I really like this Ben. My only concern around "disorder love" arguments is how often LGBTQ relationships and identities are disregarded and villianized using similar language. I'm reminded of the Catechism of the Catholic Church's language around Queer desire, "intrinsically disordered". I absolutely know that's not the argument you're making at all! But I wonder if there's a way to make the same (needed) theological argument around Transformative Desire, while making it abundantly clear Queer identities in themselves are not disordered. Thank you for the great piece.🙏
Yes, I think it's easy enough to agree that not all desire is good - but how does one make the distinction? And how can Christianity be a guide when one rejects much of what Christian tradition has to say about gender and sexuality?
This is quite an impressive and important analysis. In addition to the Song of Songs, the Psalms are filled with the doctrine of desire as well. The beauty of experiencing desire and fulfillment has actually motivated me to practice the eucharistic fast so as to attend the divine service with bodily yearning, which is quite a helpful goad to motivate spiritual yearning (does my heart and soul desire the Lord as much as my body is currently desiring food? They better!).
In regard to sexuality in particular, I often find myself thinking that the real breaking point within the Anglican tradition on coherent doctrine around sexual desire and practice has nothing to do with resisting or embracing LGTBQ practice per se ("blame Gene Robinson!" is, frankly, dumb). Rather, the fundamental breaking point came when the Communion sundered, in the name of straight libertinism, the integration of physical male and female anatomy and sexual purpose represented by the 1662 Prayer Book service of Holy Matrimony (with its attendant symbolism and theological mystagogy), the Homily against Whoredom's logic of "parts ordained for generation", and Lambeth 1920 Resolution 68's "thoughtful self-control". That ancient integration-distinction properly ordered the body with its purposes in relation to desire and its fulfillment and, importantly, it kept the body and desire distinct and in proper relation with asceticism, ultimately. That ancient integration-distinction is why someone like Aelred of Rievaulx or St. Simeon the New Theologian can speak in terms of deep desire, even erotic desire, between people of the same sex without any difficulty, because they did not confuse desires and bodies. Lambeth 1930 Resolution 15 severed that deeply integrated Anglican Theology of the Body as a capitulation to straight folks no longer wanting to live under the discipline of our desires with "thoughtful self-control" required by our actual, natural human physiology. Instead, straight people wanted to avoid self-control by embracing artificial, technological alteration to how humans sexually relate so that desire could pervade, uninhibited, and make use of the body (not only to "limit", but entirely "avoid" and permanently frustrate the "parts ordained for generation"). In other words, straight people wanted to reject asceticism in marriage and the church let them--thereby fundamentally redefining marriage, sex, bodies, and desires (as well as vitiating the symbolic meaning of male and female bodies both within and without marriage).
The rancor over sexual practice and marriage, etc., that resurfaced at the end of the twentieth century was inevitable and a mere footnote to what occurred in 1930 and the decades following. The departure from the ancient Anglican, biblical Theology of the Body caused progressives in the 1990s to confuse bodies and desires, and it equally caused many conservatives in the 1990s to misunderstand the nature of same sex desire.
To me, your analysis here speaks deeply to the unease I feel about how "straight" Anglicans have conducted themselves for well-nigh a century. There is probably more that could be said in this vein that relates to John Behr's observations in "Marriage and Asceticism", Sobornost Incorporating Eastern Churches Review, 2010 36(1), 24-50.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful response -- a lot to chew on here. It certainly does seem to me that even if one is willing to countenance some disjunction between sexual expression and procreative possibility, perhaps leaning into Cranmer's third reason for matrimony ("the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other"), the problem of the post-Lambeth 1930 move was to gradually erode any sense of the disciplining of erotic or sexual desire within marriage. That is, an older understanding was done away with and replaced with...nothing, really. Which means at the very least that it's incumbent on those (like myself) who are willing to allow such a disjunction to demonstrate that a serious ascetics of marriage is still possible under these conditions.
