Eve Tushnet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of "brokenness" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of "brokenness" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eve Tushnet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html\",\"name\":\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/ca04686b93c92257f019070302a23415\"},\"description\":\"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of \\\"brokenness\\\" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/\",\"name\":\"Eve Tushnet\",\"description\":\"Conservatism reborn in twisted sisterhood\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/ca04686b93c92257f019070302a23415\",\"name\":\"Eve Tushnet\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be87ff28da150cb07788911c22e42ae2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be87ff28da150cb07788911c22e42ae2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Eve Tushnet\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/author\/evetushnet\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Eve Tushnet","description":"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of \"brokenness\" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_description":"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of \"brokenness\" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html","og_site_name":"Eve Tushnet","article_published_time":"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00","author":"Eve Tushnet","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Eve Tushnet","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html","name":"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-26T01:36:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/ca04686b93c92257f019070302a23415"},"description":"STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES: I've been thinking a bit about the use of language of \"brokenness\" in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/","name":"Eve Tushnet","description":"Conservatism reborn in twisted sisterhood","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/ca04686b93c92257f019070302a23415","name":"Eve Tushnet","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be87ff28da150cb07788911c22e42ae2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/be87ff28da150cb07788911c22e42ae2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Eve Tushnet"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/author\/evetushnet"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":234,"date":"2011-10-26T01:36:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T01:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234\/"},"modified":"2011-10-26T01:36:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T01:36:00","slug":"234","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/10\/234.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

STRONGER AT THE BROKEN PLACES<\/span>: I\u2019ve been thinking a bit about the use of language of \u201cbrokenness\u201d in discussions of Christianity and homosexuality, and why I rebel against both that language and other people\u2019s reaction against it. I\u2019ll try to just briefly make some tentative points; tomorrow I\u2019ll have an even more tentative post soliciting alternative ways of discussing or describing the Church\u2019s prohibition<\/span> on gay sex (rather than the alternative vocations open to gay people, where I feel much more certain of what I want to say\u2013I am much more confident in what I want to say about the \u201cyes\u201d than what I\u2019d say about the \u201cno,\u201d but the picture is incomplete without both, I think).<\/p>\n

The good thing about the language of brokenness should be obvious: It\u2019s humbling.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a contemporary American tendency to insist that we\u2019re good people<\/a>, or that through bourgeois productivity and respectability we purchase indulgences and can therefore create our own Christian doctrine. (I can\u2019t remember where I read the tart aphorism, \u201cEuropeans don\u2019t believe in God, so they do whatever they want. Americans do whatever they want and call that<\/span> Christianity.\u201d) At the very least we demand to be recognized as just as good as you<\/span>. To say that we\u2019re broken is considered morbid or even offensive; to say that we might actually be unusually or distinctively broken is considered repulsive.<\/p>\n

I am basically in favor of almost anything which prompts an admission of weakness, vulnerability, or similarly un-American expressions of spiritual poverty. To the extent that actual existing gay Christians use language of brokenness to express our need for unconditional surrender to God, I find it beautiful and spiritually-fruitful; I didn\u2019t share some readers\u2019 negative reaction to this language in Wesley Hill\u2019s Washed and Waiting<\/a><\/span>, for example. (And I thought he either avoided or explicitly countered most of the negative aspects of brokenness language which I\u2019ll discuss in a moment.)<\/p>\n

That said, here are some reasons I don\u2019t use that language myself.<\/p>\n

First, I still do suspect that straight Christians often use \u201cWe\u2019re all<\/span> broken!\u201d\/\u201cThe ground is level at the foot of the Cross\u201d<\/a>-type language, when discussing homosexuality, as a kind of rhetorical toll to be paid before you can get to the thing you\u2019re actually interested in talking about, which is Other People\u2019s Problems. If there\u2019s a danger of pharisaism for gay Christians who insist they\u2019re not<\/span> broken, not like those messed-up addicts or crazy people (We Are Respectable Homos!), there\u2019s also a danger of pharisaism for straight Christians who want to use the language of brokenness when discussing situations they\u2019ve never been in.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, what do you do with a broken thing? I mean, you either throw it out or fix it, right? The imagery does not conduce to viewing homosexuality as a potential source of insight for the Christian. It\u2019s not a metaphor which suggests vocation. It\u2019s a metaphor in which one\u2019s orientation is a problem to be solved or at best endured. Even imagery of woundedness is more complex, insofar as wounds, in Christian thought, are not solely healed but sometimes glorified<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And finally, the language has been handled so much in this context that it\u2019s a cliche, a coin with its face worn off. When you say \u201cbrokenness\u201d and \u201cgay\u201d in the same sentence I think a lot of people can only hear the five thousand previous times someone has used the metaphor, no matter what you personally intend to say with it.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s enough good in it that I wonder if it can be rescued, revived. After all, there are ways of describing a broken place as a place of insight\u2013 that\u2019s where the light gets in<\/a><\/span>. <\/p>\n

So I\u2019m posting this more as a provocation than anything else: Talk to me more about brokenness. It isn\u2019t a metaphor which comes naturally to me and it\u2019s easier for me to see the limitations than the insights or beauty it can provide. But I think there\u2019s some poetry to be found here if we\u2019re willing to look for it: Are you broken like a wave, coming home on sharp rocks? Are you broken like a voice deepening into manhood? Are you broken like the Eucharist?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"