“The legitimacy of the love expressed in the covenant of marriage is not dependent on where a couple lives,” says the church’s Moderator, Mardi Tindal. “Canada recognizes same-sex marriage in its legislation, and therefore, all such marriages that are duly licensed should be considered legitimate.”

and further:

She explains that many United Church ministers have officiated in good faith at weddings for same-sex couples, providing a spiritual blessing to a legal commitment. It would be a significant disappointment, not only to the couples involved but also to the ministers who have performed these marriage ceremonies, to be told that some of these marriages are not valid.

Now, I have always been and continue to be for legal same-sex civil marriages for a variety of reasons. At the same time, I don’t think that the state sanctioning a marriage determines its legitimacy, as the Moderator suggested. If we are talking about the legal contract and all the benefits and obligations between two people that our state refers to as “marriage,” then yes it does. If we are talking about the covenantal relationship (in some churches sacramental relationship) established in fidelity for the purposes of growth and nurture of two individuals and their families towards living in to the reign of God in the present, then no, state sanction does not determine legitimacy.

Perhaps, though it is our own fault, and becomes somewhat true in the sense that the church has been far too lax in allowing its “licensing” of marriages through ministers to become an extension of Canadian public services and that the vast majority of marriages (hetero and homosexual) have been performed by those ministers fall outside the community and accountability of the church. You want the people who hire you to get what they paid for, I suppose–and it doesn’t count as a “marriage” without the legally binding administrative contract that is recognized in a court of law and child custody hearings.

Perhaps this is just another sign that the church needs to get out of its Christendom mentality (or marriage, if you will) of conflating the kingdom of this world (i.e. the Empire) with the church. Are these marriages really invalid?

I have been thinking about the phrase “Happy Holidays” lately. Ever so often I will see or hear a complaint from someone about people wishing eachother a “happy holidays” or “season’s greetings” rather than “merry Christmas.” This is usually followed by something about “keeping the Christ in Christmas” and a complaint about out-of-control political correctness or anti-Christian hysteria.

I must admit, I find this move on behalf of secular refreshing. The powers-that-be have discovered that it is actually in their best interest to appeal to the broadest market possible during the holidays and that means that the celebration of what is now a parochial minority holiday is just too specific and not inclusive enough to generate optimum profits. They don’t need us honest church-goin’ folk anymore! As someone who takes the “Christ” part of Christmas very seriously I am more than glad to relinquish the association of the birth of the One sent to consume us in to the life of God with the orgy of consumer decadence that begins with every “shopping season.” The phrase “Happy Holy-Days” is probably far more descriptive of the priorities of our culture, anyway.

Far too long has Christian faith played handmaiden to dominant cultures. Christians should, perhaps, worry less about a few words spoken to the cashier at Wal-Mart and more about the word made flesh in our lives and in our communities. Maybe then some day we can say something like “Merry Christmas” and really mean it.

Josh Garrels, “Zion and Babylon”

Oh great mammon of form and function

Careless consumerist consumption

Dangerous dysfunction

Described as expensive taste

I’m a people disgraced

By what I claim I need

And what I want to waste

I take no account for nothing

If it’s not mine

It’s a misappropriation of funds

Protect my ninety percent with my guns

Whose side am I on?

Well who’s winning?

My kingdom’s built with the blood of slaves

Orphans, widows, and homeless graves

I sold their souls just to build my private mansion

Some people say that my time is coming

Kingdom come is the justice running

Down, down, down on me

I’m a poor child, I’m a lost son

I refuse to give my love to anyone,

Fight for the truth,

Or help the weaker ones

Because I love my Babylon

I am a slave, I was never free

I betrayed you for blood money

Oh I bought the world, all is vanity

Oh my Lord I’m your enemy

Come to me, and find your life

Children sing, Zion’s in sight

I said don’t trade your name for a serial number

Priceless lives were born from under graves

Where I found you

Say, my name ain’t yours and yours is not mine

Mine is the Lord, and yours is my child

That’s how it’s always been

Time to make a change

Leave your home

Give to the poor all that you own

Lose your life, so that you could find it

First will be last when the true world comes

Livin’ like a humble fool to overcome

The upside-down wisdom

Of a dying world

Zion’s not built with hands

And in this place God will dwell with man

Sick be healed and cripples stand

Sing Allelu

My kingdom’s built with the blood of my son

Selfless sacrifice for everyone

Faith, hope, love, and harmony

I said let this world know me by your love

By your love

Oh my child, daughters and sons

I made you in love to overcome

Free as a bird, my flowers in the sun

On your way to Mount Zion

All you slaves, be set free

Come on out child and come on home to me

We will dance, we will rejoice

If you can hear me then follow my voice

I’m thinking about utilizing this for a couple of purposes (though not limiting it to those purposes):