You're on the right track here, but if Christianity/the Bible can't be trusted on gender and sexuality (as an LCMS Lutheran, I disagree strongly on this point), on what basis do you make the claim that other desires are wrong? Reason, sensibility, Kant, Mills, the personal conscience?
Thanks for this. I do want to note that I choose my language quite carefully here. I did not say - nor do I believe - that Christianity or the Bible "can't be trusted on gender and sexuality." And so of course it is by looking at Scripture and the history of its interpretation that I would seek to answer whether a given desire is indeed right or wrong, although I'd add that both my own Anglican tradition and your Lutheran one have both been quite clear that what Scripture teaches on this front is consonant with natural law, rightly understood.
And so while I certainly do dissent with some parts of what most of the church has taught about gender and sexuality, and indeed hold a minority position within global Christianity on this set of secondary questions, in the end I'm doing something quite ordinary: seeking to responsibly and accurately exegete Scripture according to the rule of faith, using clear passages in order to interpret less clear ones, bearing always in mind that Scripture's fundamental office is to point to salvation in Christ, etc. And so on questions of gender, for example, I would want to ask how to square Paul's references to women in positions of ecclesial authority with apparent condemnations of women speaking in church -- or how much of the household codes should be read as unchanging descriptions of Christian ethical responsibility vs instructions for how Christians are to live quietly and peaceably within Roman society. On questions of homosexuality, too, the question for me would be whether the clear condemnation of at least male same-sex sexual behavior in the Old and New Testaments still applies in today's dramatically different context.
And it's worth saying that these are the sorts of questions the church finds itself asking all the time. On matters such as lending at interest or divorce, for example, the church has judged that very different social and economic contexts or pastoral need may be the grounds for apparently clear Scriptural condemnations to be loosened. On the other hand, reflection upon the practice of slavery in light of Christian ethical commitments has led nearly all Christians to argue that despite Scripture's allowance for slavery, it is incompatible with Christian ethics because it is incompatible with the general sweep of Scripture's moral vision. Mark Noll's The Civil War as Theological Crisis provides a helpful look at pro- and anti-slavery hermeneutics in the antebellum US, and (while Noll himself holds the traditional position on the unacceptability of same-gender marriage, so far as I know) I was struck by the similar exegetical moves to current debates around LGBTQ inclusion.
Anyway, there is a lot more to say here than a reply allows, but I will just reiterate that I of course look first and foremost to Scripture, with the history of Christian theological reflection and natural reason in subsidiary roles, to discern the sinfulness or not of a given desire.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply; I should have read more carefully. In any case, we both agree that some condemnations are based on historical contingency, but I would argue even the conservative church has gone too far in the wrong direction with the "historical contingency" arguments on things like lending with interest. Do you find Paul's stated motivations for his condemnations of same-sex activity binding or compelling?
I really like this Ben. My only concern around "disorder love" arguments is how often LGBTQ relationships and identities are disregarded and villianized using similar language. I'm reminded of the Catechism of the Catholic Church's language around Queer desire, "intrinsically disordered". I absolutely know that's not the argument you're making at all! But I wonder if there's a way to make the same (needed) theological argument around Transformative Desire, while making it abundantly clear Queer identities in themselves are not disordered. Thank you for the great piece.🙏
Yes, I think it's easy enough to agree that not all desire is good - but how does one make the distinction? And how can Christianity be a guide when one rejects much of what Christian tradition has to say about gender and sexuality?
This is quite an impressive and important analysis. In addition to the Song of Songs, the Psalms are filled with the doctrine of desire as well. The beauty of experiencing desire and fulfillment has actually motivated me to practice the eucharistic fast so as to attend the divine service with bodily yearning, which is quite a helpful goad to motivate spiritual yearning (does my heart and soul desire the Lord as much as my body is currently desiring food? They better!).
