More reflections on a culture's twilight years.

I thought I would add this post due to the arguments (10 non-scriptural arguments against same-sex marriage) Anthony Esolen has been developing at Mere Comments.

As far as I can discern, the strongest argument against same-sex marriage (SSM) seeks to deal with the assumptions of the SSM position--namely, that our bodies matter little and what is really essential is the "heart" i.e. what a person feels, thinks, etc. apart from what they do. Of course, what one does has largely to do with the limits placed upon them by their bodies. But in a society where gender--i.e. the body--is downplayed to make room for pure choice (choice in the abstract divorced from the body), bodily limits matter little.

I just ran into Harvey Mansfield, a long-time professor of government at Harvard, on the web. I am sure his views are controversial, but I am interested in reading more of his works. Here's an excerpt from a June 2006 article he wrote for Imprimis, the newsletter of Hillsdale College:

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949), an earlier and more fundamental book than [Betty] Friedan's, had argued that women were not different from men by nature, but only by history. It was a history of oppression by men that kept women from being as aggressive and assertive as men are. With the title of her book, Beauvoir implies that men live a better life than women, that manliness is better than femininity. Since women are perfectly capable of manliness, that quality should no longer be named for one sex. Beauvoir renamed it “transcendence,” a gender-neutral term. The gender-neutral society was born and manliness as the quality of a sex was demoted to masculinity, a title that signifies such homely features as the hair on your chest and your face.

Thus feminism, in its eagerness to claim manliness for women, destroyed femininity. We began to see gangster movies with lovely actresses playing the role of hit men. Some feminists denounced the manly passion for competition and war, but in doing so they had to be careful not to imply that women are unsuited for business or for the military. Since the Sixties, we have become used to seeing women in men's occupations. Yet the gender-neutral society created by today's feminism is not in fact as neutral as it claims. Despite its dislike of the word manliness, it is on the whole friendly to the quality, now under a new name, more neutral and prosaic, such as “leadership.” On the one hand, the world seems to have been feminized, yet on the other hand, it is still a man's world, and in a strange way even more so, because both sexes are now engaged in employments that reward the manly qualities of aggression and assertiveness.

With the push for a gender-neutral society, not only is masculinity and femininity diminished, or "destroyed" as Mansfield says, but language is abused and loses its ability to carry meaning. Just look at how vague and un-concrete the words transcendence and leadership are. They are attached to nothing in our concrete experience. They're abstractions and their popularity today--or at least leadership's popularity--reveals just how threatening the particular is to our culture. Particulars--such as bodies--ostensibly restrict freedom. Notice Mansfield suggests that when the "more neutral and prosaic" term leadership was preferred over manliness, a shift in society began. But this shift was not merely about gender differences, it was a shift in language and imagination. So maybe we should say that when a language begins to lose its particular-ness, the loss of a collective meaning is not far behind--nor is all sorts of confusion--especially, the confusion of male and female.

The Evolution of a Worshipper

I found this cartoon at Texanglican's blog. It's a simple, yet apt, illustration of the change many have undergone in their discipleship. There are more at cartoonchurch.com.

More from Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments has added to his "non-scriptural arguments against homosexual marriage." His #5 is especially compelling. I once had a professor at the University of Dallas make the comment that those of us living in a post-Freudian age can no longer enjoy deep friendships among people of the same sex. The reason? Freud's musings have pathologized all such friendships. One cannot have a friendship such as the one David had with Jonathan in the Old Testament without a suspicious eye immediately darting their way. Esolen's thoughts are similar:

If homosexuality is at the least not publicly condoned, then that may clear away sufficient ground for men to forge the emotionally fulfilling friendships that they once enjoyed in the past. Such friendships have been at the base of many a cultural renaissance [...]. But the point is that the prohibition is public, and helps constitute the meaning, to oneself and to others, of one’s attachment to a member of the same sex. Not so long ago, it was conceivable to suppose that two men might share an apartment merely as close friends; if Oscar and Felix of The Odd Couple did the same thing now, homosexuality would be the first thing to cross your mind, whether you support the homosexual agenda or reject it [...].

The effect upon boys is devastating; it is hard for women to understand it. Their own friendships come easily, and in general are not based upon shared conquest, physical or intellectual. It is simply an anthropological fact that male friendship is essential for the full development of the boy’s intellect: the history of every society reveals it. But now the boys suffer under a terrible pincers attack. The sexual revolution causes them to rouse themselves to interest, or to pretend to interest, in girls long before they or the girls are emotionally or intellectually ready for it; and now the condonement of homosexuality prevents them from publicly preferring the company of their own sex.

