It’s hard to discuss the social consequences of gay marriage because we don’t have much data to draw from. One way to pose the question in a more “testable” way is to generalize: What are the social consequences of defining sex as a bodily act between two individuals without any expectation or possibility of a third person being produced by the bodily act. For that , we have plenty of data since that has increasingly become the norm since the... Read more
In the March 2013 print issue of First Things , Rabbi Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France, examines what’s not being said when gay marriage advocates advocate for gay marriage. The notion, for instance, that “homosexuals are victims of discrimination” because they don’t have the right to marry whom they love ignores, Rabbi Bernheim says, the fact that people love each other doesn’t necessarily give them the right to marry. More importantly, “The argument for marriage for all conceals a... Read more
Another reflection on the debate between Douglas Wilson and Andrew Sullivan: The argument that homosexuality is “unnatural” is not going to get much steam going either. Sullivan waxed on and on about multi-sexed plants and sex-changing fish. Once one accepts Darwinian evolution, this sort of sexual variety becomes relevant to the gay marriage debate. On Darwinian premises, it’s plausible to say that “nature” is on Sullivan’s side. This confirms the point that David Hart makes in his essay in the... Read more
I came away from a debate on gay marriage between Douglas Wilson and Andrew Sullivan deeply impressed with the difficulties that Christians have, and will continue to have, defending a biblical view of marriage to the American public. It will take nothing short of a cultural revolution for biblical arguments to be heard, much less to become persuasive. Sullivan clearly has all the hurrah words on his side – love, happiness, equality. How can anyone stand in the way of... Read more
Braudy ( The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, 25th Anniversary Edition ) uses the character of Rotwang from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to make the point that the best films are about the potentials of film. Rotwang is a mediating figure in Lang’s film, living above ground like the managers, but having a stairway from his cellar to the workers’ quarters below. He is a scientist, but he dresses like a magician. For Braudy, “Rotwang is a... Read more
One of the unique features of film, argues Leo Braudy in his classic The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, 25th Anniversary Edition , is its once-for-all quality: “In theater and music, there is always a text, a form to which every performance exists at least as a footnote. But in the film the text, the screenplay, is at best the skeleton from which the film grows, often unrecognizably. Film goes beyond the immediacy of stage performance... Read more
The second part of Jeff Meyers’ Lenten meditation on John’s Passion narrative is up at the Trinity House site . Read more
Trinity House just sent out its second edition of our e-newsletter, In Medias Res. It includes an essay by Pastor Steve Wilkins, “The Church Transformed and Transforming” and James Jordan’s analysis of Psalms 9-10, along with news about Trinity House. Sign up for the newsletter here . Read more
In his new Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Cultural Liturgies) , James KA Smith provides this deft summary of Merleau-Ponty’s description of our “interinvolvement” with the world (p. 44): “We build up a habitual way of being-in-the-world that is carried in our body, one that is ‘known’ on a level that precedes and eludes conscious reflection and objectification. ‘The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and to have a body is, for living creatures, to be... Read more
After all his polemics against nomos in Galatians, 6:2 comes as a shock: “So fulfill the nomos of Christ.” Paul plays similar tricks with the word elsewhere (Romans 3:27; 8:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21). Paul wants the Galatians “under law,” provided it is the law of Christ. (Note too Paul’s sudden shift into reverse at 5:6; after polemics against “works,” he says that the only thing that matters is faith “working” through love.) Commentators have suggested various interpretations of “law of... Read more
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