In regard to sexuality in particular, I often find myself thinking that the real breaking point within the Anglican tradition on coherent doctrine around sexual desire and practice has nothing to do with resisting or embracing LGTBQ practice per se ("blame Gene Robinson!" is, frankly, dumb). Rather, the fundamental breaking point came when the Communion sundered, in the name of straight libertinism, the integration of physical male and female anatomy and sexual purpose represented by the 1662 Prayer Book service of Holy Matrimony (with its attendant symbolism and theological mystagogy), the Homily against Whoredom's logic of "parts ordained for generation", and Lambeth 1920 Resolution 68's "thoughtful self-control". That ancient integration-distinction properly ordered the body with its purposes in relation to desire and its fulfillment and, importantly, it kept the body and desire distinct and in proper relation with asceticism, ultimately. That ancient integration-distinction is why someone like Aelred of Rievaulx or St. Simeon the New Theologian can speak in terms of deep desire, even erotic desire, between people of the same sex without any difficulty, because they did not confuse desires and bodies. Lambeth 1930 Resolution 15 severed that deeply integrated Anglican Theology of the Body as a capitulation to straight folks no longer wanting to live under the discipline of our desires with "thoughtful self-control" required by our actual, natural human physiology. Instead, straight people wanted to avoid self-control by embracing artificial, technological alteration to how humans sexually relate so that desire could pervade, uninhibited, and make use of the body (not only to "limit", but entirely "avoid" and permanently frustrate the "parts ordained for generation"). In other words, straight people wanted to reject asceticism in marriage and the church let them--thereby fundamentally redefining marriage, sex, bodies, and desires (as well as vitiating the symbolic meaning of male and female bodies both within and without marriage).
The rancor over sexual practice and marriage, etc., that resurfaced at the end of the twentieth century was inevitable and a mere footnote to what occurred in 1930 and the decades following. The departure from the ancient Anglican, biblical Theology of the Body caused progressives in the 1990s to confuse bodies and desires, and it equally caused many conservatives in the 1990s to misunderstand the nature of same sex desire.
To me, your analysis here speaks deeply to the unease I feel about how "straight" Anglicans have conducted themselves for well-nigh a century. There is probably more that could be said in this vein that relates to John Behr's observations in "Marriage and Asceticism", Sobornost Incorporating Eastern Churches Review, 2010 36(1), 24-50.
Thanks so much for this thoughtful response -- a lot to chew on here. It certainly does seem to me that even if one is willing to countenance some disjunction between sexual expression and procreative possibility, perhaps leaning into Cranmer's third reason for matrimony ("the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other"), the problem of the post-Lambeth 1930 move was to gradually erode any sense of the disciplining of erotic or sexual desire within marriage. That is, an older understanding was done away with and replaced with...nothing, really. Which means at the very least that it's incumbent on those (like myself) who are willing to allow such a disjunction to demonstrate that a serious ascetics of marriage is still possible under these conditions.
I wonder if John Milbank has written on that at any point...
Take a look at Virgil's Discourse on Love in Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio:
Dante, Purgatorio, canto XVII
Virgil discourses on Love
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare
Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
From their own hatred all things are secure;
And since we cannot think of any being
Standing alone, nor from the First divided,
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,
The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
And this is born in three modes in your clay.
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,
Hope to excel, and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down;
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below;
Now of the other will I have thee hear,
That runneth after good with measure faulty.
Each one confusedly a good conceives
Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.
If languid love to look on this attract you,
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
After just penitence, torments you for it.
There's other good that does not make man happy;
'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.
The love that yields itself too much to this
Above us is lamented in three circles;
But how tripartite it may be described,
I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."
Canto XVIII
The soul, which is created apt to love,
Is mobile unto everything that pleases,
Soon as by pleasure she is waked to action.
Your apprehension from some real thing
An image draws, and in yourselves displays it
So that it makes the soul turn unto it.