Flu besets badminton 'birdies'

As one who was introduced to the smashing game of Badminton in college --I took it twice for P.E. credit--I believe this to be important news.

Here's an excerpt:

Chinese geese have been destroyed by the millions to prevent the spread of the disease, and that has left a shortage of the fine feathers used to make shuttlecocks.
Only the thickest, heaviest goose feathers from northern China are used to make premium shuttlecocks and sometimes as few as two feathers per goose make the final cut.
But now, shuttlecock makers are having to settle for substandard feathers -- and that's leaving players a little ruffled.
The sport's devotees in Southern California say the latest projectiles -- also called birdies -- just aren't the same.

Marriage is a Kind of Death

I thought I would continue my posts on family/marriage. I found this article from Touchstone magazine today while perusing Park Cities Presbyterian's website. Peter Leithart from New St. Andrew's College in Moscow, ID wrote a wise and much needed article on marriage where he quotes Alexander Schmemann. The article's central theme is that marriage is a kind of death--but good death. Here's how Leithart closes out the article:

Nearly four decades ago, Alexander Schmemann argued that the problem with modern marriage "is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’" Instead, he wrote, the problem is the "idolization of the family" that identifies "marriage with happiness" and refuses "to accept the cross in it." God’s presence as a "third party" in the marriage spells "the death of the marriage as something only ‘natural,’ and directs it to its true end of the kingdom of God.

In short, Schmemann continued, with characteristic elegance, the glory of marriage is "that of the martyr’s crown. For the way to the Kingdom is the matyria: bearing witness to Christ. And this means crucifixion and suffering. A marriage that does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage."

What's a sign that your culture is nearing its twilight years?

Anthony Esolen over at Mere Comments has begun a series of entries to that blog defending traditional marriage, but his reasons for his defense, as he clarifies it, do not come from his religious convictions:

Most people believe that the principal objections, or even the only objections, to the drive to legalize homosexual “marriage” spring from religious faith. But that is simply not true. Beginning with this post I'll offer ten objections that have nothing to do with any religion at all, except insofar as the great religions of the world happen to reflect the nature of mankind. These objections spring from three sources.

Those three sources are the common sense observation of man, a consideration of history, and logic. He posts his first two objections today, which are 1) The legalization of homosexual “marriages” would enshrine the sexual revolution in law; and 2) [The legalization of homosexual marriage] would, in particular, enshrine in law the principle that sexual intercourse is a matter of personal fulfillment, with which the society has nothing to do.

Esolen teaches English at Providence College and his literary and erudite observations are needed in this fight against the dissolution of marriage and our culture. As Esolen says:

Some people reckon up the losses from this [sexual] revolution in terms of percentages: of unwed mothers, of aborted pregnancies, of children growing up without a parent, usually the father. It will take artists of the most penetrating insight to reckon up the losses as they ought to be reckoned, in human misery.

Pics from Anniversary Trip to Six Flags

Wife and I thought a trip to Six Flags would be a fun way to spend our anniversary time together. It proved to be true. Notice from the photo above that, in marriage, we have so completely become one that I have begun to sprout her arms as headwings.

Not everyone who rode The Conquistador had as much fun as we did.

Anniversary

Two years ago today, my wife and I were married. It's good and still getting better. Here's the poem that I asked a good friend of mine to read at our wedding. It's by Richard Wilbur.

Wedding Toast

St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world's fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.

Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana's wine.


Here's a bonus poem by Wilbur.

Having Misidentified A Wildflower

A thrush, because I'd been wrong,
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.

Dallas Diocese Joins Protest against New Episcopal Head

From Christian Post.com:

The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas on Wednesday joined a growing rejection of the church's newly elected bishop because she supports same-sex relationships.
Bishop James M. Stanton, the head of Dallas' diocese and its 40,000 members, wrote a letter asking Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for a "direct pastoral relationship" from overseas instead of being under the American church and its new leader.

Hybrid Hondas, Hybrid Fords...Hybrid Hamburgers.

"I'll have the hybrid combo that's completely meatless and tastes like chicken, beef, pork or turkey and a Diet Coke. Thanks."

Texas Episcopal Megachurch to Leave Denomination

I have been occasionally following the problems in the Episcopal church in America. Christ Church in Plano (just north of where I am in Dallas) has decided to leave the Episcopal Church because of the recent election of Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as its first female presiding bishop. "Jefferts Schori supported the 2003 consecration of V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. She also supported the creation of locally authorized blessings for gay unions." Read more here.

