of Catholicism. While some undoubtedly resist for this reason, some people just don't see the arguments as easily. (And I, for one, am not entirely sold on John 6, though I see much potential for a double-layer of meaning there.)
3.b. Doing no investigation into matters, especially Scriptural matters, that the Magisterium has settled or the cases for these matters, thus leaving themselves wide open to the charge of being "unbiblical" by those Protestants who believe such.
3.c. Failing to read the Scriptures or interact with them outside of the Mass, leaving themselves somewhat legitimately open to the charge of not really engaging the Bible.
3.d. Misinterpreting the doctrines of sola scriptura and prima scriptura such that they sound more circular and baseless than they actually are. (I think there's definitely a truth to them, by the way, even though I think that prima and the Catholic viewpoint are more coherent with history.)
3.e. Treating (even if only in some quarters and/or for some purposes) Thomas Aquinas, like he is a minor Magisterium. He is awesome, but not even a minor infallible voice.
3.f. How we treat dissent, that is, improper lack of assent to Magisterial teachings.
3.f.1. Usually we crack down more on dissent we don't like, sometimes to a point where we raise the standard of orthodoxy higher than it was meant to go for a given issue (a conservative example would be pretending that anyone who uses NFP for anything less than a life-threatening condition is dissenting from proper church teaching on sexuality. A liberal example would be pretending that anyone who favors a more anarchic free market is automatically unconcerned for the poor.)
3.f.2. Usually we show more sympathy, sometimes too much, to dissent that arises from an overemphasis on those things we like to emphasize theologically. (A conservative example would be sympathizing too much with sedevacantists. A liberal example would be sympathizing too much with those parishes which neglect the rubrics for liturgy almost to the point of invalidating the Masses they celebrate.)
3.g. Treating Protestantism as not only lacking in the fullness of the faith, but in such serious error that every soul within it should be regarded as having a state of grace that is nebulous at best.
4. Including, for Protestants:
4.a. Calling everything "unbiblical" that does not resonate with one's particular interpretation of Scripture.*
4.a.1. Gathering that something must be unbiblical if it is taught only in Catholicism/Eastern Orthodoxy, even if it was taught by several of the Early Church Fathers.
4.a.2. Automatically classifying as unbiblical doctrine that teaches a cooperation of man with God in the project of Salvation (synergism.)
4.a.3. Believing and claiming proudly that one's own conclusions are the "clear teaching of Scripture," found without any tradition, even though the fact of debate presents a serious prima facie challenge to this assertion--and often without going the extra mile to counteract this prima facie case.
4.b. Being much more wary of the influence of philosophy than anything Paul said actually warrants us to be. Noticeable exceptions, I think, include persons as prestigious as Alvin Plantinga, a good number of Prosloblogion Protestants, and the Christian Carnival's own (well, also the Prosloblogion's) Jeremy Pierce.
4.c. Treating (even if only in some quarters and/or for some purposes) John Piper, or Brian McLaren if you're postmodern, or Rob Bell if you like Metrosexianity**, like us Catholics treat Thomas Aquinas.
4.d. Treating Catholicism not as a less Biblical form of Christianity but one which does not deserve to be called Christianity at all--and thus one which places all the souls it holds in peril. I was especially aggrieved, even with the qualification given in the ensuing article, that George Fox University claims to be the highest-ranked Christian college in the nation according to Forbes. Three or four recognizable Catholic schools rank higher on the Forbes list.***
5. For all Christians:
5.a. Conflating Biblical inerrancy and Biblical historical-scientific literalism.
5.b. Ignoring actual reasons that real and logical people might actually choose to reject the Truth, even if we believe that these are the results of a malformed reason and/or conscience, that does not equate to saying that all those who reject Christianity just want to have more fun in bed.
5.c. Fearing especially the philosophical 'modernist' and 'postmodernist' movements enough that one sometimes suspects we have not a real hope in the Resurrection.

