Gay Marriage and the Christ/Church Analogy

Disclaimer: if you are a complementarian, you will not agree with my argument, so it's no use reading this or debating. It only really works if you believe that men and women are equal and do not have assigned life roles based on gender.

 -----

 Perhaps you have heard (or even used yourself) the argument against gay marriage that goes something like this:

 Marriage, between a man and a woman, is a symbol/sign/sacrament that reflects the relationship between God/Christ and the church, and gay marriage does not do this.

 I'm going to make a few assumptions about this argument which will inform the rest of my post:

  1. In the analogy, the man is God/Christ and the woman is the church (a la Ephesians 5)
  2. A same-sex relationship cannot carry the analogy
  3. The analogy is a necessary part of the marriage relationship

So the analogy necessitates the two pieces--God and church.There is a significant qualitative difference between these two entities. Most people would probably contend that God is transcendent, or holy, or perfect, while the church, which is made of humans, is not. Interesting that the man, then, gets to be "God" in the analogy, while the woman gets to be the church which is dependent upon God. This analogy is clear that God > humanity, and therefore man > woman.

Obviously this is problematic.

 If we believe that men are not inherently more holy or better equipped for leading than women, then we can swap the gender roles in the analogy.

 So let's do some gender bending!

What if the woman could be God/Christ in the analogy? Could Ephesians 5 read, "Wives, love your husbands, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, wives ought to love their husbands as their own bodies. She who loves her husband loves herself" ? or "Husbands, submit yourselves to your own wives as you do to the Lord" ? (The previous verse does say "submit to one another," after all.)

 Why not? Still seems like a marriage to me. Taken out of context, one might not even notice the roles have been flipped.
And if we can swap them, if women can be both Christ and the church, then why not two women in one relationship being both Christ and the church?

Why can't all loving, mutually submissive relationships (even deep friendships) be a symbol of God's great love for God's people, and the church's love and respect for God?

Furthermore, the original analogy, with the necessity of both a man and a woman, implies that men and women are qualitatively different and somehow incomplete--that they need each other. This really can't be true. Men are created fully in the image of God, AND women are created fully in the image of God. We are not two halves of a whole. To say that we are is to diminish the imago dei in each of us, and what's more, it devalues the lives of our single and celibate brothers and sisters. Are they somehow unable to display the love of God because they are missing the other half of their "analogy"? Of course not. (And this reminds me, we need to dispense with the whole Platonic soulmate thing too.)

So what do you think? If this Christ/church analogy is such an integral part of marriage, and it can still be achieved in a same-sex marriage, can we be done with this argument?

,

Nice, Cozy Echo Chambers

,
After the SCOTUS overturn of DOMA and Prop 8 today, and the epic filibuster over SB-5 in Texas last night, social media was ablaze. It was all I could do to keep up with my Twitter and Facebook feeds (especially since I still don't have internet at home!).

And something came up a couple of times--echo chambers. The idea that if your feeds were a reflection of your own views and responses, then you are living in an environment without challenge to those views, without having to engage with the "other." It's usually painted as a bad thing, implying that if you only listen to people who agree with you, you'll never grow, nor will you make a difference among those who believe otherwise.

However, I don't know that it's such a bad thing.

There have been times in my life when I was definitely not living in an echo chamber. Or maybe I was, but it was more like being held hostage in the other side's echo chamber. Either way, I've been in situations where I am literally forced to reckon with people who don't see eye to eye with me every single day.

And that's exhausting.

I absolutely believe in dialectic, in dialogue and the necessity of opposing forces and ideas. I love having my ideas challenged and trying new things on. But I don't love being forced to, and certainly not constantly.

Right now, I'm enjoying a season of life where I am being embraced by likeminded friends. It's refreshing to not have to defend myself at every word. It's nice to not be subject to the hatred being spewed all over the internet. It's my Facebook feed after all, why should it feel like punishment to read?