Western Conference Champs!

Pentecost

From The Daily Gospel:

Saint Anthony of Padua (around 1195 – 1231), Franciscan, Doctor of the Church.
"Sermons for Sundays and the Feasts of the Saints"

Tongues as of fire appeared.” Tongues – those of the serpent, of Eve and Adam, had given death access to this world… That is why the Spirit appeared in the form of tongues, opposing tongues with tongues, healing the fatal poison by means of fire… “They began to speak.” That is the sign of fullness; the full vessel overflows; the fire cannot contain itself… These diverse tongues are the various lessons that Christ left us, such as humility, poverty, patience, obedience. We speak in these various tongues when we give our neighbor an example of these virtues. The word is alive when the works speak. Let us make our works speak!

How 'Bout Them Mavs!

It feels like the Mavericks just won the entire championship with the way this series went. Go Mavs!

Dr. Gene Scott: Pastor, Scholar, Cigar Aficionado

(I am posting this mostly for the benefit of my wife who has never had the pleasure of viewing a Gene Scott television show.) Just thought I would post a little something on one of the true televangelists ever to grace a T.V. screen: Gene Scott. He's was a "pastoral teacher," scholar (with a Ph.D. in education), philanthropist, vineyard owner and lover of fine wines...well, you can read the rest here.

I'm not selling forty-pound Bibles, or water from Jordan, or 4,000 plastic crosses made by the Japanese and sold to Arabs. I don't send out 'healing cloths' or tear up my shirt. I say: what's what I've done worth? Whatever the meal I've fed you is worth, pay up. I'm not trying to save anybody. I think if you reject Christianity, you should do it intelligently.

-- Gene Scott (1929-2005)

Saddam Hussein: The Next Salman Rushdie?

Apparently Saddam has always had a penchant for writing novels. Seriously. This latest installment of his was supposedly written just before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. It has just been published in Japan. Those crazy Japanese. You can read about it here.

The Da Vinci Code secret is out: critics hate it

I haven't been a very vocal critic about The Da Vinci Code: not because I am a latent fan of Dan Brown's fiction but because I have not had time to read any of it. Nevertheless, I find this article from Reuters interesting. Da Vinci has apparently gone over like a lead balloon with some critics at Cannes. Here's an excerpt:

At a screening late on Tuesday in Cannes, members of the audience laughed at the thriller's pivotal moment, and the end of the $125 million picture was greeted with stony silence.

Here's another article with these comments:

Other critics said the two and a half hour film was confusing to those who hadn't read the book.
"People were confused, there was no applause, just silence," said Margherita Ferrandino from the Italian television Rai 3.
"I have only read half the book, and then I got bored. It's terrible," she added.
"It was really disappointing. The dialogue was cheesy. The acting wasn't too bad, but the film is not as good as the book," added Lina Hamchaoui, from British radio IRN.

Muslims and Catholics Together

Catholic Christians in India have threatened to stage a large protest at the premiere of The Da Vinci Code and consequently have forced a temporary halt on the opening of the film. Muslims have even joined in.

In India, complaints against the film forced the government on Tuesday to put a temporary hold on the release of “The Da Vinci Code,” in order to address concerns before the film is opened to the public. Prior to the decision, several Catholic groups threatened to stage street demonstrations and even to shut down cinema halls screening the film. Joining in the call on Monday was the All-India Sunni Jamiyat-ul-Ulema, a powerful organization of Indian Islamic clerics, which promised to help Christian groups launch protests if the authorities did not ban the screening of the film. The clerics said "The Da Vinci Code" is blasphemous as it spreads lies about Jesus, who the Koran recognizes as a prophet.

You can read the rest here.

Bible literalism 'pagan superstition'?

Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno says believing God created the universe in six days is a form of "pagan superstition."

Consolmagno told the Scotsman the idea that religion and science are competing principles is a "destructive myth."

Read the rest here.

Love and Marriage

I found this great quotation that Anthony Esolen posted at the Mere Comments blog on April 29. It's from Sir Philip Sydney: I know him for a work called A Defense of Poetry. I also know of him because C.S. Lewis was well acquainted with his work. The quotation is below, and you can read Esolen's musings on it here.

"A happy couple: he joying in her, she joying in herself, but in herself, because she enjoyed him: both increasing their riches by giving to each other; each making one life double, because they made a double life one; where desire never wanted satisfaction, nor satisfaction ever bred satiety: he ruling, because she would obey, or rather because she would obey, she therein ruling." From Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia (1593).