• Reflections on the lectionary (also known as the suggested weekly bible readings set out by the Revised Common Lectionary). I thought this would be useful for a variety of reasons, with the primary being my own edification for future use in ministry as sermon material. Not only that, but I think the biblical narrative is worth sharing as a catalyst for human transformation.
• Thinking through particular elements of Christian faith and attempting to articulate them for a post-modern and largely secular society. Jesuit theologian (and Vatican badass) Roger Haight gave me the idea in a discussion of his book Jesus: Symbol of God where he tries to articulate a genuine Christology (that is to say the nature/identity and person of Jesus of Nazareth) that appeals to contemporary people that is also in continuity with historical tradition.

While I don’t think that the particular elements of Christian faith can be reduced to some sort of a-historical wisdom or essence, I do believe in the incarnation. That is to say, truth always manifests itself in particular contexts and places. There are no universal platitudes–the universal can only be found in the particular. So much contemporary discussion regarding religious faith is either done from the perspective of context-free, never-changing truism (fundamentalism) or a history-free ever-progressing now (liberalism). As such, this is my attempt to have the Christian tradition in dynamic conversation with the present day. As Jaroslav Pelikan put it:

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition. (The Vindication of Tradition)

So we’ll give this a shot and see how it works.

The world, so filled with fear, hate, and brutality, so dead-set against neighboring, groans in labor pains, awaiting healing. The church has no gift to give the world when it is so like the world in its fears, its hates, its long-term brutality. The church has gifts to give when it acts out of its own peculiarity, out of its “new self,” when it comes to “the other” out of its own being loved and forgiven. Bishop John Shelby Spong has rightly said that the church will die if it does not change. Surely so. But the Second Reformation is not, in my judgment, about demything and remything. It is about the power of transformation carried well enough by old “myths”; the Reformation concerns an ethics of forgiveness for which the world yearns but for which it lacks evidence.

Walter Brueggemann, The Word that Redescribes the World

Amen.

Alas, a lot of stereotypes about gays are preventing this right now. Gays, in their popular American depiction, are seen as a threat to soldierly machismo, lacking the killing instinct necessary in maintaining a global empire. They might get emotional and abstain from pulling the trigger. They might pick flowers instead of planting bombs. Their moral weakness might cause them to have sympathy with the enemy, resulting in some pathetic effort at reconciliation. In fact, they might “recruit” others to do the same. Gays might just be the biggest threat to American militarism since the vagina (which remains only partially subdued).

Surely, this must be a bad thing, and popular misconceptions need to be corrected. The United States military needs to know that gays can be strong-willed and cold hearted as anyone, if need be. Indeed, they can kill people in the same way straight guys can (without nagging wives to worry about them—bonus!). However, is it so bad to be considered “unfit” for the task of carrying a firearm into a strange place in order to point it at people you know nothing about? Is it so bad, to be considered too “weak-willed” to commit what is in the end, murder?

In his provocative essay titled, “Why Gays (as a Group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group),” Stanley Hauerwas, the ivy league’s preeminent pacifist, has asked these questions, using the issue of gay service in the military to call out Christians on their own “moral incoherence” in terms of military service.  “Would the military welcome pilots,” he asks, “who worried if bombing drops might incur civilian casualties?” Since, “Christians are asked to pray for their enemy,” he asks, “could you really trust people in your unit who think the enemy’s life is as valid as their own or their fellow soldier?” More humorously he remarks:

Consider the problem taking showers with these people. They are, after all, constantly going on about the business of witnessing in the hopes of making coverts to their God and church. Would you want to shower with such people? They might try to baptize you.

I am a member of that particular social group (including some gays) that was subsumed into an imperial culture beginning, in many ways, with the acceptance into military service. This included the right to be accepted by, and in turn kill in the name of the world’s preeminent empire. While this may have assured “acceptance” in the empire of the time and, in fact, assured a special place of favour within that empire, it also meant the loss of a core identity and principles that appear only momentarily today. While there is not anything inherently wrong with giving up one’s identity or story for the sake of another, it all depends on what will take its place or how it will be appropriated. Will Harvey Milk be able to take his place among the pantheon of “true American heroes” in the same way as a watered down, benign and inoffensive Martin Luther King? Or will there only be a gay-themed JAG spinoff?

If full acceptance by a culture means the right to kill for country, is full acceptance really desirable? The fact is, some “rights” aren’t worth having–and American military service is one of them. This isn’t just about gays in the military, anyway. Everyone should be denied this particular right.