5.d. Taking such a highly providential view of church membership that it almost seems to render obsolete any notion that the differences between the Protestant denominations with each other, with Rome, and with the Patriarchs, really matter. Why should those things matter if it is truly God's best ideal that one person be a Calvinist, and another an Arminian? (Given their coexistence under the roof of Rome with at least a provisional blessing to both, I do not feel the same applies, at least not in full force, to Thomist and Molinist accounts of predestination; also, Rome has never to my knowledge in one of her infallible moments said anything implying that one person might be called to be a Thomist and another a Molinist.)****
5.e. Running more than an acceptable risk of heresy in an attempt to exercise our Christian freedom, or to be relevant to the modern world.
5.f. Demanding that the teachings of one's accepted infallible source be not just accepted even in the face of doubt, but accepted without searching and question on the matters at hand, thus neutering the process of seeking the Truth.
5.g. While there is some room for trusting and assenting to doctrines not fully understood once a certain groundwork of doctrines has been laid, I believe it is imperative to most Christians at least to know why they believe what they believe. It may be that in God's design some are not bound to do so, at least not much, but more of them need to do so. (I especially wish more American Catholics would do this, as it might seriously drive down the amount of dissent.)

6. Ignoring social justice in our focus on the need of each individual for redemption from sin by Christ, OR Ignoring the personal aspects of the Life, atoning Death and the Resurrection of Our Lord in our drive to focus on the social gospel.
7. Thinking that a personal relationship with Christ must always be or feel close, especially as a matter of emotion.
8. Wearing the Cross on our faces every day and almost never acknowledging in our faces or our writings (at least, so far as tone can tell) that we are a people who have hope in the Resurrection. Big Offenders: Triablogue. Big Hopers: Al Mohler and Richard Mouw among the Protestants, Archbishop Tim Dolan among the Catholics. (The current Pontiff has an evil-looking face in general, but every non-evil picture of him is simply delightful.)
9. Trying so hard to be pragmatic and realistic that we wind up in cooperation with evil.
9.a. In particular, I think some people (Catholic and Protestant) did this with the recent health-care bill. Considering more fully the matters of abortion on which Catholics and (what I would call good) Protestants agree on, that is, that elective abortions at least, are wrong: I'm still not convinced that we aren't funding further the intrinsic evil of elective abortion. And if we are, at least from the Catholic ethical standpoint...we can be happy about the coverage, but we sure as heck can't be happy about the further intrinsic evil.
9.b. Also in particular, certain groups of Catholics and Protestants, many of them staunch in their traditions, have attempted to fudge on the torture issue, or on a reasonable definition of it, often out of a misguided sense of loyalty to country. 
9.b.1. I fully acknowledge that certain people are genuinely uncertain as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture; while I think that in all relevant contexts it certainly does, it is not those people to whom I am speaking, provided they truly seek the Truth.
9.b.2. Kind of going along with this, treating our country like it is too special to really be at fault morally. Chesterton (someone I think we can all generally agree is decent to read), while quite a nationalist, was also apparently quite skeptical of nationalistic spirit that aimed in any way to elevate the expectations for the state below the typical standards for morality.
10. Making long and judgmental and possibly overly negative lists of things that we feel must be protested against which don't necessarily offer a ton of awesome solutions, even though they're highly critical of the churches we've grown up in, or grown into, when really, all we are is college-graduated kids with a theology blog and too much free time on our hands, and no real right to judge anyone at all, without taking the time to acknowledge...

That many of the things on this list are things we college-grads with blogs need to work on just like everyone else. Even if in some respects my eye has more of a speck than a plank, I must still search for the planks that can be removed--this will enable me more accurately to see the specks and planks in others' eyes.