And if, when turned, towards it she incline,
Love is that inclination; it is nature,
Which is by pleasure bound in you anew
Then even as the fire doth upward move
By its own form, which to ascend is born,
Where longest in its matter it endures,
So comes the captive soul into desire,
Which is a motion spiritual, and ne'er rests
Until she doth enjoy the thing beloved.
Now may apparent be to thee how hidden
The truth is from those people, who aver
All love is in itself a laudable thing;
Because its matter may perchance appear
Aye to be good; but yet not each impression
Is good, albeit good may be the wax."
"Thy words, and my sequacious intellect,"
I answered him, "have love revealed to me;
But that has made me more impregned with doubt;
For if love from without be offered us,
And with another foot the soul go not,
If right or wrong she go, 'tis not her merit."
And he to me: "What reason seeth here,
Myself can tell thee; beyond that await
For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith.
Every substantial form, that segregate
From matter is, and with it is united,
Specific power has in itself collected,
Which without act is not perceptible,
Nor shows itself except by its effect,
As life does in a plant by the green leaves
Brilliant!
You're on the right track here, but if Christianity/the Bible can't be trusted on gender and sexuality (as an LCMS Lutheran, I disagree strongly on this point), on what basis do you make the claim that other desires are wrong? Reason, sensibility, Kant, Mills, the personal conscience?
Thanks for this. I do want to note that I choose my language quite carefully here. I did not say - nor do I believe - that Christianity or the Bible "can't be trusted on gender and sexuality." And so of course it is by looking at Scripture and the history of its interpretation that I would seek to answer whether a given desire is indeed right or wrong, although I'd add that both my own Anglican tradition and your Lutheran one have both been quite clear that what Scripture teaches on this front is consonant with natural law, rightly understood.
And so while I certainly do dissent with some parts of what most of the church has taught about gender and sexuality, and indeed hold a minority position within global Christianity on this set of secondary questions, in the end I'm doing something quite ordinary: seeking to responsibly and accurately exegete Scripture according to the rule of faith, using clear passages in order to interpret less clear ones, bearing always in mind that Scripture's fundamental office is to point to salvation in Christ, etc. And so on questions of gender, for example, I would want to ask how to square Paul's references to women in positions of ecclesial authority with apparent condemnations of women speaking in church -- or how much of the household codes should be read as unchanging descriptions of Christian ethical responsibility vs instructions for how Christians are to live quietly and peaceably within Roman society. On questions of homosexuality, too, the question for me would be whether the clear condemnation of at least male same-sex sexual behavior in the Old and New Testaments still applies in today's dramatically different context.
And it's worth saying that these are the sorts of questions the church finds itself asking all the time. On matters such as lending at interest or divorce, for example, the church has judged that very different social and economic contexts or pastoral need may be the grounds for apparently clear Scriptural condemnations to be loosened. On the other hand, reflection upon the practice of slavery in light of Christian ethical commitments has led nearly all Christians to argue that despite Scripture's allowance for slavery, it is incompatible with Christian ethics because it is incompatible with the general sweep of Scripture's moral vision. Mark Noll's The Civil War as Theological Crisis provides a helpful look at pro- and anti-slavery hermeneutics in the antebellum US, and (while Noll himself holds the traditional position on the unacceptability of same-gender marriage, so far as I know) I was struck by the similar exegetical moves to current debates around LGBTQ inclusion.
Anyway, there is a lot more to say here than a reply allows, but I will just reiterate that I of course look first and foremost to Scripture, with the history of Christian theological reflection and natural reason in subsidiary roles, to discern the sinfulness or not of a given desire.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply; I should have read more carefully. In any case, we both agree that some condemnations are based on historical contingency, but I would argue even the conservative church has gone too far in the wrong direction with the "historical contingency" arguments on things like lending with interest. Do you find Paul's stated motivations for his condemnations of same-sex activity binding or compelling?
⛸️⛸️⛸️