There's something to be said about hospitality, and venturing out to meet the other, but I don't think that being hospitable precludes a safe space where you can be yourself among your people.

For more on why echo chambers might not be all bad, check out this piece by David Weinberger.
,

The Church (and the Library): It's Not Dead Yet!

,

A couple weeks ago, a few of us Twitter folk (including Carol Howard Merritt, Ben Howard--no not that Ben Howard--and others) met at Michael's cafe, which is home to some amazing cake, and talked about the state of the Church.

We tried to focus on that big-C Church, and we talked about its overall decline in membership and incline in the membership's age, the rise of the nones, and the pesky problem of exclusionary theology. But as we talked in these generalizations, I kept hearing the same refrain--"That's not my experience."

For as many stories as we had about seminary degrees gathering dust and bigoted Christians, we had just the same stories of growth and love and rebirth in what we still could only call the Church, or perhaps more accurately churches.

 It reminded me of Monty Python.


Then it reminded me of libraries. Every single stinkin time I tell someone I work in a library and I'm getting my degree in library science, they always want to challenge me about "The Future of Libraries," and "Aren't they all going to be extinct anyway?" Anyone can Google anything they want; we don't need libraries.

That's not my experience.

People still need libraries, just like people still need churches. They both foster the love of truth that is not going extinct, and a place for shared experience that you can't replicate by pointing and clicking. 

Churches and libraries are not dying. They might not look the way they used to, but they are still here, and they're sticking around.

Donut Tourism: San Diego



Before we left San Diego, Curtis and I were able to check out the newly opened Donut Bar downtown.

The previous week, they had gotten a ton of media buzz, resulting in a ton of business, and so there were already all these reviews on Yelp about how they kept running out of donuts and should have known better and were creating scarcity to create hype blah blah blah.

Regardless of the drama, this place is good. The owner was there, and he was so nice and excited to be there and apologetic (because they were about to run out of donuts again), and I just love seeing people happy and living their dreams. It's so inspiring.

Anyway, we got the Saigon Cinnamon and Sugar, Old Fashioned Glazed, and... I think that other one is Vanilla Bean?
 I don't really remember, but what I do remember is that THEY WERE AMAZING. The Saigon cinnamon is something else. It's made with Vietnamese cinnamon, which does taste different. More spice-y I think. And the old fashioned was hot and fresh and just-glazed.

We had to take our donuts and coffee ($1, btw) to go because there's no seating in there (yet) and no parking to speak of (it's downtown, after all). And their menu changes every day, so now I wish we could have gone a few more times to try their different donuts.

Definitely check this place out if you are in San Diego.
,

Book Review: A People's History of Christianity

,


Last week I started riding the bus to and from work, and it has given me so much time to read! My first bus book was A People's History of Christianity by Diana Butler Bass. It was pretty good, but perhaps not what I was expecting.

Given the obvious rip-off of Howard Zinn's title, I thought the book would be more about the "losers" of church history who haven't gotten their story told--the heretics, the faithful poor, the obscure upholders of Christianity. But it seemed like much of the same mainstream, rich, well-educated dudes that everyone knows about. Mother Julian, St. Francis, Martin Luther, George Fox etc. Perhaps it's more a credit to my professors that few of the stories were new to me.

The book did remind me of some forgotten favorites (who I plan to feature on upcoming Theologian Thursdays), and it did leave me feeling hopeful for the church in its floundering entrance into postmodernity--a testament to the positive tone of the book, which I appreciate, even if it did gloss over some of the sticky, more painful aspects of church history. She focuses on the idea of "generative Christianity" rather than militant Christianity.

Butler Bass weaved together the stories of the church with stories of her academic journey, and how the context of her life affected her reception of the history she was learning--something I can surely relate to. The personal narrative alongside the historical one gave a unique context to what could have been a rote history.

I'd recommend this book to people who are interested in church history but have not studied it much before. It's an accessible read about a not-always-so-accessible topic.