More from Captain Yips

March 07, 2007
Old Chestnut

There’s an old joke whose source I can’t recall - Twain? Mencken? - about a tour guide at the Louvre who was escorting a group of wealthy American women. One of the group was loud and persistent in her disapproval of the paintings on display until the exasperated guide said, “The paintings are not on trial, madam. You are.”

It’s a nifty joke that encapsulates deep cultural divisions. When I entered high school rather longer ago than seems possible, the business of education was still seen at least in part as preparing the young ‘uns to participate in adult culture, and “adult culture” was still thought of mostly as old high Western Culture - you know, Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Milton. Those guys. By the time I left college an eye blink later, that notion was in full flight, and relevancy was in. Rather than making me relevant to the culture, the task of education had become making the culture relevant to me.

And so I return to Michael Hopkins' fascinating article, which, at greater length and with less art than the joke above, also pinpoints one side of the rapidly widening chasm. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been at pains to insist that Lambeth Resolution 1.10 is the standard of teaching on human sexuality for the Anglican Communion, and Michael Hopkins really dislikes that.

The full inclusion of lgbt people in the life of this church (incomplete as it is, but also as far along as it is) is not up for negotiation, and this must include our being very clear that Lambeth 1.10 (1998) is not the standard of teaching in this province of the Communion (the most recent missive from the Archbishop of Canterbury makes it clear that his goal is our accession to this standard. If that is the case, then the Communion is indeed in trouble).

The days of pronouncements such as the Tanzania Communiqué that are about lgbt people without the body producing them having been in any substantive conversation with us must be over. It is absolutely intolerable for this non-listening to continue.

Now while this is a little muddled, it contains lots of material all folded up. First and foremost is the rejection of Lambeth 1.10. And that’s interesting, because it isn’t as if that resolution came out of the blue. Let’s look: it’s points 2 and 4 that seem most objectionable:

2 in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;

4 while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;

A real departure from Christian teaching, that. Hopkins+ disagreement with this teaching is that, well, Hopkins+ disagrees with it, that the Anglican Communion isn’t listening to “lgbt people.”

Parents of strong willed teenagers will recognize a stage (and it is only a stage. It only seems endless) in which parent/child disagreements end with the child saying (well, often shouting) “You’re not listening to me!” And of course you have been listening - interminably. You’ve heard the same thing, four, five, six, times. You’ve heard the kid just fine. You disagree, that’s all (do not say, “I hear you fine. I just don’t agree with you.” Kerosene, meet fire). For the child, his position is so clear and transcendently important that to express it is to gain approval, so when the parent says, “No, you may not go hang out with your friends until midnight. You have a math final tomorrow and Mom and I have to get up for work,” you are being downright irrational.

And so it is here. “Listening” has none of the qualities of reasoned discussion. To listen is to capitulate. It’s a word that in EpiscoSpeak is closely allied to “reconciliation.” In fact, I think we can make three new entries in the EpiscoSpeak dictionary:

Listen: to agree with. Listening is a strictly one way process, and leads to reconciliation (EpiscoSpeak: abject surrender).
Inclusion: to do whatever you want. alt, to be a part of a host, virally, with the goal of transforming it into yourself.
Idol: Something you value that I disagree with, usually used by Presiding Bishops. Thus, respect for the Bible may be a idol, but the MDGs cannot be idols. An example of Ramping Rhetoric, in which disagreement with the speaker is elevated (or reduced) to a fundamental offense. Example:

Speaker: I have doubts that the Church can bless same sex relationships because the Bible seems to look on them unfavorably.
Presiding Bishop: That's because you're making an idol of the Bible.

Also see, conversation ender and rhetorical foreclosure (entries for the future. Bet you can't wait. Actually, I think they belong in another work, maybe titled Modern EpiscoSpeak Usage).