Impaired communions.

In August, 2003, the Episcopal Church of America's General Convention approved the ordination of an openly gay bishop and approved as well the blessing of same-sex unions. Facing a similar decision, the Anglican Communion of England pressured the withdrawal of a gay priest from nomination to the episcopacy. Responses to each action today challenge the broad network of loosely-associated provinces within the Anglican-Episcopal Communion. The tremor felt around the world is similar in many ways to the reaction to the ordination of women to the priesthood, which earlier threatened to fracture the Communion. Anglican priests who opposed the ordination of women, were subsequently welcomed into the Roman Church, which adamantly continues to oppose both the ordination of women and gays alike. Traditional fault lines between the Roman and Anglican Churches now seem less significant, as issues of women and gays bridge the gap for those who fight against change. But within both churches, the fault lines impair communion and threaten separation. The way forward is anything but clear at present, but progress is real and notable.

History often lends perspective when addressing hot-button issues in the present. One such historical study, CATHOLICISM AND AMERICAN FREEDOM (London, UK: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003) by Notre Dame University history Professor John T. McGreevy, provides insight into the positions taken by the Catholic hierarchy regarding the issue of slavery in the 19th century. It is difficult to believe today that the Catholic hierarchy actually supported the institution of slavery. Yet McGreevy sadly observes:

   Like most all Christians, Catholics in the early nineteenth
   century faced few restrictions on their ability to own slaves.
   [S]lavery itself, as confirmed by Apostle and Saint Paul,
   did not violate either the natural law or church teaching. In
   a theological tradition that distinguished itself from
   Protestantism by claims of constancy, any shift in the Catholic
   position on slavery faced formidable obstacles [49].

It is interesting to learn that "the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Baptist churches had important antislavery wings, while the Catholic did not" (52). Accordingly, "most Catholics accepted slavery in principle, with even twentieth-century theologians declaring slavery 'not in itself intrinsically wrong'" (56). Even though in 1839 Pope Gregory XVI published an apostolic letter banning Catholics from participating in the slave trade (importation of slaves had already been banned in the United States more than thirty years before), he did not prohibit Catholics from owning slaves. McGreevy adds: "Studies of membership lists for American abolitionist organizations in the 1830s find few Catholics, and not one prominent American Catholic urged immediate abolition before the Civil War" (51). The reasoning would be totally unthinkable today: "Catholics' fears of disorder led to the calculation that societal stability outweighed any benefit to be gained from immediate emancipation" (52).

A critical cultural issue that motivated much of traditional Catholic practice was rooted in the collective v. the personalist view of human morality, so characteristic of many traditional, pre-Enlightenment societies. McGreevy points out how this worked:

   Catholic opposition to abolition cannot be reduced to the
   particular American racial dynamic. Many Catholic intellectuals
   around the world accepted slavery as a legitimate,
   if tragic, institution. This acceptance rested upon the pervasive
   fear of liberal individualism and social disorder that
   so shaped Catholic thought during the nineteenth century,
   along with the anti-Catholicism of many abolitionists [52].

This builds upon what McGreevy speaks of as a view of human freedom that liberals idealized but traditional Catholics eschewed: "Drawing on Aristotle as mediated through Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholics saw moral choice and personal development as inseparable from virtues nurtured in families and churches" (36), leading to "Catholics' uneasiness with a liberal emphasis on individual autonomy" (37). Horace Mann, a leading American educational reformer, drew out the tension between liberal education and the institution of slavery:

   It is impossible for free, thorough, universal education to
   coexist with slavery as for two bodies to occupy the same
   space at the same time. Slavery would abolish education,
   if it should invade a free state; education would abolish
   slavery, if it could invade a slave state" (cited in
   McGreevy: 38).

It is not surprising, then, that Mann concluded, Catholics threaten the common school system. About this, Mann comments: "When Protestantism arose, freedom of opinion for each, and tolerance for all, were the elements that gave it vitality and strength. The avowed doctrine of Catholicism was, that men could not think for themselves." Accordingly, Mann drives home the point: "The Catholic Church opposes everything which favors democracy and the natural rights of man. It hates our free churches, free press, and above all, our free schools" (McGreevy: 39).

Following emancipation, other civil rights issues have progressively passed the test of democratization. Witness the constitutional amendment allowing women the right to vote in the 1920s, the Supreme Court's decision banning supposedly "separate but equal" segregated schools in the 1960s, and in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court's banning of discriminatory anti-sodomy laws that manifestly targeted gays, probably opening the way for same-sex marriages. The question to ask today may be how far personal civil rights should extend--the very issue that seems most to bother traditional religionists who historically have attempted to maintain group rules favoring the dominant group over personal civil rights of minorities.

What seems most needed today is some growth in awareness of where group rules stand in relation to individuals' civil rights. Surely, no one seeks to ban all group norms that help to provide solidarity within the community. But, drawing the line often depends on what values undergird the norms. That is what is at issue today in the rift that divides traditional Christians, Jews, and Muslims not so much from each other as within each community of believers, leading to their present impaired communions.

To the extent that the Bible provides or seems to provide the undergirding, it is incumbent upon biblical scholars to examine the texts that seem to mandate the group norms. To critically examine the texts requires recognizing the context within which the texts had their meaning. One hardly can apply a norm made to further a particular end when that end is no longer meaningful or practicable. When temple sacrifice ended, the norms for offering sacrifice simply withered away. When women emerged from a subordinate position within society, the norms that held them to subordination came to be disregarded. When slavery was outlawed within civil society, the practice and approbation of slavery in the Bible came to be ignored. What must we do now to address the impaired communion over the issue of homosexuality, which today is seen in terms of an individual's natural sexual orientation rather than a moral choice freely made? Can a biblical ethics help to shed light on this topic today?

Leland J. White's article in BTB 25, 14-23, Does the Bible Speak about Gays or Same-Sex Orientation? A Test Case in Biblical Ethics helps clear the way for the awareness that the biblical authors did not comprehend individual sexual orientation but rather only saw certain acts that when performed in particular contexts were abhorrent. His further study, Romans 1:26-27: The Claim that Homosexuality Is Unnatural, published in SEXUAL DIVERSITY AND CATHOLICISM, edited by Patricia Beattie Jung and Joseph Andrew Coray (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001) goes on to address the philosophical and theological issues that characterize Paul's use of the term unnatural.

Articles in the current issue of BTB further these current discussions in important ways. Philip Esler's article, The Sodom Tradition in Romans 1:18-32 draws attention to the processes of collective memory in a residually oral culture, which Paul uses to demonstrate how God vents his anger against idolatry. The dominant theme of Romans, denouncing the worship of idols, is the context for Paul's argumentation. John H. Elliott further studies Paul's condemnations, in No Kingdom of God for Softies? Or, What Was Paul Really Saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in Context. In this extensive treatment of the terms pornoi, malakoi, and arsenokoitai, Elliott dispells the notion that the text is referring, as many biblical translations erroneously interpret the terms, to homosexuals or homosexual acts. Finally, in Authorized Conflicts: The Bible in Church Conversations, Elizabeth Huwiler confronts the issue of dissension within the churches, lending a balm to those who somehow believe that believers must always agree. If impaired communion were outlawed, the history of our religious communities would long ago have ceased to exist, since progress would never take place. That's an encouraging note to keep in mind as our shared discussions grow heated. We can only hope that, as issues in the past have found resolution over time, these too will, when the dust settles, come to have salubrious outcomes for all. In the meantime, historians and exegetes help point the way toward growth within the biblical tradition. Dissension isn't the problem: fear of change often is.