Okay, so I got a little personal there. But I think in some ways it was good to get that list of things I do feel compelled to protest out there. And yes, I've stopped protesting the big thing. I no longer protest the notion of the infallible Magisterium, and in that sense I will never again be a Protestant. But I have brought with me something that the Catholic Church has perhaps been missing in the same numbers for a few hundred years, the hermeneutic of suspicion of structures and authority that is over-emphasized in Protestant Christianity, but too often under-represented by the Catholics. It is my hope that taking a largely Protestant theological mind with me into the Catholic Church will prove to be a sort of theological completion that will, eventually, help bring a real visible unity to fruition. Eventually, hopefully, the hermeneutic of suspicion and the overwhelming trust some Catholics place in the institutional church will balance out to the proper trust Christ intended. But to contribute to that that, I must continue to protest, and I must continue to suspect--even when it's uncomfortable. Even to those things which I assent, I must strive to know the reason. At any rate, someone must. It is certainly not my job to do this for every doctrine the Church holds true, but it is my job as a Christian to cover my basics.

And while it may have begun as an attempt to state things against which I still protest, and gathered the sum total of many of my frustrations along the way to its completion, this list--especially the part I made for Catholics--would be good to take into theological discussion as a reminder that some of my own bad habits are also on the list.

For instance, if my conviction about the Eucharist grows much stronger it will soon be easy to slip into the trap of the two subpoints of the first point on the Catholics. I pretty sincerely believe as a combined consideration of Scripture and history that if we desire to believe what the Early Church believed and taught, we must maintain a sense of real presence in the Eucharist in our theological worldviews. This does not qualify me to practice the incredibly un-Christian practice of uncharitably assuming that such things are blatantly obvious to anyone who has looked into them for even five minutes. Indeed, considering again Wright and Gonzalez, it definitely doesn't qualify me to assume that men and women who are well-studied like them in history and Scripture are deliberately or obstinately misreading anything to avoid being Catholic.

As far as feedback goes on this list, I'd love some. If I missed stuff, let me know. If you think I'm being unfair about something, let me know. I might not agree, of course, but that doesn't mean I don't want to know where I might be neglecting one thing or over-emphasizing another.

I hope as you read the list and post I have written that you read it charitably; I hope that you can take for yourself a sampling of what you might feel called most to protest within and without your own tradition. I hope it gives a decent understanding of the meaning I feel specifically as a Protestant gone Catholic. I hope that reading this will call everyone, including myself, to a greater self-examination and seeking of the Truth, as we seek to expand God's kingdom together.

And as I am often wont to say to people, please pray for me as I seek the Truth. I will do the same for you.

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* Note that this is not meant to say that all claims on what God intends to teach us in the Scriptures are equally valid. It is merely meant to say that the waters are usually muddier than anyone really wants to admit. Really, sometimes they are muddy and sometimes they are clear. Providentially enough, the clearer portions, at least to staunch Catholics and Protestants, seem to be those which present us with serious admonishments to personal (and sexual) purity, even if the exact form of that purity is not always so obvious, and to work for peace in the world when possible, and to work for justice, including an avoidance of social justice, where we can. This whole section is really, truly, an attempt to euthanize the term "unbiblical" forever, because as both a Protestant and a Catholic I generally see that it gets us nowhere in our efforts towards Truth.
** Unless someone gets really offended, I'm so using that again. That said, while Rob Bell's tone does annoy me some (at least from the video I've seen) he appears to be one of the few people who's written actual cyberpunk theology, and I look forward to interacting with his ideas whenever I finally get around to reading him. I just find myself highly amused by how 'indie' and/or 'metro' some of the newer evangelical movers/shakers look, because, God help me, I don't understand it.
*** In my mind, the fact that the clarification has to be to a degree searched for makes this almost a claim by GFU, however unintentional, that Notre Dame and St. Mary's College of California are not Christian colleges. Last year's Obama controversy notwithstanding, I'm 99% sure they still are, what with the first being run by the Holy Cross order of priests, and the second run by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, they are still Christian.
**** This footnote is for the picture: I am thinking specifically of the type of Christian who might subscribe more to the ideals of Relevant magazine, and whether they'd really approve of what I'm writing here (obviously, I suspect not, but if such a Christian is reading this blog right now and approves of what I am saying in the paragraph directly right of said button, they should tell me. I'll probably be some combination of embarrassed and relieved.)