reader #3:

I’m one of those who has a problem with the formalized vow. I remember some time ago a discussion about this on the Courage email list, prompted by David Morrison. At that time and still today, I had no worries about the temptation and scandal issues. It was the idea of exclusivity that bothered me. For me, the Christian ideal is that one loves (agape) everyone equally. Not equally badly, of course, but perfectly, which would mean equally. Now, we do have special loves — parent/child, spousal, friendships. These, in my view, are concessions to an imperfect nature — ‘we can’t love everyone the same’. Of these, only spousal love is formalized in Christianity, and I would say it’s the eros that is formalized. And I think that’s a good thing — I don’t think we need to formalize any more of these concessions.

David’s point, if I recall, was that the special loves are not concessions, but opportunities (for us lowly humans to practically — my addition) practice God’s love. We then learn from these opportunities to be more loving to others. The way I see it, yes, the fact that, say, I have aging parents to care for helps me to empathize more with others and love other aged parents better. But should it be that way? Isn’t that so evolutionary biology. Shouldn’t I love these other people anyway. After all, even the Gentiles do the same…

So I don’t like the exclusivity.

Then there’s the cultural issue. How much of the need for formalized avowed friendship arises from the lack of such relationships in the West? Would this be using a religious institution to address a cultural deficit?

Now, promoting unformalized (they may be avowed or not) friendships I of course applaud wholeheartedly. If people want to live together, or apart, in groups of any number, or anything it between, I think that’s fine. Have a deeper and wider set of friends, like (simplistically) we have in another cultures. Strain not to send your parents to a nursing home. Enjoy living with an extended family. Etc.

But, I tell you, it’s a tough go here in North America because the entire lifestyle is not attuned to it. I see everyday fellow immigrants astonishingly quickly absorbed by Western ways. In fact, I see it even when I go back home to Ethiopia among the (slowly) ‘rising middle classes’. They work more, spend more, save more, and with much less time, retreat into their nuclear families in Western style.